a journey in religion

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Published: 30 April 2019

Using the ‘journey metaphor’ to restructure philosophy of religion

Timothy Knepper 1

Palgrave Communications volume 5 , Article number: 43 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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This essay forwards a new orientation and point of origin for philosophy of religion—an orientation that does not privilege theism, and a point of origin that does not begin with the attributes and proofs of God (and thereby privilege theism). To do so, it turns to the metaphor theory of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, specifically their analysis of the metaphor life is a journey . It draws on the internal structure of the journey metaphor to identify its core, constituent parts: journeys have a point of origin and destination, a route that is planned, obstacles and sights that are encountered along the way, and a traveler who is accompanied by and encounters other travelers. It then uses these core, constituent parts to generate five philosophical questions about the “journey” of the self and five philosophical questions about the “journey” of the cosmos: (1) Who am I (as traveler)?; (2) Where do I come from?; (3) Where am I going?; (4) How do I get there?; (5) What obstacles lie in my way?; (6) What is the cosmos?; (7) Where does the cosmos come from?; (8) Where is the cosmos going?; (9) How does the cosmos get there?; (10) What obstacles lie in the cosmos’ way? The majority of the essay then shows how each of these questions generates topics for global philosophy of religion and embraces content from a diversity of religious philosophies. Thus, this essay concludes that the journey metaphor is able to offer a new orientation and point of origin for philosophy of religion that is inclusive of a global diversity of religious traditions.

The hedgehog, fox, and quasi-hedgehog approaches in Isaiah Berlin’s, David McLellan’s, and G. Stedman Jones’ Marx research

Reframing the narrative of magic wind in Arthur Waley’s translation of Journey to the West: another look at the abridged translation

The Rosetta Stone and the Nemrud Nomos: the discovery of significant textual and astronomical similarities

Why the journey metaphor.

The premise of this paper is that philosophy of religion is in need of a new orientation and point of origin—an orientation that does not privilege theism, and a point of origin that does not begin with the attributes and proofs of God (and thereby privilege theism). Footnote 1 I won’t spend time offering arguments to support this premise, save to maintain that if philosophy of religion is to be the philosophy of (all) religion, then it needs not only to include all religious traditions and communities (insofar as possible) but also to treat all religious traditions and communities evenhandedly. Insofar as philosophy of religion begins with and remains confined to the philosophical problems of a certain theistic (Christian) God, it can do neither.

My premise is merely the launching point for the rest of my paper, which seeks to offer a different orientation and point of origin for “global-critical” philosophy of religion—philosophy of religion that is globally inclusive of many different religious traditions and critically informed by the academic study of religion. Footnote 2 (Henceforth, I will drop the “global-critical” adjective and just speak of “philosophy of religion” since philosophy of religion really ought to be global and critical.) In my view, there are at least three places where one could look for such an orientation and point of origin: one could turn to a religious tradition that is not theistic, look for the philosophical commonalities in all religious traditions, or seek an orientation and origin that is not proprietary to any religious tradition. For reasons that I’ll now explain, my preference is for the third option.

For me, the first option risks repeating the mistakes of the Enlightenment—i.e., making some particular religious tradition normative in the philosophy of religion. Supposing, for example, that we look to East Asian religious philosophy for a new start for philosophy of religion. Our central topics and issues might then concern moral, political, and mystical philosophy: how to live in harmony with the natural, social, and spiritual worlds; how to organize states that are conducive to flourishing and balance, especially in relationship to “heaven/nature” ( tian ); how to actualize and return to states of non-differentiated unity. Don’t get me wrong; these are all important topics for philosophy of religion. However, if these issues are made the normative ones, then traditional-theistic philosophy of religion ends up looking deficient and strange (rather than the other way around). No doubt, there is something attractive about this. The powerless become powered; the powerful, powerless. Still, if philosophy of religion is going to be global, then it needs to be as inclusive as possible—leveling the playing-field as much as possible, and including as many players on the field as possible. Option one does not achieve these goals.

Realizing the failure of option one, option two looks for commonalities between all forms of philosophy of religion. This is to assume that there is a common philosophical core to all religious traditions such that every philosophical question asked by one religious tradition or community would have answers from all the other religious traditions and communities. However, as we can already see above from East Asian religious philosophy, this assumption is dubious. Maybe, though, there are commonalities to the belief structures of all religious traditions, just not to the forms that their philosophies of religion take, à la perennial philosophy? Maybe, for example, all religious traditions have “higher powers” or “ultimate realities” about which to philosophize? Well, of course many do, but not all. So, if we followed this second route, religio-philosophical traditions like certain Buddhisms and Jainisms and Confucianisms would end up looking deficient or strange. Moreover, the second option just isn’t possible without some sort of starting point or hypothesis. I therefore favor the third approach, adopting a starting point that is not proprietary to some particular religious tradition, while also paying attention to how these categories of inquiry fit all religious traditions and communities.

Instinctively, we might think that option three is the weakest of all. Why look outside the traditions of philosophy of religion for the topics and issues for philosophy of religion? Well, one reason is that the topics and issues of philosophy of religion would not be the “property” of any one form of philosophy of religion. So, we would not have the problem of all the other forms of philosophy of religion trying to fit themselves to it. Another reason, of course, is the failure of the first two options. If there isn’t significant overlap between the forms of philosophy of religion, then we can’t really look to one particular form of philosophy of religion or the commonalities between all philosophies of religion. However, the best reason will simply be the success of option three in providing topics and issues for philosophy of religion that do not privilege any particular form of philosophy of religion and that are inclusive of all philosophies of religion. It will be the burden of the next two sections of this paper to demonstrate, or at least intimate, this success. Of course, though, I first need to provide my starting point that is outside all philosophies of religion. This I will do by turning to metaphor theory in general and journey metaphor in particular.

With regard to metaphor theory in general, I draw on the cognitive metaphor theory of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, which provides an account of how human thinking is structured by metaphors, especially those drawn from concrete bodily experience. At the heart of this account are two claims: humans draw on concrete bodily experience in understanding and expressing abstract concepts, and humans do so by systematically structuring abstract concepts in accordance with bodily experiences. For Lakoff and Johnson, this systematic structuring is performed by “primary metaphors,” which map sensorimotor experiences to subjective experiences. Take, for example, the sensorimotor experience of warmth and the subjective experience of affection. The primary metaphor affection is warmth maps the sensorimotor experience of warmth to the subjective experience of affection, thereby providing us a way to think about the abstract concept of affection in terms of the concrete experience of warmth.

What’s more, we make this connection both naturally and unconsciously. For Lakoff and Johnson, this is due to a conflation of sensorimotor experiences and subjective judgments in early childhood such that neural activations of a sensorimotor network are immediately “projected” to a subjective network. When we experience of our mother’s warmth along with the subjective experience of her affection, these two experiences get neurologically conflated, with experiences of warmth naturally and unconsciously triggering experiences of affection. Only later, do we begin to differentiate these two experiences, thereby allowing us to deliberately and consciously use sensorimotor concepts to conceptualize and verbalize subjective experiences, even in the absence of their corresponding sensorimotor experiences. We use the concept of warmth to help ourselves understand and express the concept of affection, even when we are not warm.

Given the foundational similarities of early childhood experience, these primary metaphors are, for Lakoff and Johnson, “widespread,” if not universal (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999 : p. 57). Of course, this is not to say that all metaphors are quasi-universal since most metaphors are not primary metaphors. Still, primary metaphors function as the atomic building blocks for the more numerous, molecular, “complex metaphor.” Even the complex metaphor therefore receives an indirect grounding in sensorimotor experience. It is for this reason that Lakoff and Johnson maintain that “[m]any, if not all, of our abstract concepts are defined in significant part by conceptual metaphor” (Ibid.: p. 128).

There is one metaphor in particular that is especially well suited to provide a new framework for philosophy of religion: the journey metaphor. The version of this metaphor that you are probably most familiar with is life is a journey , which uses the conceptual structure of a journey to help us understand and express our lives. By use of this metaphor, we sometimes think of our lives as going somewhere, as following a path, as encountering obstacles on that path, as walking down that path with co-travelers, and so forth. However, the journey metaphor is also used to conceptualize and articulate religious lives , more specifically religious growth, progress, maturation, or cultivation. In fact, the journey metaphor is ubiquitous in the diverse languages, cultures, and religions of the world—a common and ready means by which humans think about and talk about those aspects of our lives that have religious dimensions.

To show how this metaphor can be used to provide a new starting point for philosophy of religion, I must first take a look at its internal structure. According to Lakoff and Johnson, life is a journey is a complex or molecular metaphor composed of the cultural belief that everyone is supposed to have a purpose in life, the primary metaphors purposes are destinations and actions are motions , and the fact that a long trip to a series of destinations is a journey (Ibid.: pp. 52–53, 61–62). This complex metaphor also encompasses four sub-metaphors: a purposeful life is a journey , a person living a life is a traveler , life goals are destinations , and a life plan is an itinerary (Ibid.: pp. 61–62). Finally, the journey metaphor has several entailments or conceptual implications, among which are that one should plan their route, anticipate obstacles, be prepared, and have an itinerary (Ibid.).

I can now draw on Lakoff and Johnson’s analysis of life is a journey to identify the core, constituent parts of the journey metaphor. Journeys have a point of origin and destination, a route that is planned, obstacles and sights that are encountered along the way, and a traveler who is accompanied by and encounters other travelers. Of course, these constituent parts are not themselves philosophical questions or topics, so I need to use them to generate such questions or topics. Here are the five philosophical questions that stand out most to me, each one of which is linked to a constituent part of the journey metaphor:

Who am I (as traveler)?

Where do I come from?

Where am I going?

How do I get there?

What obstacles lie in my way?

The critical reader might by now have several concerns. Let me anticipate and address four of them. First, note that the five questions above are each vague in a way that makes them difficult to answer as stated. The first question, for example, could mean any of the following: Who am I as an individual? Who am I as a member of some group? Who am I as a human being? The five questions above must therefore be asked with respect to the content of philosophies of religion, so as to be able to specify each one in a way that is not only more precise but also explicitly tied to this content. With regard to the first question, for example, the notion of “I” as individual is not present in all religious traditions and communities through time. So, the question “Who am I?” brings into play the question “Am I?” Relatedly, the topics of inquiry with regard to these questions center on the internal parts and external relations of the “self.” Thus, our first question ends up concerning whether humans should be understood as individual entities or as sums of internal parts or sets of external relations. (More on this in the next section below).

Second, one component of the life is a journey metaphor is the cultural belief that everyone is supposed to have a purpose in life. Surely it is not the case that every culture has this belief. True, indeed. Moreover hopefully, my response to the first concern above already anticipates my response to this concern: if it is true that not all cultures or religions think of the self as an individual, then it is true that not all cultures or religions think that every individual has a purpose in life. Still, I want to make it clear that my method for deriving a new set of topics and questions for philosophy of religion does not assume that all philosophies of religion think of individual lives as purposeful, nor even utilize the metaphor life is a journey . As I say above, I do think that the journey metaphor is commonly used in religious traditions to think and speak about religious growth, progress, maturation, or cultivation. More importantly, though, I think that the core components of the journey metaphor (origin, destination, route, obstacles, sights, co-travelers) can be used to generate philosophical questions and topics (traveler, origin, destination, path, obstacles) about which every philosophy of religion has something to say, even if by absence. (More on this immediately below).

Third, it is not the case that a philosophy of religion has to have a positive or explicit answer to the five questions above to have an answer to them at all. Put differently, philosophies of religion can return a “null result” to these questions and do so in a philosophically interesting and important way. As we have already seen, many philosophies of religion “answer” the first question—Who am I?—by, in a sense, not answering it. I am not I but rather I’s or we. Humans are complex internal processes and parts or external relations and obligations. The same holds true for the other four questions. Some philosophies of religion maintain that we do not come from anything and are not going anywhere, or that there is no path intentionally to follow and no obstacles that truly exist. These are among the most interesting and important ways of answering the five questions above, since these answers challenge typical modern-western preconceptions, allow us to see the phenomena of religion more widely, and inspire us to think differently. Footnote 3

Finally, although the five questions above are important and interesting questions for philosophy of religion, as well as questions that are neglected by traditional-theistic philosophy of religion, they are also questions that neglect the topics of traditional-theistic philosophy of religion—for, entirely missing in these five questions are the core problems of traditional-theistic philosophy of religion: the attributes of God, the existence of God, and the problem of evil. My solution to this problem is simple and elegant. It begins with the acknowledgment that in some philosophies of religion it is not only humans in particular but also the cosmos in general that can be thought of as journeying (in the sense of having an origin, destination, path, and obstacles). It then notes that in some philosophies of religion, the crucial relationship is that between humans as microcosm and cosmos as macrocosm. Finally, it shows how reduplicating our five questions with regard to the cosmos yields a second set of rich, inclusive, and fair questions and topics for philosophy of religion:

What is the cosmos?

Where does the cosmos come from?

Where is the cosmos going?

How does the cosmos get there?

What obstacles lie in the cosmos’ way?

Again, I hasten to add that the qualifications above also apply to this set of questions: they will need to be made precise and tied to our philosophies of religion, and null results to them will need to be included. With these qualifications in place, I am confident that these five questions, along with the first set of five questions, offer a radically new point of departure for philosophy of religion, one that can be inclusive of the philosophies of religion of the globe in a manner that does not unduly privilege any one philosophy of religion. Now it is a matter of showing how.

Journeys of the self

In the next two sections I will show how each of these questions generates topics for philosophy of religion and embraces content from a global diversity of religious philosophies. For the sake of space, I consider only 5–6 “traditions” of philosophy of religion around the globe and through time, which for the sake of space I will shorthand as follows: East Asian philosophy of religion, South Asian philosophy of religion, West Asian or Abrahamic philosophy of religion, African and Native American philosophy of religion, and contemporary philosophy of religion. Footnote 4 In doing so, I will engage in a fair amount of generalization, but this is only for the sake of economy in this paper. In reality, I advocate looking at individual thinkers, texts, and debates, rather than generalizing over traditions.

The first question about the self is simply, what is it? It’s important here to note that by “self” I don’t mean a Cartesian self, although that is of course one view of the self. Perhaps to be more accurate, we could ask about the journeyer. Who or what is journeying? As I explained above, this first question leads us into questions about the journeyer’s external relationships and internal processes. Is the “self” an individual being or a set of external relationships with other beings, whether human or not? Is the “self” a substantial being or a set of internal parts or processes? As for content from religious philosophies with which to sharpen these questions, there are of course the rival views of self in South Asian religious philosophy: atman , anatta , jiva , purusha , and so forth. In Southern African religious philosophy, there is the notion of ubuntu , and, if I’m not mistaken, there are similar notions in some Native American traditions. In East Asian religious philosophy, we have the differing understandings of self in early Daoism and Confucianism, even if these are always relational in some sense. Moreover, Abrahamic religious philosophy would make for interesting comparisons with regard to Buber’s and Kierkegaard’s relational selves, as well as the notions of fana and baqa in Sufism. Finally, contemporary philosophy of religion offers the perspectives of cognitive neuroscience and Continental philosophy, each insofar as it undermines the notion of an individual, substantial self. So, in the end, our question about what the self is leads us into interesting territory about whether the self is.

Our second question about the “self” concerns its origins: where does the self come from? Here, I propose tackling questions about how the self understands itself given its origin. So, the question really is this: How does my origin determine or affect what it is that I am as a member of the human species (or some localized people)? Or, to put it succinctly: Why am I the way I am? Here are some elaborations of this question: Am I free or good or intelligent because God created me that way? Or did God create me “broken” in some way? Am I free or good or intelligent because of cosmic or human nature? Or do I have no nature whatsoever? Or am I the way I am because of something I did in a past life? Or because of some fate that has been bestowed on me before or at birth? Or because of the result of thousands of years of random mutation and natural selection? Such questions about the self’s innate freedom, goodness, and intelligence divide fairly neatly between Abrahamic, East Asian, and South Asian religious philosophy. Abrahamic religious philosophy, at least in its Christian and Muslim forms, has wrestled the question of how to reconcile human freedom and divine sovereignty. East Asian religious philosophy, especially Confucianism, has contended about the innate goodness of humans. Moreover, in South Asian religious philosophy one crucial issue concerns in what sense the self is or acquires “enlightenment.” In some African and Native American traditions, there are narratives of a “paradise lost” and what that means for human beings. Finally, contemporary philosophy of religion offers three controversial topics about how humans understand themselves vis-à-vis their “origin”: feminism and patriarchy as a kind of original condition, Darwinianism and biology as a kind of original condition, and Freudianism and psychology as a kind of original condition.

Our third question turns from the self’s origins to its destinations. Here, we are concerned with whether the self survives death and, if so, how. These questions would seem to be among the most pressing for many humans. Moreover, how humans answer these questions sometimes has profound consequences for how they live their lives. Still, in the context of the preceding two questions, one might wonder whether this third question is predicated on false or limited understandings of what the self is. If we are not in fact an individual, substantial, autonomous self, then there isn’t such a “thing” to survive death. Nevertheless, many different religious traditions do maintain the notion of individuated, postmortem, heavenly existence. Interestingly, this view shows up in different cultures across the globe. However, just as interesting is the fact that each of these traditions also contains views of postmortem existence as non-individuated. Still other traditions think of postmortem existence as less “heavenly” and more “familial” (in the sense of reuniting with ancestors/dead). Moreover, in other cases, it just isn’t possible to say what happens after death, or it isn’t important to say what happens after death, or we simply don’t die. Some of the religious-philosophical content to be considered in the context of this question includes, in the case of South Asian philosophy of religion, early Vedic positions, Upanishadic positions, Jain and Buddhist positions, and the positions of some of the “Hindu” philosophical schools. Here, there is no shortage of diverse content. By contrast, there is in East Asian religious philosophy a striking lack of concern with what happens to us after we die, at least in classic Confucian and Daoist sources. However, that lack of concern can and should be contrasted with traditions like Pure Land, in which what happens after death is all consuming. Of course, there is also the importance of ancestors in East Asia, which is also often crucial for many African and Native American traditions. With regard to Abrahamic traditions there is an interesting diversity positions just in the Bible, even if not in the Qur’an. There is also, of course, the mystical traditions of these religions where postmortem unification with God can sometimes be the end of human existence. Finally, naturalistic religious positions in contemporary philosophy of religion bring further enrichment and complexification to the question of postmortem ends.

Our fourth question about the self turns to the paths by which the self reaches its destination. As in the cases of the previous questions, there is an abundance of material to cover—not only different paths for different religious traditions but also different paths within religious traditions. However, there is also, in this case, an abundance of ways to focus this material. One such way would be to look at whether these paths primarily involve the body or the mind or both. Another way would be to look at the difference between “cat” paths and “monkey” paths. Here are yet more ways: Does the path lead to a postmortem, other-worldly destination or to a this-life, this-worldly destination? Does the path require multiple lifetimes or just one? Should the destination be the focus of the path, or does focusing on the destination distract from the path? Does the path need to be found or chosen, or are we already on it and just need to realize that? But the way of focusing this material that I prefer most of all involves the relationship between morality and religion. Whereas many of students whom I have taught assume that the whole point of religion is to teach and reinforce morality, some religious philosophers have argued that to focus on conventional morality and social conformity is to lose the spirit and substance of religion. To put the matter in terms of question four, it is to get distracted from one’s religious path. If I were to focus the material of the fourth question in such a way, I might look first at trickster figures in African and Native American religious philosophies. In South Asia, the content would instead concern amoral and immoral paths as found in some Tantras, Krisnaivisms, and Shaivisms. In East Asia, things are a bit tamer, probably because of the influence of Confucianism. Still, there are certain Daoisms and Buddhisms that offer ostensibly amoral or immoral paths. In the case of Abrahamic religious philosophy, there are certain mystics in the Christian and Muslim traditions who say or do morally questionable things, at least within the context of their societies. Moreover, in contemporary philosophy of religion there is of course the work of Soren Kierkegaard, as well as intriguing material about the relationship between religion and morality in feminism, post-colonialism, and cognitive science of religion.

Our final question about the self looks at the obstacles that prevent it from reaching its destination. When I originally considered the topic of destinations under question three, I focused on the question of whether the self survives death and if so how. Here, I look instead at this-worldly side of our ultimate destinations—salvation, enlightenment, harmony, attunement, obedience, submission, health, flourishing, and so forth. My leading question in this case is: What keeps us from reaching these destinations? Or, to put this question a bit more precisely: What keeps us from living the way we should? In a sense, this is a question of ethics; in another sense, not. One way to think about this question is as the flipside of the fourth question above. There, we looked at the relationship between religion and morality, asking how we should live, focusing on the issue of whether this requires going “beyond morality.” Here, we instead look at what prevents us from living the way we should, which in some cases is immoral behavior but in other cases is just the opposite. Here is another way in which the content of this question goes “beyond ethics”: For many religious traditions, what prevents humans from living the way they should is not a function of the moral decisions that they make but rather an “original condition” that afflicts them simply by virtue of being human. Christians will know this as “original sin.” In other traditions, it is something else: an original imbalance, or evil urge, or selfishness, or ignorance. In still other traditions, this original condition is existence-itself, which keeps us separated from Brahman or Dao or God or ancestors. In yet other traditions, this condition involves our delusion that there is a problem in the first place—what keeps us from living the way we should is thinking that we are not living the way we should. Of course, there is also the problem of evil beings—demons or witches or even human beings that keep us from living the way we should. Moreover, there is also the fact that, for some philosophers of religion, it is certain humans that keep other humans from living the way they should by creating oppressive social realities. Patriarchy certainly fits here. So does slavery. Perhaps also capitalism. Some would even say that what keeps us from living the way we should is religion itself.

Journeys of the cosmos

I turn now to the “journey of the cosmos,” repeating each of my five questions, but with respect to the “cosmos” rather than the self. Let me begin, though, with a quick word about the word “cosmos” and its journey. By cosmos, I mean simply everything that exists, taken as an ordered whole. This definition is not far from the one given by Merriam-Webster: “an orderly harmonious systematic universe.” But I want to be careful to point out that by “cosmos” I don’t mean “universe,” at least not if “universe” is taken in the contemporary scientific sense. Certainly, our contemporary scientific understanding of the universe is one type of cosmos. We might even say that it is gradually becoming the most widespread and prominent understanding of the cosmos. However, other understandings of the cosmos remain, some of which articulate themselves in relation to the contemporary scientific paradigm. For some of these cosmoses, there are realities more basic and fundamental than physical entities and processes; for others, there are dimensions or universes beyond the scientific universe.

As for the cosmos’s “journey,” of course this isn’t a literal journey. Still, the structure of the journey metaphor offers productive philosophical questions to ask about the cosmos, just as with the self. Here, again, are our five questions about the cosmos:

What is the cosmos (if anything)?

Where did it come from (if anywhere)?

Where is it going (if anywhere)?

How does it get there (if it all)?

And what obstacles lie in its way (if any)?

In the case of each question, the parenthetical comments are crucial. I don’t presume that the cosmos has an origin, destination, and path (etc.)—for to do so would be to endorse a teleological view of the cosmos, which is often present in Abrahamic religious traditions but lacking in other religious traditions. Put simply: I don’t presume that the cosmos is on a journey. Rather, the structure of the journey metaphor gives me the philosophical questions to ask about the cosmos, and these questions can be answered either positively or negatively. Maybe the cosmos has a beginning and end; maybe it doesn’t.

As for the first (sixth) question—what is the cosmos?—we can begin by recognizing that, just as in the case of the self, appearances can be misleading. We might think that the cosmos exists in a manner that is fully independent and real, just as we did with the self. However, answers to this first question show how many philosophies of religion challenge this commonsense view. Perhaps the cosmos is only illusion (as it is in some South Asian traditions); perhaps it is just God (as it is in some South Asian and Abrahamic mystical traditions); perhaps it is really constituted by underlying cosmic principles and forces (as it is in some East Asian traditions); perhaps it is composed by numerous universes (as it is in some Buddhist traditions); perhaps it involves realms of ancestors (as in some African and Native American traditions); or perhaps it is ultimately a heavenly existence with God (as in some Abrahamic and South Asian traditions). Whatever the case, what is particularly interesting is how these cosmologies serve spiritual practices and rituals. In other words, what we often find is that religious cosmologies are not for the sake of doing “science,” but for the sake of offering worlds in which to live religiously. This raises an interesting question that should be dealt with under this question: as our contemporary scientific cosmology grows in influence and importance, how can religious traditions continue to offer cosmologies for religious practice?

Question two (seven) about the cosmos takes up some of the central questions of contemporary theistic philosophy of religion: Does the cosmos have an origin and, if so, what is its nature? Ever since the Enlightenment, if not earlier, philosophy of religion in Europe and some of its colonies has been predominantly concerned with these questions. So much so, that it is just natural for many of “us” to think that these are the central questions for philosophy of religion in general. However, this is not the case. Many other religious traditions don’t think of God as a creator (e.g., East Asian traditions, for the most part; some South Asian traditions). Moreover, some of those religious traditions that do think of God as a creator tend to think of God as a remote and uninvolved (e.g., some African and Native American religious traditions); in these cases, the existence of God just isn’t very important to actual lived religion. This can be a point of instruction for traditional-theistic philosophy of religion: the origin of the cosmos and nature of its originator isn’t generally all that important for most of the religious traditions of the world. Another point of instruction: these questions just aren’t “live” for most religious traditions because they simply don’t matter to practice.

Question three (eight) turns from the origin of the cosmos to its end. In terms of our journey metaphor, the question is about the “destination” of the cosmos. However, I articulate this philosophically by asking whether the cosmos has an end and, if so, what happens after that. In this case, it is necessary to ask these questions not only about the cosmos writ large but also about “this world” or “this order,” where these terms refer to the way things currently are for humans (as a whole), in their habitable space (as a whole), as interpreted religiously. This is due to the fact that, for many religious traditions, the end is not really the end; rather it is merely the beginning of something new or different—a new or different world here on Earth or a new or different world in some other realm, but not necessarily a new or different cosmos. What is interesting about many of these cases (where worlds or orders are said to come to an end) is that they occur during times of significant trouble. Maybe there is a prolonged drought or flood; maybe there is an invasion and life under oppressive foreign rule; maybe there is a natural disaster that significantly alters the practices and structures of a society; maybe there is a rapid change of customs and values that threaten age-old traditions—it is during such times that we tend to see apocalyptic or eschatological religious ideas and practices. Why? Such ideas and practices provide relief in at least two ways: they predict an imminent end to the trouble and a future state without troubles; they predict a reward for those who have suffered unfairly and a punishment for those who have caused this suffering. Content for this question includes the fascinating case of Wavoka and the “Ghost Dance,” fervor for the Messiah or Mahdi in Abrahamic religion, apocalyptic movements in East Asian religious philosophy, the kalpa theory, as well as future manifestations of avatars and Buddhas in South Asian religious philosophy, and attempts to reconcile “religion” and “science” in contemporary philosophy of religion. Footnote 5

Our fourth (ninth) question concerns the “path” of the cosmos. Of course, I am once again not asking about the literal path of the cosmos. Rather, I am using the metaphor of path to generate interesting and important philosophical questions about how the cosmos operates or functions in-between its origin and end (if it in fact has an origin or end). For many of us “moderns,” questions about how the cosmos operates or functions are answered by science: the cosmos operates or functions according to “natural laws.” But many religious traditions believe in and value the occurrence of things that would appear to violate “natural laws”: miracles, appearances of supernatural beings, and other extraordinary experiences. Some religious traditions also believe that some divine mind or cosmic order predetermines everything that happens in the cosmos, even the so-called laws of nature. Perhaps one issue here concerns what falls under the category laws of nature . Are there current laws or laws yet to be discovered that would encompass so-called miracles? If so, do these laws explain away miracles? Or do they provide scientific mechanisms by which miracles can happen? And what about cultures for which the categories laws of nature and miracles don’t exist or aren’t opposed—cultures for which seemingly miraculous occurrences are understood to be part of the natural, this-worldly order? One should be careful in these cases to contextualize religious philosophies. Still, given the dominance of science in our contemporary world, it would be good to focus on that which would seem to elude scientific explanation or violate natural law. These phenomena include lots of different things: physical events in the natural world (e.g., making the sun stand still), sensory manifestations of divine beings (e.g., angelic appearances), mental appearances of divine beings (e.g., hearing the voice of God in one’s head), journeys of the mind or body to alternate realities (e.g., shamanic phenomena), possession of body or mind by divine beings (e.g., trance in some African traditions), healing of body of mind (e.g., African healers), and other extraordinary religious experiences (e.g., achieving a sense of union with God).

Our final (tenth) question examines the “obstacles” that lie in the way of the “journey” of the cosmos. If, per the last question, the “path” of the cosmos concerns its functioning and order, then the “obstacles” along this path will be things that stand in the way of this functioning and order. The question in this latter case is this: what prevents the cosmos from working the way it should? Note this question is always asked from the perspective of some human questioner. It is we humans who have ideas about how the cosmos should work and want to know why it is not working the way it should when some misfortune befalls us. Sometimes this misfortune can be individual: why am I suffering? More likely, though, it concerns the misfortune of the individual’s clan or community. In some cases, it even concerns the misfortune of an entire nation or people. Whatever the case, it is clear once again that what might seem theoretical is actually practical. We humans want to know why we suffer, as well as how and when that suffering will stop. This is true even in the case of the classical “problem of evil.” Of course, many of “us” think first of the problem of evil when considering content relevant to the question of cosmic obstacles. However, it is important to consider the full range of “evil” and human response to it. This includes the “rational” theodicy of karma-samsara in South Asia, the “mystical” theodicy of balance and harmony in East Asia, concern with tricksters, spirits, and witches in some African and Native American religious philosophies, and an increasing focus on “structural evil” and “proactive theodicies” in contemporary philosophies of religion.

Conclusion: which journey, if any, is true?

These are the ten questions that I believe could offer a means of restructuring philosophy of religion to make it globally inclusive. As a “post-scriptum” of sorts, I want to end by observing that one central question of Western philosophy of religion is not among these questions. It is a rather recent addition; nevertheless, it has caused much ink to be spilt. I am referring here to John Hick’s so-called problem of pluralism. Is it the case that only one religious tradition, at most, can be true? Hick, of course, proposed that humans simply can’t know which, if any, religious tradition is true of the “Real in itself.” At best, each human can engage “authentically” with her own religious tradition—the “real as she thinks and experiences it” (Hick, 1999 ).

To put Hick’s problem into the terminology of the journey metaphor is to ask whether it can be the case that all—or at least many—of these religious journeys can be true or useful. Allow me to respond to this issue in two ways. First, this issue should and does find a home within my restructured account of philosophy of religion as a sort of meta-question—an eleventh question, if you will. Where religions offer a coherent system of beliefs and practices, this eleventh question asks whether that system can be true or useful, particularly with regard to the fact that there are other such systems. I suspect that it is this question that will be asked more and more as the inhabitants of our earth find themselves living closer and closer to people of different religious traditions. Nevertheless, I am quick to follow this first response with a second: the philosophy of religion that I practice is not primarily concerned with sorting out either which religious traditions are more or less true and useful or how different religious traditions can all be true or useful. On the one hand, I do not find it as viable and valuable as asking about the forms of religious reasoning with respect to the ten questions above. On the other hand, I tend to think that it is not up to the philosophers of religion to settle this matter (just as it is not up to the philosophers of science to determine which scientific theories are true).

Data availability

Data sharing is not applicable to this paper as no datasets were generated or analyzed.

I contend that philosophy of religion is in need of such a new orientation and point of origin; I do not insist, however, that the framework advanced in this paper must be used in doing so. It is just one of many attempts to reorient philosophy of religion globally. For others, see Wildman ( 2010 ) and Schilbrack ( 2014 ). See also my own earlier attempt (Knepper, 2013 ).

See the forthcoming publications by the American Academy of Religion’s seminar in Global-Critical Philosophy of Religion (GCPR): an undergraduate textbook in GCPR, a teaching supplement in GCPR, and a series of essay volumes in GCPR.

This is one way that my proposal differs from classical “perennial philosophies.” I do not maintain that all philosophies of religion philosophize about the same content or contain the same doctrinal core. I do, however, think that each of my ten questions returns philosophically interesting and important answers, even when those answers reject their questions.

Below, I often treat African and Native American religious philosophies together, not because I think all African and Native American religious traditions are the same, but because there are sometimes interesting resonances between certain African and Native American religious traditions.

Another interesting and important philosophical topic related to this question concerns the ways in which “eastern” philosophies of religion with cyclical views of time have attempted to demonstrate a tighter fit with contemporary scientific cosmology.

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Wildman W (2010) Religious Philosophy as Multidisciplinary Comparative Inquiry: Envisioning a Future for the Philosophy of Religion. SUNY Press, Albany

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Knepper, T. Using the ‘journey metaphor’ to restructure philosophy of religion. Palgrave Commun 5 , 43 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0252-7

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What is the Point of a Pilgrimage?

What is the point of a pilgrimage? Where did this idea come from for Catholics? There is considerable evidence throughout Scripture, which supplies theological significance to the concept. Even today we see many embracing this activity with passion and the commitment of time and resources.

While many would regard a basic definition of pilgrimage as a “journey made on foot or by other means to a site of particular religious significance,” this might be insufficient for two basic reasons that ignore the universal appeal of a pilgrimage or the pilgrim’s motivation.

Humanity inherently has a curiosity and desire to dive into certain questions. The Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra Aetate (Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions) acknowledges this natural, basic curiosity of human beings to ask: “What is man? What is the meaning, the aim of our life? What is moral good, what is sin? Whence suffering and what purpose does it serve? Which is the road to true happiness? What are death, judgment and retribution after death?” (No. 1).

Pilgrimage is a part of many of the great religions of the world, for in religion humanity seeks the answers to the questions above. So, pilgrimage is a common human experience in which one seeks to fulfill a ritual obligation, perform an act of devotion to atone their own sins, live an experience of spirituality, or implore a grace, a miracle, a cure, etc. As profound as the reasons for pilgrimages may be, so are the destinations for them: Jerusalem (Jews and Christians), Mecca (Muslims), Sarnath (Buddhist), Banares (Hindu), Amritsar (Sikh), to name a few, plus innumerable lesser sites of historical-spiritual importance to these religions and others.

In Christianity, there are few acts of devotion as rich in history, traditions or spirituality. This is true to such a degree that the image of the pilgrimage has become a metaphorical image of life itself. We are all on a journey heavenward. Chapter VII of Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) speaks of the pilgrim Church that journeys onward toward the heavenly Jerusalem. The council’s Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) says in its preface that the Church is a community of disciples “led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the kingdom of the Father.”

Pilgrimage in Scripture

The idea of a pilgrimage has an incredibly strong foundation in both the Old and New Testaments. The spiritual importance of pilgrimage is manifested often in physical journeys and trials — from Abraham’s journey of faith all the way to the missionary journeys of St. Paul.

In Genesis, we observe how God specifically summons Abram to trust Him — to leave his country, to come into God’s land, where he will inherit God’s promises that will make his innumerable descendants into a great nation.

Later, in the Letter to the Hebrews, more is said about Abraham’s pilgrimage: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; he went out, not knowing where he was to go. By faith he sojourned in the promised land as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs of the same promise; for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and maker is God” (11:8-10).

The Bible tells of many physical journeys, especially to Jerusalem, or “Zion.” Fifteen of the Psalms were written specifically for pilgrimage to Jerusalem (see Ps 120-134). They are called the Psalms of Ascent, as the Jews would climb the steep grade up to Jerusalem, the city on the hill. The prophet Micah says, “Many nations shall come, and say, / ‘Come, let us climb the Lord’s mountain, / to the house of the God of Jacob, / That he may instruct us in his ways, / that we may walk in his paths” (Mi 4:2).

But the pivotal pilgrimage in Scripture is the Exodus — the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt — through the desert, trials, temptations and sin, ever journeying toward the Promised Land. This episode has become one of the primary models of the relationship between journeying and the life of conversion and faith.

In the New Testament, we likewise see a pilgrimage’s importance, not so much in the sense of a physical journey, but in the idea of living our current, earthly lives in a way that brings us closer to the eternal.

Even mysterious and enigmatic figures like the Three Kings are pilgrims who appear in the Gospel of Matthew after the birth of Jesus: “Behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage’” (2:1-2).

Apart from the legends, little is known about these men of great culture who came from a distant land, but they beautifully embody the idea of pilgrimage. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote in the third volume of his “Jesus of Nazareth” trilogy: “The Wise Men of the East … represent the setting out of humanity towards Christ, they inaugurate a procession through the whole history. They are not only the people who have found the way to Christ. They represent the interior desire of the human spirit, the encountering of religions and human reason with Christ.” With this perspective, one can see that any religious pilgrimage takes on a Christian meaning, as humanity searches for God, knowingly or unknowingly.

The Infancy Narratives include an account of a pilgrimage taken by the Holy Family: “Each year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom” (Lk 2:41-42). The 12-year-old Jesus stays behind in the Temple, unbeknownst to His parents, and speaks of His Father with the scholars.

After the inauguration of Jesus’ public life — following His baptism in the Jordan — His entire ministry unfolds as a pilgrimage back to Jerusalem, day after day, along the roads of Palestine.

Christ’s death on the cross has a massive effect on the evolving definition of pilgrimage. His sacrifice introduces the idea of redemption, and the temporary nature of what we experience, as we journey toward heaven.

We see this in the Gospels, or in the accounts of the apostles. They recount to us how Jesus’ death has opened the door to heaven. With this understanding we realize that the struggles we face now — trials, sufferings, temporary worries and problems — can be our sacrifices of praise as we journey toward salvation.

After His passover from death to life at the Resurrection, the community of Jesus’ first disciples, animated by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, travel throughout the world to spread the Gospel. After their martyrdoms, their tombs immediately become places venerated by the ancient Christians — most notably those of Sts. Peter and Paul in Rome. “In fact, if you want to go to the Vatican or along the way to Ostia, you will find the trophies of those who have founded this Church,” the famous Church historian Eusebius writes about A.D. 200.

The official pilgrimages of the Twelve Apostles (who all died as martyrs, save St. John) branches from Spain to India to Ethiopia. Tradition relates stories, however, that associate each apostle (and also other figures of the New Testament) to a place where he died and often to where his relics are preserved.

St. John, in his Book of Revelation, reminds the faithful that our life on the earthly terrain is just a temporary state, until we get closer to that end God has envisioned.

Pilgrimage in History

The scriptural motivations for pilgrimage compel people today to experience this for themselves. But also in the Christian tradition the practice of pilgrimage has always been linked to the saints. They are especially honored in churches and shrines, especially those that preserve their bodies and tombs.

Once Christianity was legalized in A.D. 313, the paths most frequented by pilgrims draw a dense network on the European map. “Egeria’s Travels” was a primitive kind of travel diary by a devout pilgrim, written around the early part of the fifth century, which documents the practice of pilgrimage to the sites associated with Christ’s life. But later, when the Holy Land was conquered by Arabs, other routes were opened in the West.

Rome became an important destination for medieval pilgrims and remains so today. There also is Santiago de Compostela, in northwestern Spain, where pilgrims walk along the famous Camino . It also is still a popular destination, where the relics of St. James the Great are venerated. There are many official routes from all over Europe, with specific hostels along the way for pilgrims to rest and meet one another.

From the 11th century or so, indulgences became intertwined with pilgrimages. There was an indulgence reserved for the Crusaders departing to the Holy Land with arms to protect pilgrims.

With the passing of the centuries, other places of pilgrimage become important. Around the world, especially in countries of ancient Christian tradition, sanctuaries were built in memory of a supernatural apparition, miraculous event or other spiritual or historical relevance to the lives of saints. People have traveled to them for a variety of reasons.

The list of all world destinations of pilgrimage is many thousands in number, but here are some which are visited by more than a million pilgrims every year. In addition to Rome, the Holy Land and Santiago de Compostela, it is important to highlight significant Marian shrines: Loreto in Italy, where the Holy House of Nazareth is kept; Lourdes in France, where the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous and many experience physical healing; Fátima in Portugal, where this year the centenary of the apparitions to three shepherd children will be celebrated.

In the Americas, standing out for fame and number of pilgrims are the sanctuary of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico and the Shrine of Aparecida in Brazil. But every country has its national shrine — in the United States it is the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

Fruits of a Pilgrimage

Looked at from a religious perspective, a pilgrimage is a trip different than usual. It is not only for admiring masterpieces of art, although many places of pilgrimage are full of history and beauty. In days gone by pilgrims could be imagined as ragged and emaciated, willing to forgo any comfort along long roads full of dangers. But a conscientious pilgrim still chooses a certain restraint and intentionality as one chooses accommodation, food and drink, and, of course, places an importance on silence and prayer.

To experience something different from other trips, the pilgrim must be different and live differently in the simplicity of faith. Otherwise, the pilgrimage does not contribute to real change. The pilgrim moves within the geography of faith, along the path on which are scattered traces of holiness, in places where God’s grace has been shown with particular splendor and produced abundant fruits of conversion and holiness.

One goes on a pilgrimage to ask God for help needed to live more generously your own Christian vocation once back in your home, explains the Vatican’s Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy. Therefore, the pilgrimage is not, and never should be, just “a journey to a place of religious interest.” Alone or with others, it is a physical component of the path of one’s heart toward God.

Deborah Castellano Lubov writes from Rome where she covers the pope and the Holy See.

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What Inspires Spiritual Journeys? Explore the World’s Pilgrimages

Interested in spiritual journeys? We give you the definition of spiritual journeys from academic experts who explain the history and cultural significance of spiritual journeys. We report on the experiences of a cross-section of people who have undertaken spiritual journeys. Even more, we explain how this tradition is one of the cultural universals shared by all of the world's different cultures .

Spiritual journeys have been around since antiquity, and mankind has felt the call to journey afar in search of meaning. From those of the Abrahamic religions to Zoroastrians, as well as many who subscribe to no particular belief set, a time comes to cross their threshold on what they consider a pilgrimage.

Here, we dig deep into the concept of spiritual journeys, to learn more about our yearning for them. Is it the destination that calls to us, or something deeper?

“Evolution of modern transportation systems and the requirement to fit into work schedules have changed pilgrimage,” observed Dr. Justine Digance of Griffith University in Australia. “Few today would entertain a year-round trip from the U.K. to the Holy Land, which was the norm in the Middle Ages—along with all the hardships.”

Spiritual Journeys: Many of the world's faiths believe pilgrimage involves suffering, penitence and prostration.

“Many state that to be a pilgrim, one must encounter suffering,” she noted. “I don’t see that it has a role in today’s discussion of pilgrimage unless it is offered as part and parcel of the event, such as barefoot climbing of Crough Patrick in August is said to bring merit, as does certain pilgrimages done barefoot in both the Buddhist and Hindu traditions.”

Climbing Crough Patrick

A resident of Kenmare, Ireland, Des Dempsey, 41, said that people come from all over to climb Crough Patrick, or the Reek, as it is known locally.

“From Balintubber Abbey there is a traditional pilgrimage route across the fields and wild lands to the base of the mountain,” Dempsey said. “Reek Sunday is traditionally the last Sunday in August when thousands come and climb it, though generally not the locals. They will usually beat the crowds and climb it the Friday before.”

“The Reek is a difficult climb, involving some suffering, physically and mentally, often with harsh exposure to the elements and some sacrifice — of time, comfort, requiring endurance and strength, challenging a person physically, mentally and spiritually,” he continued. “When I did the climbs, I was considering the rewards, rather than the cost.”

“To walk such well-trodden pilgrimage routes are journeys worthwhile doing in themselves, but they make the arriving all the more rewarding,” he went on. “You become part of a bigger journey, something bigger than the self. As for climbing barefoot, it makes it a very different journey. You have to be so much more conscious of every step, to be in the moment and the attention you get is great.”

“People have been traveling that route on pilgrimage for generations untold, long before Christianity came to Ireland certainly,” he concluded. “Then they climbed it for Lugh of the Long Arm, the Sun God. When St. Patrick arrived, he climbed it too and declared it for the new Christian God and the Irish, ever accommodating, said “Grand,” and continued climbing. It’s a special place, immediately obvious to me the first time I ever saw it, regardless of in whose name it is climbed.”

Varanasi and the Cosmic Dance

Just as mountains have attracted those seeking spiritual heights, the confluences of big rivers are often places of powerful mythology according to Rana P. B. Singh, professor of cultural geography and heritage studies at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi.

“The notion of Pudyadayi or ‘merit-giving’ refers to the inherent ‘spirit of place’ of a particular site, which since ancient times attracted sensitive and spiritual persons to come and get interconnected with the divine spirit as described in ancient texts,” he stated. “In the process of adding more representation from other religious places, and continuous superimposition of such mythic-mystic-sacrosanct images and rituals, the ‘merit-giving’ capacity of these places increased, expanded and attracted more people.”

Spiritual Journeys: The Ganges is one of the places Hindus consider to have

According to Professor Singh, “Along the riverfront Ganga Ghats in Varanasi ‘life’ and ‘death’ both go together in the vision of Shiva’s cosmic dance. Shiva is the supreme and ultimate god of ‘life’ and ‘death’ together, and Varanasi is the resort of Shiva, that is how ‘life’ and ‘death’ are considered as two phases of life. The Ganga, being the liquid energy of Shiva, takes care of both the conditions: birth — life started in water, and death — final mergence is in the river.”

Spiritual Journeys to Holy Places

According to Tasoula Manaridis, 42, of Nicosia in Cyprus, it is the vestiges of spiritual leaders that make a locale sacred and beckon those seeking guidance and inspiration.

“In the Greek Orthodox faith a widespread and long-lasting custom is the journey to holy places to kneel in worship,” she said. “From antiquity and until present the conviction has persisted that prayer or the performance of religious duties are more effective in places where saints were born, died, wrought miracles, suffered martyrdom or merely existed; in ones where there were churches, relics of saints or miraculous icons. It is very common in the Orthodox religion that when someone faces a problem such as a serious illness to visit a place of worship, light a candle and pray for the well being of the ill.”

“Kykkos Monastery is one of those places,” she asserted. “The Monastery located in the Troodos Mountains is one of the richest monasteries on the island and it possesses one of the three icons of Virgin Mary ascribed by St Luke. Many pilgrims take day trips to the Monastery to pray and give an offering — it can be a piece of jewelry — to the Icon of Virgin Mary.”

The Hajj, a Tribute

For some pilgrims, the very journey itself is an offering.

According to a 75-year old Muslim and resident of the Republic of Djibouti in Africa who preferred to remain anonymous, “The Hajj is first of all an obligation for the believer. It is a tribute to God. The pilgrim does not go there to be cured or to receive something. As a result of it, one feels purified of all earthly blemishes, having made a sacrifice for his spirituality . Because it is a distant place, it is a financial challenge for many Muslims all over the world, especially as many are poor.”

“Being the most sacred place of Islam, a pilgrimage to Mecca is obviously a sacred journey,” he continued. “It is not, however, a tourist trip — it is forbidden to non-Muslims. According to tradition, the Kaaba was built by Abraham and Ismael. It is a house of prayer in the shape of a perfect cube. Their coming here is considered the first and founding pilgrimage. It is on this site that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son Ismael, the father of the Arabs. Mecca is also the birthplace of the prophet Mohammed.”

“Mecca is the holiest and most sacred place in the world for Muslims,” said Sari Pitaloka, 46, of Jakarta. “More in particular, Masjid-il-Haram, the mosque where the Kaaba is located is the centre point to which the whole world community of Muslims physically, emotionally and spiritually directs their prayers, every single day, five times per day.”

“One of the qualifications to do Hajj is to be healthy mentally, physically and emotionally,” she continued. “Why would someone want to visit the house of the Creator if not in her/his best condition? The journey itself needs heath to support us to achieve the destination and to enjoy, get the best value of it.”

Buddhist Temples of Shikoku, Japan

Bob Davies, 65, of Durban, South Africa would likely agree. He considers pilgrimage visitation to a sacred place and made the route of 88 Buddhist temples on the island of Shikoku, Japan in 2005, a journey he said required stamina.

“I am generally extremely physically and mentally active, but walking so intensely for such a long period and distance naturally begs proper preparation,” he said. “That I undertook over the preceding three months in the local gym and a few long, backpack-laden hikes over the preceding weekends. As far as the joys and appeals of hiking are concerned, Shikoku per se is certainly not a preferred or recommendable destination.”

When asked if he would undertake the Shikoku pilgrimage again, Davies was uncertain.

“Maybe, if the need arises to experience certain aspects alluded to during the pilgrimage become singularly important to warrant deeper experience. Only spiritual need over the time ahead will tell,” he answered.

Spiritual Journeys Inside or Out?

While for some, pilgrimage is a one-time event, for others it can represent a way of life.

“For me, a pilgrimage is a journey of the soul,” declared Ben Drake, 50, of New Forest, Hampshire in the United Kingdom. “There must be a destination or one never sets out, but that destination might be physical or spiritual. In my case, I attempted to make it both. I think I succeeded, I was certainly happy with what I got. Most Importantly it fitted with the greater pilgrimage of my life and nourished that.”

Drake conducted his pilgrimage on the occasion of his 50th birthday and faced a few fears in the process.

“I was inspired by the writings and example of Satish Kumar, a great pilgrim who undertook a walk around many of the spiritual places of Britain for his 50th,” Drake explained. “I wanted to mark a turning point in my life, a time when my soul and its wellbeing is the most important thing in my life.”

“I walked on my own, across the country just over 100 miles from the place that I am pleased to call home to a place that inspires me,” he said. “I attempted to be open, positive and loving with everyone and everything that I met — often my greatest challenge. I was challenged especially by two days of walking a 500-foot cliff top in thick fog, often disorientated and lost and also often in the grip of a fear of heights and of the unknown. There is a lot of unknown when you can only see 15 yards but you can hear the wind over the cliff top.”

“My view, based on many years studying the activity in Japan, is that pilgrimage is not just about one-off journeys out of the ordinary,” Ian Reader, professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Manchester in England observed. “It is a complex phenomenon in which a variety of apparently contradictory themes interact, and can co-exist without there being a real conflict. It is not a singular event; for many pilgrims, it is very much embedded in the structures of their daily lives as well. For some of the pilgrims I met in Japan, they went to Shikoku so regularly and spent so much time doing or preparing for pilgrimages that Shikoku became a sort of home for them and the pilgrimage became a normal part of their lives.

Outer Journey to Inner Destination

Tom Nowakowski, 40, is an avid long-distance hiker originally from Lodz, Poland, now of Palm Springs, California. He has traversed the Appalachian Mountain Trail, the Pyrenees, Swiss Alps, and just returned from hiking KommEmine across Bulgaria. Over four and a half months in 2007, he hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,650-mile journey stretching from Mexico to Canada.

The trek involved traversing 700 miles of Colorado and Mojave deserts and the snows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

“Pilgrimage to me it is a physical, outer journey to a spiritual, inner destination,” Nowakowski said. “Along thru-hike like the PCT is a perfect example of a pilgrimage. A journey where it is all about the going — not about what is at the end of the road. You walk for months at a time but there is nothing waiting for you at the end of the trail. Actually, when you get there it means that the trip is over – a very emotional experience for many. All that is truly important happens while you are journeying.”

“The hike is a chance to get rid of all the things you really don’t need, physically, mentally, emotionally,” he continued. “It is the art of deprivation. You are carrying your pack so you simplify. People often start the trail carrying everything but the kitchen sink and end up shipping a lot of stuff home. Water is very heavy so you walk from water source to water source. On the trail, the longest hike between water sources is 40 miles or two days.”

“You’re moving, your body is healthy and your mind goes quiet,” he recalled. “You’re mindful, aware — if you don’t pay attention, there will be a copperhead or rattlesnake, or you will slip on the trail. In spite of that, your mind doesn’t have over-stimulation of the everyday world, it empties. You start to digest things from far, far in the past, things have a chance to re-surface, it has a cleansing quality, a detoxifying effect.”

Nowakowski is not alone in finding that the open road leads to an open mind.

Spirituality in Everyday Life

Amanda Pressner, 32, is a co-author of “The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World.” The book is an account of a year-long backpacking adventure she and two friends embarked upon after quitting their high-pressure New York media jobs.

“Our journey was a pilgrimage, one that initially seemed to have no specific endpoint,” she said. “Unlike many religious pilgrimages, where a journey is made in order to worship at one specific place of great spiritual significance, we had no specific physical destination that we’d set out to reach.

“I was definitely awed by the devotion, its many forms, that I encountered in Southeast Asia,” she continued. “Religion and spirituality seemed to be infused into everyday life in places like Bali — with its ever-present offerings to the gods — and Myanmar — with its thousands upon thousands of stupas and temples. Faith was all around, rather than concentrated in a few very important sites where pilgrims might gather — you were reminded of that at nearly every turn.”

“We had some idea that the very act of leaving everything familiar behind, taking a leap, getting on the road—and being open-minded during our journey—would help us reach destinations of great emotional significance, and our hunch was correct,” Pressner concluded. “We eventually realized that our sacred endpoint was home and that we just had to go the long way around, and learn a lot about ourselves, in order to get there.”

Sometimes, the pilgrimage road can seem to extend forever, regardless of its length.

Argentina's Pilgrimage of the Young

Fourteen years ago, Estani Puch, 36, made Argentina’s “Pilgrimage of the Young.” Held every October, thousands walk 65 kilometers from the barrio of Liniers in Buenos Aires to Luján, a journey that generally takes about 18 hours.

The Basilica of Luján is one of Argentina’s major places of pilgrimage. According to legend, in 1630, a tiny, terracotta statue being transported on an oxcart to Santiago del Estero, got stuck in the mud in Lujan. Nothing could make the cart budge until the statue was removed. It was taken as a sign that the 18-inch statue of the Virgin wanted to remain there.

Over time, a small shrine grew into one of Argentina’s major places of pilgrimage, now also known as “the Capital of Faith.”

“I was 22, and working in Wal-Mart at the time and trying to get a job in Citibank selling financial products,” Puch recalled. “This is back in 1996 when the unemployment rate was something like 17% in Argentina so it was really hard to get a decent job and hard to change jobs as well. So, while I was in the process of interviews, I promised that if I got the job, I would walk to Lujan.”

“I did the journey with a friend from work and with a Catholic congregation from Buenos Aires — there were around 150, 000 people walking,” he said. “You start walking at 8 a.m. and go all day and all night, till 3 or 4 in the morning. It is very tiring but if you stop it is impossible to start again. There is also support on the way — if you get tired or pass out they help you. Everything was organized — once you arrive at Lujan, there is a bus that brings you back to B.A.”

“Something funny about this walk is that the Basilica is quite tall, so you can see it from really far,” he continued. “That makes you think that you are getting really close, but it is still a long way to get there — you walk and walk and walk. Whoever you talk to will tell you they had the same impression.”

“The view of the church is what gives you faith to continue, but at the end you realize that what was important was the journey there or all the things in life that you have done,” Puch concluded. “I guess life is a pilgrimage and it is all about the journey, not the destination.”

Whether one considers pilgrimage to be a spiritual journey or a sacred destination, mankind has sought answers and enlightenment through movement since time immemorial. Be it a metaphor for life or a one-time occasion, pilgrimage is likely to be a feature of the landscape for some time to come.

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The Journey

Written by Super User
FATHER ANTONINUS WALL, O.P.

The most common symbol of the dynamic of Christian salvation is that of a "journey".

Every journey is a process made up of various parts. The journeyman's advancement along the way is determined by the milestones whereby he is able to measure his progress. Father Wall shows us that this pattern applies to the spiritual life as well.

Before anyone undertakes a journey he must prepare for it. To set out on our journey to God, the only true goal of our life, we must first look into ourselves and reflect on the truth that He penetrates every nook and cranny of our being. Unfortunately, this truth eludes us in the helter-skelter of our daily lives. God is always present to us, but we are not present to Him. To make ourselves present to Him requires a spiritual journey, a journey of awakening, a journey of love to Love.

Our journey to God, as Father Wall teaches us in this remarkably inspiring book, is lifelong. It is determined by three milestones, which Father Wall calls the three stages of awakening: the mirror of nature, the mirror of Christ without, and the mirror of Christ within. The first of these milestone awakenings is a reflection on the glory of nature around us, which is itself but a reflection of God's all- pervasive beauty. This reflection helps to turn us away from our self-centeredness and represents a definite but still inadequate progress.

The second milestone, the mirror of Christ without, gives us the Lord in all the beauty of His personality as our companion on the way, thus awakening a more concentrated love. But we have not yet arrived, as we can still fall by the wayside.

The third milestone, the mirror of Christ within, finally achieves our infusion into Christ, so that, in the words of St. Paul, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me." To encourage us on this journey, Father Wall appeals to a wonderful example of a successful journeyman – the very human Apostle Peter.

Father Wall is well able to guide us along this journey. As a Dominican steeped in the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, a veteran teacher of spirituality, an itinerant preacher and counselor of souls, he is well qualified to describe this journey of the soul. He is able to present the most profound truths of faith and of human psychology in a clear, easily understood, and delightful way. His final chapters are a description of the bliss that awaits the journeyman when he finally reaches his goal. The description, as Father Wall points out, must fall infinitely short of reality since "no eye has seen nor ear has heard what God has prepared for those who love Him."

San Francisco, November 1998 Father Gerald A. Buckley, O.P.

CHAPTER ONE The Journey

The journey to God, a Christian concept

It is not a spatial journey

Catholic Faith says God is omnipresent

God's presence sustains us in existence

All true Christians believe that salvation comes through Jesus Christ. They agree with the good news on bumper stickers everywhere that "Jesus Saves". All hold that Jesus Christ came into this world to bring us to a loving union with God whom we will see face to face.

The most common symbol of the dynamic of Christian salvation is that of a "journey". The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, "God freely willed to create a world 'in a state of journeying.'"[1] Christ comes to guide us as pilgrims on this journey. The journey will end with the loving, face to face, encounter with our heavenly Father.

Christians often understand the journey in spatial terms. It is conceived of as traveling from some place where God is not to another place where indeed he is present. It entails, in a word, a movement from here in space where God is not present, to there in space where he is.

Many fundamentalist Christians tend to think of the journey of salvation in these spatial terms. They tell us that this world is a sinful world where God is not present. According to this understanding Jesus comes into this sinful, Godless world to free us from this place where God is not present to lead us into that other world, heaven, where God dwells.

Catholics also fall into this spatial understanding of the journey to God. Such a spatial understanding explains the fascination of many Catholics with going on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Lourdes, Fatima, and other sacred places.

Behind their fascination is a spatial thinking that locates God more in those places than in home, city, or country. If only I could leave this worldly place, they think, where God shows little or no sign of his presence, and get to this or that holy place, then I would find myself in the presence of God and I would have advanced significantly on my journey of salvation.

Catholics fall into this way of thinking within the very confines of the parish. How many Catholics understand their parish church to be the place in which God truly dwells and where alone he can be found? So they leave their homes – the profane kitchen, dining room, bedroom, and basement where God is not present – and head for the parish church where he abides and where they enter into his presence. Again the thinking is about a journey in space from where God is not to another place where God is.

What does Catholic faith teach about this way of thinking? Catholic faith teaches that God is fully present everywhere. It teaches that God on his part is as fully present on earth as he is in heaven. It affirms that God is as fully present in our country, our city, and our home as he is in the Holy Land, Lourdes, Fatima, or any other holy place. This faith holds that God is as fully present in our kitchen, basement, living room, bedroom, and garden as he is in our parish church. For that matter he is as fully present in our home as he is present in the basilica of Saint Peter's in Rome. The term for this understanding of the mystery of God is that he is omnipresent. [2]

To say that God on his part is fully present to all creatures is to speak of the objective presence of God to all beings. God's objective presence produces diverse effects in different persons. Therefore, the subjective experience of God's presence produces differing relations to him. Later we will deal with the subjective changes that progressively awaken persons to the objective presence of God in their lives.

According to Catholic faith, we must affirm that God on his part is as fully present to you and me as he is to the greatest saints. Even more, we must hold that God is as fully present to us at this very moment as he is present to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The teaching of Catholic faith about the omnipresence of God may indeed sound strange. It implies that God is as fully present to each of us as he is present to the human nature of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Word made flesh.

The omnipresence of God in no way conflicts with our consciousness in faith that God is radically "other" than ourselves. He infinitely transcends our human actuality and all created reality. These two aspects of the mystery of the Godhead daily challenge our understanding of him, and qualify our relations with him.

Saint Thomas Aquinas [3] teaches that God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. At the same time he is radically "other" than us and transcends the entire order of created being. The technical terms for these two aspects of the Godhead are immanence and transcendence. Belief in the omnipresence of God reflects the Divine immanence. It should not conflict with our belief in his divine transcendence.

Saint Paul expresses the mystery of divine immanence when he teaches that, "In him we live and move and have our being."[4] In his view we are like fish swimming in an ocean of divine love. God's love is all around us and within us.

Saint Thomas points out that, were God's love not immediately present to us, we would not exist. He uses Saint Augustine's simple, beautiful example to illustrate our relation to the creative activity of God's love. He teaches that we are like beams of light coming from the illuminating activity of the sun. [5]

Just as these beams of light need the activity of the sun to initiate their existence, so also they depend upon the continuing activity of the sun to sustain their existence. Remove the sun and the beams of light would instantly cease to exist.

We might substitute a modem flashlight in the place of the sun called upon by Saint Augustine. If you were to go into a dark room and turn on the flashlight, immediately a bright beam would come into existence. That beam would depend upon the activity of the flashlight not only for its initiation, but for its continued existence. You could not turn off the flashlight and withdraw from the room, only to return five minutes later and find the beam still shining brightly. When the flashlight's illuminating activity ceases, the beam of light likewise ends instantly. We are like beams of light emanating from the creative activity of divine love.

This love is not only necessary to initiate our existence. It is indispensable to our continued existence in this life and the next. At the instant in which God ceases to be more present to us than we are to ourselves, we would immediately cease to exist.

This radical dependence on the presence of God applies not only to ourselves but to the whole order of creation. That is why Catholics hold that God is as fully present on earth as he is in heaven.

We hold that God is as fully present in our country, our city, and our home as he is in the Holy Land, Lourdes, Fatima, and other sacred places. We affirm that he is as fully present on his part in our kitchen, bedroom, basement, living room, and garden as he is in our parish church. Therefore, we do not have to go anywhere to be in his presence.

If we were to decide to leave by plane on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, God would be fully present with us in the departure airport. He would be equally present to us as we watched the in-flight movies while soaring above the Atlantic Ocean.

As we arrived in the airport in the Holy Land, he would be as fully present to us at that moment as we would find him in Bethlehem, or in Nazareth, or along the Sea of Galilee, or on Mount Olivet. This is the Catholic belief in the omnipresence of God. You and I do not have to go any place to be in the fullness of his presence.

Imagine that you enter your children's bedrooms on a chilly, wintry Sunday morning to awaken and prepare them to go to Mass. In response to your call, they object to getting out of their warm beds. They protest that God is already fully present with them beneath their blankets. They claim he is as fully present to them in their warm beds as he is in their parish church. This is basic, sound Catholic teaching about the omnipresence of God, and Saint Thomas would beam at their healthy, theological insight.

If, then, God is already fully present to you and me, as fully present as ever he will be on his part, what do we mean by the "journey of salvation"? What need have we of Christ to bring us to a divine presence that already exists to us? These are the questions we must clarify.

[1] CCC 310.

[2] It is, of course, a mystery how God who is one can be everywhere. Yet within our own experience as human beings, who are as mere specks in the physical universe, our intellect exceeds all material things. The universe exists in us through knowledge. Saint Thomas Aquinas says ( Summa Contra Gentiles Bk. 3a Chap. 68) "But God is indivisible as existing altogether outside the genus of continuous quantity ... He was from eternity before there was any place. Yet by the immensity of His power He reaches all things that are in place."

[3] Thomas Aquinas lived in the 13th century. He entered the Dominican Order at age 22 in Naples, Italy. He died in 1274 and was canonized in 1323. His synthesis of faith and reason, the moral and political sciences, and Greek and Christian thought stands as a great achievement of Scholastic thought. We will refer to him as Saint Thomas in the remainder of this book.

[4] Acts 17:28.

[5] Cf Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae First Part Q 104.

Additional Info

Author: Father Antoninus Wall, O.P.

Father Antoninus Wall, O.P. "The Journey." Chapter 1 in The Journey to God (Antioch, CA: Solas Press, 1999): 3-8.

Reprinted by permission of Father Antoninus Wall and Solas Press.

Publisher: Solas Press
Alternate: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0998.htm

Please show your appreciation by making a $3 donation . CERC is entirely reader supported.

Meaghen Gonzalez Editor

Acknowledgement

Fr. Wall has had a career rich in pastoral and academic experiences. He has served as associate pastor in Seattle and as Professor of Theology at Immaculate Heart and Dominican College. He negotiated the entry of the Dominicans into the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and served two terms there as President of the Dominican School. He currently resides at St. Albert's Priory in Oakland, California. Father Wall is the author of The Journey to God . Father Wall may be reached by phone at 510-596-1800 or by email at [email protected]

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Introduction

What is Pilgrimage?

The Origins of the Terms 'Pilgrim' and 'Pilgrimage'

Using this resource, what is pilgrimage, faith-based pilgrimage.

Journeying to a place of special significance plays a part in almost all cultures and religions (see Place and Journey in Cultures and Faiths Worldwide ). The goal may be a site given prominence by particular events, the shrine of a saint or other significant figure, or a remarkable geographical feature. Pilgrimage motivated by religious belief is still very much alive in the twenty-first century. It usually involves:

journeying, alone or in a group
reaching a destination
encountering special rituals, objects and architecture
enjoying particular experiences and benefits
returning home

For some people pilgrimage acts as a rite of passage , for others it involves seeking spiritual or material rewards.

An image of life

'Pilgrimage' is often used to describe an individual's journey through life, sometimes as a general description of personal growth and exploration,sometimes, as in Christianity, outlining a particular spiritual focus or pathway which it is believed will lead to encounter with God.

Inner journeys

'Pilgrimage' is a term which can be used to portray an inner spiritual journey through prayer , meditation or mystical experience. In some faiths and cultures, withdrawal from the everyday world into a monastery or hermit 's cell, choosing to enter into a physically-restricted life of isolation and silence, is seen as a way of setting the soul free to travel inwardly.

Football, baseball and Graceland

Vietnam war memorial, Washington DC, USA

Pilgrimage also has meaning outside religion: it is common to speak of 'pilgrimages' to sports arenas, such as football or baseball grounds, or to the resting places of celebrities, such as Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley, or places of national significance such as the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC. We also use the word to describe returning to places which have particular personal meaning, to celebrate, to mourn or simply to remember. An attachment to special places is a very persistent human characteristic which seems to extend across a wide range of cultures and belief systems.

Pilgrims and tourists

It is not always easy to tell the difference between pilgrims and tourists. Both may be found visiting religious sites such as great cathedrals. Both often aim to prolong the experience or transfer its benefits by recording their journeys and bringing back souvenirs (or relics ). A holiday can turn into a pilgrimage - or vice versa. Although tourism proper did not emerge until the nineteenth century or become a widespread phenomenon until the middle of the twentieth century, as affluence and leisure time increased, it is clear that for centuries many pilgrimages have involved both religious and secular motives and experiences.

A kaleidoscope of meanings

As this website seeks to show, pilgrimage is not a single idea but a cluster of images which generate a variety of patterns. Together, these multiple understandings of pilgrimage have profoundly influenced patterns of living across many cultures, through many centuries, shaping art, architecture, history, literature, social interaction, spirituality and travel.

The Exodus: Moses and the Israelites follow a burning pillar

'Pilgrim' and 'pilgrimage' are words that have carried a range of meanings over the centuries.

The English term 'pilgrim' originally comes from the Latin word peregrinus ( per , through + ager , field, country, land), which means a foreigner, a stranger, someone on a journey, or a temporary resident. It can describe a traveller making a brief journey to a particular place or someone settling for a short or long period in a foreign land. Peregrinatio was the state of being or living abroad.

Peregrinus was also used in the Vulgate version of the Bible to translate the Hebrew gur (sojourner) and the Greek parepidemos (temporary resident). These terms undergirded a central image of the Christian life. Christians were identified as temporary residents in this world whose true home was in heaven. They must therefore live and behave day by day according to the standards of their homeland as they journeyed through life. During the early centuries of the Church this was the primary understanding of the term.

As Christian pilgrimage to places considered especially holy developed in the fourth century (see The Development of Christian Holy Places ), peregrinus took on a further sense within Christian thought, describing a traveller with a particular religious goal. Peregrinatio was used of the journey undertaken.

This web resource can be navigated using the links in the left-hand navigation menu. The menu will expand to show all 'Pilgrimage Resources' once you enter this section.

Three forms of in-text link exist:

Red : Glossary links - clicking these links will open a pop-up window containing a definition of the linked term or phrase. (enabling your pop-up to allow pop-ups from this site is recommended.)
Green : Text links - these links open a pop-up window containing a literary or bible excerpt.
Blue : Navigation links - these links enable different parts of the resource to be linked. Clicking these links will take you to a different page within the resource - don't worry if you get lost, since the 'previous page' link at the top of every page will return you to the last page you visited.
Pilgrimage Resources
Explore Pilgrimage Today
Pilgrims & Pilgrimage CD-ROM
Acknowledgements

How to Navigate a Midlife Change of Faith

When we think of our identities as fixed and unchanging— I am this kind of person; I am not that kind of person —we’re shutting ourselves off from many of life’s possibilities.

A woman stands holding a smiley face in her palm; a rainbow beam of light emanates from the smiley face to the heavens.

“ How to Build a Life ” is a biweekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness.

In the Bible, there is a curious story about a man named Nicodemus. He is a Pharisee and one of the religious elders with whom Jesus is in constant conflict. Nicodemus approaches Jesus alone at night, saying, “ Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God ,” and proceeds to ask a series of sincere questions.

It is clear that Nicodemus is a seeker, attracted to Jesus’s unconventional teaching. It is just as clear that he does not want anyone to witness this meeting. A powerful, successful man, Nicodemus is embarrassed—or perhaps afraid—to be seen questioning his own religious beliefs and considering something new.

There is a modern version of the Nicodemus story that I have seen many times, though it isn’t necessarily Christian. I often meet middle-aged people who are having religious stirrings for the first time, or at least for the first time since they were young. But like Nicodemus, many find these urges confusing and even troubling, especially if they moved away from faith earlier in life.

Derek Thompson: Three decades ago, America lost its religion. Why?

These seekers I talk with usually believe their spiritual yearnings are unusual, but they aren’t. Research from the United States shows that religious attachment commonly falls through young and middle adulthood, but then increases through one’s 40s and beyond. The theologian James Fowler explained this pattern in his famous 1981 book, Stages of Faith . After studying hundreds of human subjects, Fowler observed that as young adults, many people are put off by ideas that seem arbitrary or morally retrograde, such as those surrounding sexuality. They may also become disillusioned by religion’s inability to explain life’s hardest puzzles; for example, the idea of a loving God in the face of a world full of suffering.

Want to stay current with Arthur's writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out.

As they get older, however, people begin to recognize that nothing is tidy in life. This, according to Fowler, is when they become tolerant of religion’s ambiguities and inconsistencies, and start to see the beauty and transcendence in faith and spirituality—either their own faith from childhood, or some other. Fowler’s later research asked whether the stages he found in the 1970s and ’80s held against modern developments (such as falling religious participation in the U.S.); he observed that they did.

For those who embrace faith at this stage, it is a joyful epiphany; religious and spiritual adults are generally happier and generally suffer less depression than those who have no faith. And the benefits of finding faith as an adult go beyond life satisfaction, according to research on the subject: Religion and spirituality are also linked to better physical health. This could be in part because the majority of studies find practitioners are less likely than others to abuse drugs and alcohol .

Whether it’s organized religion or not, as I’ve argued previously in this column , having some kind of practice or structure that allows one to ponder life’s mysteries and move beyond a focus on the self can greatly increase happiness and life satisfaction. But for those who feel the common spiritual stirrings of midlife, the journey can be difficult. The road to faith is filled with obstacles that can cause a spiritually hungry person to turn back, if he or she can’t see a way around them.

Obstacle 1: Santa in the church

Once, when my kids were little, my family and I drove past our Catholic church, and my oldest son, then about 4 years old, asked whether Santa Claus lived inside. My wife and I laughed a lot at that question, but it highlighted a typical problem in the formation of faith: Our first impressions of faith tend to be made as children—and those impressions can haunt us as we mature. People often dismiss religion as a mishmash of myths and childish nonsense that well-adjusted adults should logically leave behind.

Indeed, many opponents of faith attack it by appealing to precisely these childish impressions. For example, just before Christmas in 2010, I saw a billboard at the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey featuring the silhouette of the Three Kings approaching Bethlehem. The caption underneath read, “You KNOW it’s a Myth. This Season, Celebrate REASON!”

Read: American religion: complicated, not dead

I will admit that I broke out laughing when I saw it because it was such a clever ploy by a group opposed to religion. But it was not an appeal to reason—exactly the contrary. It was an appeal to reduce faith to a story many of us heard as children, and to reject it outright if, as adults, it does not seem likely to be literally accurate in every detail. That’s about as reasonable as divorcing your spouse because he or she doesn’t live up to the happily-ever-after fairy tales you heard as a child.

The solution to this obstacle is to reacquaint yourself with faith with mature eyes. If you reread a book from your childhood as an adult, you’ll likely find it very different from what you remembered, and pick up on things you missed when you were young. The same is true with religious practice. We all have hard questions about the meaning of life, and one of the benefits of religious traditions is that their sacred texts, religious scholars, and longtime practitioners have considered these questions before. If the last time you attended a worship service or read a religious text was as a child—or if you have never done so but have only imagined what they’re like—try doing so as an adult with an open mind and heart. They might just hold truths that your memories and imagination do not.

Obstacle 2: The “none” in the mirror

The answer to the question “Who am I?” is what psychologists call a “self-concept.” Changes to the self-concept can be uncomfortable, and people often react with intense resistance to anything that threatens how they have come to see themselves.

A perfect example of this is someone’s self-concept as a nonreligious person, or in the parlance of survey research , a “none,” as more than a fifth of Americans classify themselves. Although seeing yourself as a “none” might not seem like a barrier to finding faith—it’s a void to be filled, right?—it is itself an identity, one that for many people could feel as powerful as “Catholic” or “Buddhist.” That can be hard to let go of. As such, merely entertaining religious or spiritual ideas can feel like a threat to the self-concept.

Read: 4 Rules for identifying your life’s work

The key to overcoming this obstacle is to remember that, even if “none” is an accurate description of you at the moment, it doesn’t have to be a lifelong commitment. In fact, it’s healthy to regularly interrogate your self-concept and be open to the idea that you can change, rather than making a onetime decision, then clinging to it forever. Even if you continue to identify as a “none,” you’ll know that the decision is right for who you are now, rather than a past version of yourself.

But if you do want to explore your spiritual side, you don’t have to abruptly change your self-concept from “none” to “very religious person.” You might think of yourself as “none right now,” or perhaps, “none, but open to suggestion.” This injects the elements of humility and flexibility—even vulnerability—to your understanding of yourself, which has a powerful effect. Although you may not have faith right now, the door is cracked open. Something interesting might just wander in.

Obstacle 3: The tyranny of time

To develop spirituality or practice faith requires time and effort; there’s no getting around this. As such, it competes with the demands of our ordinary lives. That’s a huge imposition, and the time commitment may be enough to deter some people who are craving spiritual practice but find it too daunting to rearrange their lives to make room for it.

The Hindu concept of Vanaprastha (in Sanskrit, “retiring into the forest”) is illuminating here. Consistent with Fowler’s findings, Hindu sages have long taught that middle age brings a natural longing for spiritual development. But it doesn’t come without cost; it requires stepping back from the pressures of ordinary life. A person must focus less on worldly ambition to create more space for spiritual practice—prayer, meditation, reading. Only with this commitment can one achieve the next stage, Sannyasa , in which one lives in the bliss of enlightenment during old age.

For the busy, modern adult, Vanaprastha may sound basically impossible—who has even a free half hour every day to read and pray? Who has a block of time every weekend to spend sitting in a house of worship? And thus, we may kick the can of faith down the road of life to an imagined future in which there is finally enough time.

Read: The three equations for a happy life, even during a pandemic

But what if, instead of seeing your spiritual journey as an imposition on your scarce time and energy, you shift your mindset to see spiritual exploration as an adventure in and of itself? For millennia, one way seekers have done this is through pilgrimage. Personally, I walked the ancient Camino de Santiago (Way of Saint James) in northern Spain. Over more than a thousand years, this route has been followed by millions, who walk hundreds of kilometers in prayerful contemplation. My Catholic faith will never be the same.

The pandemic limits this kind of physical pilgrimage at the moment. However, the principle remains even if you don’t leave the house: Reframe your spiritual journey as a research project in which you are the human subject, a pilgrimage that could help you learn more about yourself, and about life itself.

When we think of our identities as fixed and unchanging— I am this kind of person; I am not that kind of person —we’re shutting ourselves off from many of life’s possibilities. Being open to reevaluating our ideas about ourselves can keep us from getting stuck in patterns that aren’t true to our changing selves. And the research I have presented here shows that when it comes to faith, many people do change with age.

If you are feeling an unexpected spiritual pull, realize that it is normal. If faith is something you really want, don’t be put off by the obstacles in your path—and unlike Nicodemus, don’t sneak around. No matter where you wind up, the journey of spiritual discovery can be one of life’s greatest delights. As the Indian yogi and poet Sri Aurobindo described the adventure of faith:

A divine force shall flow through tissue and cell And take the charge of breath and speech and act And all the thoughts shall be a glow of suns And every feeling a celestial thrill.

Celestial or not, the thrill is real. Lean into it.

Experiencing God on Our Journey of Faith

Be available to God — don't believe our schedule is too full to find faith.
Be open to experience God in fresh ways — to encounter him in places and times we don't see as necessarily religious or comfortable.
Be hospitable to God and his people — welcoming others in the name of God become ways we welcome the presence of "The Holy" into our lives.
Be committed to right living instead of settling for being religious — right living means we are concerned about pleasing God and how we treat others.
Be willing to making agenda changes in life — our experiences of God and with God often call us to explore new ideas, new lands, and new people.
The Psalms : The collection of the Psalms in our Bible offers us the language of life we can use to address God. There are psalms of joy and sorrow, rejoicing and lament, peace and tumult, praise and anger, confidence and desperation. Spend time in the Psalms to help broaden your vocabulary to address God, and you will also find that God is much bigger and much more gracious than you have previously known. In doing so, you will also discover that the Almighty longs to draw near in every situation of life, not just those rosy, all is great, days of spiritual strength.
Matthew : For 19 centuries, Matthew was the gospel of God's people. When we lost Matthew from our regular reading, we lost a precious gift. Matthew was written to help us know and experience Immanuel — God with us on our journey. Matthew reminds us that we can experience God on our journey through the long story of Scripture that ends in Jesus ( Matthew 1:23 ), radical and loving community ( Matthew 18:20 ), compassionate care of those in need ( Matthew 25:40 ), and in walking beside people until Jesus' will transforms them into authentic disciples ( Matthew 28:19-20 ). {Be sure and read the context of these passages for their full impact!} God wants us to experience him as Immanuel, the God whom we can experience in our journey of faith.

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Statement of Faith

Finding Christ in the Hero’s Journey

In 1949, Joseph Campbell published his theory of the archetypal “monomyth” in The Hero With a Thousand Faces. His claim was that all stories follow one general plot in which the hero “ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won.” After his life-changing journey, the hero returns back to the old world, equipped to “bestow boons on his fellow man.” 1

The so-called “hero’s journey” is a seventeen-step arc that Campbell enumerated based on his familiarity with ancient myths from many cultures, and especially with the stories of the Bible in mind. Star Wars, Harry Potter, the Odyssey, and the Epic of Gilgamesh all exemplify this pattern. In the Bible, the stories of Jonah, Adam and Eve, Moses, Samson, and Jesus follow the hero’s journey structure as well.

Given these striking similarities with so many mythical stories, how are we to see the truth of Christianity? Do these similarities lump the Bible with other, usually false, stories and religions?

Many critique Campbell’s theory for its extreme generality. The hero’s journey really describes every challenge, and every progression. These narrative “archetypes” are so ubiquitous because encountering and overcoming uncertain and unexpected difficulty are fundamental to human life. We all go through struggles, and we all, usually, come out the other side new and improved. If the hero’s journey is so general, of course the Bible embodies aspects of it.

This critique does not refute the fact that Christianity shares elements and motifs with many other stories, besides the hero’s journey. In Egypt, we have striking similarities of the life of the sky god Horus to that of Jesus. There is further evidence of “resurrection cults” in Egypt, and in Greek mythology we have the resurrections of Dionysus and Persephone. Zoroaster and Buddha display similar penchants for moralistic teaching.

English writer G.K. Chesterton makes a devastating response to this argument: “The story of a Christ is very common in legend and literature. So is the story of two lovers parted by Fate. So is the story of two friends killing each other for a woman. But will it be seriously maintained that, because these two stories are common as legends, therefore no two friends were ever separated by love or no two lovers by circumstances?” 2

At its core, this is a probabilistic argument against Christianity: because most religions and cultural myths are clearly false, and Christianity resembles many religions and cultural myths, Christianity is false. Though most would agree this argument is not air-tight, it does seem quite convincing. If every myth we have examined so far is false, why should we assume that the myth of Christianity is any different?

On any amount of investigation, Christianity sticks out glaringly from other religions. Christianity leans not on following the proper rules and rituals—orthopraxis—but on repentance and faith: orthodoxy. The goal of Christian religion is not to appease God, but to commune with him. Most religions champion an immanent, anthropomorphized deity, or else an unknowable, transcendent one; the Christian God is at once transcendent and immanent (through the incarnation). Other religions are nationalistic; Christianity is universal. Other gods demand sacrifice; God sacrificed his own son.

Most importantly of all these differences, Christianity differentiates itself in its profound accordance with reality. In every aspect of life—morality, justice, the afterlife—it resonates with how we live in a more profound way than can be expressed in terms of “factual accuracies.”

This is why C.S. Lewis argues compellingly that Christianity is the “true myth.” It accomplishes all of the cultural framing of a myth, and still retains its historical verity. Here, Lewis is using the word “myth” differently from common parlance. Colloquially, at least since the Enlightenment, a myth is a false story whose narrative serves to unify a culture or worldview under a common past and shared goals for the future. Campbell concurs with the historical inaccuracy of myth. For him, however, myths are made up of symbols and motifs, like the hero’s journey, that point to some truth about human psychology. The symbols are “spontaneous productions of the psyche, and each bears within it, undamaged, the germ power of its source.” Unlike his Enlightenment predecessors, Campbell finds value in myths for people today, as they communicate timeless truths about mankind. Campbell’s position is thus often summarized by, “All religions are true, but none is literal.” 3

Another alternative is that the symbols are ubiquitous because they point to something true about the world. Since humans are made in the image of God, whatever humans create not only shows something about themselves, but something about God. God planted a seed of his story of redemption inside each human, so that they would be prepared for belief when the real thing took place. As C.S. Lewis sees it, “Myth in general is not misunderstood history…nor diabolical illusion…not priestly lying…but at its best, a real unfocused gleam of divine truth on human imagination.” 4 This is a variation of the idea, expressed by St. Augustine, that we are programmed innately to desire God and salvation. As a later poet put it, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” 5

The fact that many people share variations of stories about God does not imply either that all of them are perfectly true or that all are fully false. Many of Campbell’s school fall naturally into a subjective pantheism or a cynical nihilism. One could conclude that all these stories’ different, contradictory gods are true at once, or simply that God’s character is reflected in all things, in many different ways. Christianity avoids the irresponsible binary between pantheism and materialism, professing that God created the universe with love, imbuing it, and us, with traces of Him, so that He would not be fully alien to us.

That said, why did God present the story of mankind’s redemption to us in the form of myth? Here, an analogy will be useful. Without fail, I find that I never fully appreciate a song I am shown the first time I listen through it. It requires a second, third, or fifth listen for the harmony to resound with me, for the melody to become catchy, for the lyrics to get stuck in my head. This coincides with the fact of human nature that we love that with which we are familiar. When the echoes of a song are still reverberating in our minds, then we are truly receptive to appreciating it. To learn something consciously, we have to feel like we have always already known it. It is new, but also very familiar.

Similarly, no straightforward description of God’s character is possible or even advisable. Because of our innate tendency to sin, we are inclined towards rebellion against God. Other stories resembling Christianity’s act as bread-crumbs of reconciliation, placed by God to draw us through their beauty unwittingly to Him. A prerequisite for believing in God is wanting to believe in God. Stories are particularly effective for this.

Additionally, Christianity must retain its status as myth, or its transcendent truth would inevitably be disenchanted by the narrow scientism of the materialists. The truths that Christianity presents are ultimate ones; we cannot fully grasp them. Stories, what Campbell would call myths, circumvent our stubborn, prideful rationality and grab hold of our faculties of desire. Accordingly, they do not fit into the frame of a scientific study or a historical narrative. We see this elusiveness in the Old Testament when God reveals himself as a burning bush, cloud, pillar of fire, and even a whisper to the prophet Elijah. Emily Dickinson’s poetry expresses God’s potential motivation behind this exactly:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant Success in circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth’s superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind.

We are not prepared to handle all of the truth at once, so God feeds it to us a little at a time. What does this all of this say about how we should present the Gospel? It shows that it is handicapping ourselves to refuse to engage people on the level of narrative and meaningful story. People are so attracted to myth, and “hero’s journey” myths in particular, that it is only natural to frame Christianity as the “true myth,” as C.S. Lewis describes it.

Thus, the Christian need not reject offhand Campbell’s theory of the hero’s journey. Campbell, in an interview with PBS, calls the resurrection of Christ, “a clown act, really.” This position is not inherent in his theory, but Campbell, like Jung and the literary theorists before him, is most comfortable with a truth that exists abstractly, none too personal or visceral. He is, in short, a Platonist. In the end, this aversion to physical historicity is more dogmatic than any religion.

Christianity is so powerful as an existential and philosophical system because it uniquely balances the scientific materialism of the Enlightenment and the idealism of Plato. Christianity retains the common-sense practicality of Aristotle and Bacon, and the imaginative inspiration of the Platonists. This fact is best summarized by Lewis: “For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact: claiming not only our love and obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher.”

Bryce McDonald ‘21 is a joint Classics and Philosophy concentrator in Leverett House.

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Philosophy and Religion
Faith and Belief

How to Go on a Spiritual Journey

Last Updated: September 29, 2022 Approved

This article was co-authored by Jessica Elliott, ACC, CEC . Jessica Elliott is a Certified Executive Coach and multi-passionate entrepreneur. She's the founder of LIFETOX, where she hosts mindful experiences and retreats, and J Elliott Coaching, which she provides executive consulting for professionals, teams, and organizations. Jessica has had over fifteen years experience as an entrepreneur and over five years of executive coaching experience. She received her ACC (Associate Certified Coach) accreditation through the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and her CEC (Certified Executive Coach) accreditation through Royal Roads University. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article has 11 testimonials from our readers, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 250,739 times.

A spiritual journey is a journey you would take to find out who you are, what your problems are in life, and how to come to peace with the world. The purpose of a spiritual journey is rarely to find an answer; rather, it is a process of continually asking questions. This article will not tell you what your spiritual journey should look like, but will give you tools that you may find important in structuring your journey.

Setting Spiritual Goals

Step 1 Understand that your journey is yours alone.

You are ultimately responsible for the direction of your journey. If one of the steps in this guide produce stress or harm for you, skip it for the time being and find an alternative that helps you contemplate your life.
No religion has a monopoly on truth. If a religion or its followers begin to control or scare you, consider backing up and consulting a different source.

Step 2 Keep a journal of your thoughts and feelings.

Such practice is often referred to as keeping a "mindfulness journal." [3] X Research source Its purpose is to reveal to you the thought patterns that govern your life, possibly negatively, so that you may focus on transforming them.

Step 3 Make a set of goals and prioritize them.

Prioritize what interests you intellectually as well as emotionally; think about what you are curious about, as well as what you might change to live a healthier life. Spiritual journeys can incorporate both intellectual and emotional aspects of your life.

Step 4 Decide on the scope of your journey.

Using Spiritual Practices

Yoga can add a physical component to contemplation and can help you in clarifying your spiritual goals.
There are many different variations on meditation. They can be learned and practiced in social settings, whether they be spiritual meetups or regularly-meeting meditation groups led by an expert. These meetups are often free to attend, or ask for a small donation.

Step 2 Incorporate exercise into your spiritual life.

Exercise needn't be exhausting. Moderate exercise, spread out throughout the week, can keep one's body fit and in shape. [9] X Trustworthy Source Mayo Clinic Educational website from one of the world's leading hospitals Go to source

Reflective spaces may incorporate images, icons, and posters, smells (such as incense or flowers), and either silence or meditative music.

Step 4 Investigate alternative states of consciousness.

Many of these plants are illegal to possess or cultivate in the United States.
Psychedelic drugs are notorious for carrying the risk of a "bad trip," which may spiritually confuse or disorient users. Psychoactives can still be largely beneficial when used in a sparing, informed, and limited capacity.

Some sacred places are associated with sacred events, such as the Hajj. It may make more sense to time your visit with religious calendars.

The spiritual journey is there to serve you, and though it may not be comfortable at times, you should be able to see how it is improving your relationship to yourself, others, and your sense of compassion.

Consulting Spiritual Sources

You may want to accompany your studies with educational courses. Universities, community colleges, and continuing education centers offer courses in the history of religious practices and texts.
If you do read scholarly texts alongside sacred texts, be aware that there is a difference between theology and "religious studies." Religious studies can be thought of as studying religion from its outside, while theology is often written by practitioners of that religion. [19] X Research source

Step 2 Consult public services that focus on spirituality.

Other civic institutions may have a chaplain on staff who are skilled guides when it comes to certain topics, such as grief or loss.
Such institutions include hospitals or army outposts, but you may need to be a regular user of their services to consult with their chaplain.

Step 3 Read or listen to popular spiritual sources.

Avoid figures that actively request financial support, promise reliable answers, or who seem to be selling something. Oftentimes, they are not counting your spiritual journey as a priority.
If you can afford it, traveling to retreats, camps, and spiritual meetups can be a healthy way to expand your horizons and meet new people.

Step 4 Don't be afraid to use community support.

Not only is this a way to find mentors, this is also may lead you to mentoring others, which can enrich your journey.

Community Q&A

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↑ http://goodlifezen.com/how-to-embark-on-a-spiritual-journey/
↑ Zachary Rainey. Ordained Minister. Expert Interview. 19 May 2019.
↑ http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/how_to_create_and_use_a_mindfulness_journal
↑ http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/blog/9419/all-religions-practice-forms-of-meditation-meditation-is-a-universal-practice/
↑ http://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/6-19.htm
↑ http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/pages/mental-benefits-of-exercise.aspx
↑ http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/expert-answers/exercise/faq-20057916
↑ http://www.groupinstitute.com/useruploads/files/reflective_space_description1_2017.pdf
↑ http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment
↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/11124420/The-worlds-most-spiritual-places.html?frame=3053376
↑ Jessica Elliott, ACC, CEC. Certified Executive Coach. Expert Interview. 12 February 2020.
↑ https://lonerwolf.com/spiritual-journey/
↑ https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/theology-vs-religious-studies

About This Article

A spiritual journey can be a deeply personal and moving experience. While you can’t fully plan for a spiritual journey, there are some important tools you can use to help you make the most of it. Start by considering why you want to go on this journey. For instance, maybe you’re hoping to overcome a challenge in your life, or maybe you’re looking for personal transformation. No matter the reason, you’ll probably want to keep track of your feelings and set some goals for your journey. For example, if you want to become calmer and less angry, you might set time out of your day to simply sit and breathe deeply. Keep in mind that many spiritual journeys are lifelong affairs, so it's important to focus on small goals. No matter what you want to accomplish, find time each day to meditate and reflect in a calm, quiet spot. Make sure to take inventory of your thoughts, feelings, fears, and expectations as you go so you can learn and improve. To learn how to find spiritual support, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Equipping People for Spiritual Growth

What is the Christian Journey?

The christian journey to a meaningful christian life.

It is often said that the Christian life is a journey, not a destination.

The journey to a meaningful Christian life involves a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, learning and growing in faith, and actively living out one’s beliefs.

The Christian journey is often a term used to describe the spiritual growth and development as we follow Jesus Christ and seek to live according to his teachings.

The Christian Journey is . . .

a journey of faith in God.
a process of coming to know ourselves honestly and our Creator intimately.
a journey of cultivating awareness, sensitivity, and response to God’s loving initiatives in our lives.
a pilgrimage of deepening our relationship with God and His love for us that brings us into maturity.
a process of receiving healing for emotional pain and harmful ways of thinking.
a dynamic process of growing toward wholeness emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
a process of being conformed to the image of Christ.
a spiritual journey where we continually confront twists, turns, and stages.
The process is a quest for intimate relationship with God Himself.

This process has been known through the ages by a variety of names including spiritual growth, discipleship, spiritual formation/transformation, and sanctification.

Here are some steps of the Christian journey process:

Accept Jesus as Lord and Savior . This is the foundation of a meaningful Christian life, as it involves making a commitment to follow Jesus and allowing Him to guide your life.
Study the Bible . Reading and studying the Bible will deepen your understanding of God’s character, teachings, and plans for your life.
Pray regularly . Talking to God in prayer helps to build a strong relationship with Him and allows Him to guide and direct your life.
Serve others. Living a meaningful Christian life involves serving others and showing love and compassion to those around you.
Christian community . Being part of a Christian community can provide support, encouragement, and opportunities to serve others.
Seek accountability and mentorship . Building relationships with mature Christians can offer guidance and support and can be incredibly helpful in growing.
Continuously grow and develop . A meaningful Christian life involves a lifetime of learning and growing in faith. So be open to new experiences, growth opportunities, and challenges that will help you to deepen your relationship with God.

The Christian journey also includes challenges and obstacles, but through prayer and reliance on God, individuals can overcome them and continue to grow in their faith.

It often involves changes in one’s lifestyle, values, and behavior, as well as a growing love for others and a desire to serve and make a positive impact in the world.

The ultimate goal of the Christian journey is to deepen one’s relationship with God. It involves becoming more like Jesus, so that we can live a life that brings glory to God and helps others.

The Christian journey is a lifelong process of growing in relationship with God and others. Each person’s journey is unique, yet similar.

What If I Get Stuck On The Christian Journey

However, getting “stuck” on the Christian journey is a common experience for many people.

There are various reasons why this might happen, such as feeling overwhelmed by life’s challenges, facing temptations or sin, experiencing a crisis of faith, or simply feeling uninspired or disconnected from God.

If you find yourself in this situation, there are several steps you can take to get back on track:

Confess and repent . If you’ve sinned or strayed from God, confessing your mistakes and repenting can help to restore your relationship with Him.
Pray. Talking to God through prayer can help you to feel connected to Him and receive His guidance and comfort.
Seek support from other Christians. Join a small group or talk to a trusted friend or mentor. This can provide encouragement and help you to stay accountable.
Study the Bible. Spending time in God’s word can help to deepen your understanding of Him and renew your mind and spirit.
Serve others . Volunteering and serving others can help you to shift your focus from yourself to God and His kingdom.

Remember, the Christian journey is a lifelong process, and it’s okay to have ups and downs.

With God’s help and the support of other believers, you can overcome obstacles and continue growing in your faith.

The Christian Journey is a Quest For a Deeper Relationship With God

The Christian journey is ultimately a quest to find a deeper relationship with God.

As we grow in our faith, we seek to deepen our understanding how God speaks . We grow in our love for God and learn to experience His presence in our lives more deeply.

Learn How to Feel The Presence of God & Practice His Presence

This deeper relationship with God also leads to transformation of our character, and we become more like Jesus and adopt His attitudes and behaviors.

This transformation is a lifelong process!

As we grow in relationship with God, we become more attuned to His will and more equipped to fulfill our divine purpose in life.

Throughout he Christian journey we learn to experience the fullness of God’s love. We become more like Him, so that we can bring glory to God and make a positive impact in the world.

The Christian journey is a journey of faith, growth, and spiritual transformation that leads to a deeper, more meaningful, relevant, and intimate relationship with God.

Characteristics of Spiritual Growth on the Christian Journey

The Christian Journey is a process of learning and growing. It is a process of coming to know ourselves honestly and our Creator intimately.
It is a process of receiving healing for emotional pain and harmful ways of thinking.
We learn to hear God’s voice more clearly.
We learn to recognize and practice the presence of God.
It is a dynamic process of growing toward wholeness emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
Through this growth process, we grow into who God created us to be in His original design.
The process helps us to get to know ourselves honestly and Creator intimately.

[1] Exod 3:1; Isa 2:3; Ezek 28:13-14,16 ; Ezek 28:13-14.

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The Concept of Religion

It is common today to take the concept religion as a taxon for sets of social practices, a category-concept whose paradigmatic examples are the so-called “world” religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism. [ 1 ] Perhaps equally paradigmatic, though somewhat trickier to label, are forms of life that have not been given a name, either by practitioners or by observers, but are common to a geographical area or a group of people—for example, the religion of China or that of ancient Rome, the religion of the Yoruba or that of the Cherokee. In short, the concept is today used for a genus of social formations that includes several members, a type of which there are many tokens.

The concept religion did not originally refer to a social genus, however. Its earliest references were not to social kinds and, over time, the extension of the concept has evolved in different directions, to the point that it threatens incoherence. As Paul Griffiths notes, listening to the discussions about the concept religion

rapidly suggests the conclusion that hardly anyone has any idea what they are talking about—or, perhaps more accurately, that there are so many different ideas in play about what religion is that conversations in which the term figures significantly make the difficulties in communication at the Tower of Babel seem minor and easily dealt with. These difficulties are apparent, too, in the academic study of religion, and they go far toward an explanation of why the discipline has no coherent or widely shared understanding of its central topic. (2000: 30)

This entry therefore provides a brief history of the how the semantic range of religion has grown and shifted over the years, and then considers two philosophical issues that arise for the contested concept, issues that are likely to arise for other abstract concepts used to sort cultural types (such as “literature”, “democracy”, or “culture” itself). First, the disparate variety of practices now said to fall within this category raises a question of whether one can understand this social taxon in terms of necessary and sufficient properties or whether instead one should instead treat it as a family resemblance concept. Here, the question is whether the concept religion can be said to have an essence. Second, the recognition that the concept has shifted its meanings, that it arose at a particular time and place but was unknown elsewhere, and that it has so often been used to denigrate certain cultures, raises the question whether the concept corresponds to any kind of entity in the world at all or whether, instead, it is simply a rhetorical device that should be retired. This entry therefore considers the rise of critical and skeptical analyses of the concept, including those that argue that the term refers to nothing.

1. A History of the Concept

2.1 monothetic approaches, 2.2 polythetic approaches, 3. reflexivity, reference, and skepticism, other internet resources, related entries.

The concept religion did not originally refer to a social genus or cultural type. It was adapted from the Latin term religio , a term roughly equivalent to “scrupulousness”. Religio also approximates “conscientiousness”, “devotedness”, or “felt obligation”, since religio was an effect of taboos, promises, curses, or transgressions, even when these were unrelated to the gods. In western antiquity, and likely in many or most cultures, there was a recognition that some people worshipped different gods with commitments that were incompatible with each other and that these people constituted social groups that could be rivals. In that context, one sometimes sees the use of nobis religio to mean “our way of worship”. Nevertheless, religio had a range of senses and so Augustine could consider but reject it as the right abstract term for “how one worships God” because the Latin term (like the Latin terms for “cult” and “service”) was used for the observance of duties in both one’s divine and one’s human relationships (Augustine City of God [1968: Book X, Chapter 1, 251–253]). In the Middle Ages, as Christians developed monastic orders in which one took vows to live under a specific rule, they called such an order religio (and religiones for the plural), though the term continued to be used, as it had been in antiquity, in adjective form to describe those who were devout and in noun form to refer to worship (Biller 1985: 358; Nongbri 2013: ch. 2).

The most significant shift in the history of the concept is when people began to use religion as a genus of which Christian and non-Christian groups were species. One sees a clear example of this use in the writings of Edward Herbert (1583–1648). As the post-Reformation Christian community fractured into literal warring camps, Herbert sought to remind the different protesting groups of what they nevertheless had in common. Herbert identified five “articles” or “elements” that he proposed were found in every religion, which he called the Common Notions, namely: the beliefs that

there is a supreme deity, [ 2 ]
this deity should be worshipped,
the most important part of religious practice is the cultivation of virtue,
one should seek repentance for wrong-doing, and
one is rewarded or punished in this life and the next.

Ignoring rituals and group membership, this proposal takes an idealized Protestant monotheism as the model of religion as such. Herbert was aware of peoples who worshipped something other than a single supreme deity. He noted that ancient Egyptians, for instance, worshipped multiple gods and people in other cultures worshipped celestial bodies or forces in nature. Herbert might have argued that, lacking a belief in a supreme deity, these practices were not religions at all but belonged instead in some other category such as superstition, heresy, or magic. But Herbert did include them, arguing that they were religions because the multiple gods were actually servants to or even aspects of the one supreme deity, and those who worshiped natural forces worshipped the supreme deity “in His works”.

The concept religion understood as a social genus was increasingly put to use by to European Christians as they sought to categorize the variety of cultures they encountered as their empires moved into the Americas, South Asia, East Asia, Africa, and Oceania. In this context, fed by reports from missionaries and colonial administrators, the extension of the generic concept was expanded. The most influential example is that of anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917) who had a scholarly interest in pre-Columbian Mexico. Like Herbert, Tylor sought to identify the common denominator of all religions, what Tylor called a “minimal definition” of religion, and he proposed that the key characteristic was “belief in spiritual beings” (1871 [1970: 8]). This generic definition included the forms of life predicated on belief in a supreme deity that Herbert had classified as religion. But it could also now include—without Herbert’s procrustean assumption that these practices were really directed to one supreme being—the practices used by Hindus, ancient Athenians, and the Navajo to connect to the gods they revere, the practices used by Mahayana Buddhists to connect to Bodhisattvas, and the practices used by Malagasy people to connect to the cult of the dead. The use of a unifying concept for such diverse practices is deliberate on Tylor’s part as he sought to undermine assumptions that human cultures poorly understood in Christian Europe—especially those despised ones, “painted black on the missionary maps” (1871 [1970: 4])—were not on the very same spectrum as the religion of his readers. This opposition to dividing European and non-European cultures into separate categories underlies Tylor’s insistence that all human beings are equivalent in terms of their intelligence. He argued that so-called “primitive” peoples generate their religious ideas when they wrestle with the same questions that all people do, such as the biological question of what explains life, and they do so with the same cognitive capacities. They may lack microscopes or telescopes, but Tylor claims that they seek to answer these questions in ways that are “rational”, “consistent”, and “logical”. Tylor repeatedly calls the Americans, Africans, and Asians he studies “thinking men” and “philosophers”. Tylor was conscious that the definition he proposed was part of a shift: though it was still common to describe some people as so primitive that they had no religion, Tylor complains that those who speak this way are guilty of “the use of wide words in narrow senses” because they are only willing to describe as religion practices that resemble their own expectations (1871 [1970: 3–4]).

In the twentieth century, one sees a third and last growth spurt in the extension of the concept. Here the concept religion is enlarged to include not only practices that connect people to one or more spirits, but also practices that connect people to “powers” or “forces” that lack minds, wills, and personalities. One sees this shift in the work of William James, for example, when he writes,

Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto. (1902 [1985: 51]; cf. Proudfoot 2000)

By an “unseen order”, James presumably means a structure that is non-empirical, though he is not clear about why the term would not also include political, economic, or other invisible but human-created orders. The same problem plagues James’s description of “a MORE” operating in the universe that is similar to but outside oneself (1902 [1985: 400], capitalization in the original). The anthropologist Clifford Geertz addresses this issue, also defining religion in terms of an “order” but specifying that he means practices tied to conceptions of “a general order of existence”, that is, as he also says, something whose existence is “fundamental”, “all-pervading”, or “unconditioned” (1973: 98, emphasis added). The practices that are distinctly religious for Geertz are those tied to a culture’s metaphysics or worldview, their conception of “the overall shape of reality” (1973: 104). Like James, then, Geertz would include as religions not only the forms of life based on the theistic and polytheistic (or, more broadly, animist or spiritualist) beliefs that Herbert and Tylor recognized, but also those based on belief in the involuntary, spontaneous, or “natural” operations of the law of karma, the Dao in Daoism, the Principle in Neo-Confucianism, and the Logos in Stoicism. This expansion also includes Theravada Buddhism because dependent co-origination ( pratītyasamutpāda ) is a conception of the general order of existence and it includes Zen Buddhism because Buddha-nature is said to pervade everything. This third expansion is why non-theistic forms of Buddhism, excluded by the Herbert’s and Tylor’s definitions but today widely considered religions, can serve as “a litmus test” for definitions of the concept (Turner 2011: xxiii; cf. Southwold 1978). In sum, then, one can think of the growth of the social genus version of the concept religion as analogous to three concentric circles—from a theistic to a polytheistic and then to a cosmic (or “cosmographic” [Dubuisson 1998]) criterion. Given the near-automatic way that Buddhism is taken as a religion today, the cosmic version now seems to be the dominant one.

Some scholars resist this third expansion of the concept and retain a Tylorean definition, and it is true that there is a marked difference between practices that do and practices that do not involve interacting with person-like beings. In the former, anthropomorphic cases, practitioners can ask for help, make offerings, and pray with an understanding that they are heard. In the latter, non-anthropomorphic cases, practitioners instead typically engage in actions that put themselves “in accord with” the order of things. The anthropologist Robert Marett marks this difference between the last two extensions of the concept religion by distinguishing between “animism” and “animatism” (1909), the philosopher John Hick by distinguishing between religious “personae” and religious “impersonae” (1989: ch. 14–15). This difference raises a philosophical question: on what grounds can one place the practices based on these two kinds of realities in the same category? The many loa spirits, the creator Allah, and the all-pervading Dao are not available to the methods of the natural sciences, and so they are often called “supernatural”. If that term works, then religions in all three concentric circles can be understood as sets of practices predicated on belief in the supernatural. However, “supernatural” suggests a two-level view of reality that separates the empirically available natural world from some other realm metaphorically “above” or “behind” it. Many cultures lack or reject a distinction between natural and supernatural (Saler 1977, 2021). They believe that disembodied persons or powers are not in some otherworldly realm but rather on the top of a certain mountain, in the depths of the forest, or “everywhere”. To avoid the assumption of a two-level view of reality, then, some scholars have replaced supernatural with other terms, such as “superhuman”. Hick uses the term “transcendent”:

the putative reality which transcends everything other than itself but is not transcended by anything other than itself. (1993: 164)

In order to include loa , Allah, and the Dao but to exclude nations and economies, Kevin Schilbrack (2013) proposes the neologism “superempirical” to refer to non-empirical things that are also not the product of any empirical thing. Wouter Hanegraaff (1995), following J. G. Platvoet (1982: 30) uses “meta-empirical”. Whether a common element can be identified that will coherently ground a substantive definition of “religion” is not a settled question.

Despite this murkiness, all three of these versions are “substantive” definitions of religion because they determine membership in the category in terms of the presence of a belief in a distinctive kind of reality. In the twentieth century, however, one sees the emergence of an importantly different approach: a definition that drops the substantive element and instead defines the concept religion in terms of a distinctive role that a form of life can play in one’s life—that is, a “functional” definition. One sees a functional approach in Emile Durkheim (1912), who defines religion as whatever system of practices unite a number of people into a single moral community (whether or not those practices involve belief in any unusual realities). Durkheim’s definition turns on the social function of creating solidarity. One also sees a functional approach in Paul Tillich (1957), who defines religion as whatever dominant concern serves to organize a person’s values (whether or not that concern involve belief in any unusual realities). Tillich’s definition turns on the axiological function of providing orientation for a person’s life.

Substantive and functional approaches can produce non-overlapping extensions for the concept. Famously, a functional approach can hold that even atheistic forms of capitalism, nationalism, and Marxism function as religions. The literature on these secular institutions as functionally religions is massive. As Trevor Ling says,

the bulk of literature supporting the view that Marxism is a religion is so great that it cannot easily be set aside. (1980: 152)

On capitalism as a religion, see, e.g., McCarraher (2019); on nationalism, see, e.g., Omer and Springs (2013: ch. 2). One functionalist might count white supremacy as a religion (Weed 2019; Finley et al. 2020) and another might count anti-racism as a religion (McWhorter 2021). Here, celebrities can reach a religious status and fandom can be one’s religious identity (e.g., Lofton 2011; Lovric 2020). Without a supernatural, transcendent, or superempirical element, these phenomena would not count as religious for Herbert, Tylor, James, or Geertz. Conversely, interactions with supernatural beings may be categorized on a functional approach as something other than religion. For example, the Thai villager who wears an apotropaic amulet and avoids the forest because of a belief that malevolent spirits live there, or the ancient Roman citizen who takes a bird to be sacrificed in a temple before she goes on a journey are for Durkheim examples of magic rather than religion, and for Tillich quotidian rather than ultimate concerns.

It is sometimes assumed that to define religion as a social genus is to treat it as something universal, as something that appears in every human culture. It is true that some scholars have treated religion as pan-human. For example, when a scholar defines religion functionally as the beliefs and practices that generate social cohesion or as the ones that provide orientation in life, then religion names an inevitable feature of the human condition. The universality of religion that one then finds is not a discovery but a product of one’s definition. However, a social genus can be both present in more than one culture without being present in all of them, and so one can define religion , either substantively or functionally, in ways that are not universal. As common as beliefs in disembodied spirits or cosmological orders have been in human history, for instance, there were people in the past and there are people in the present who have no views of an afterlife, supernatural beings, or explicit metaphysics.

2. Two Kinds of Analysis of the Concept

The history of the concept religion above shows how its senses have shifted over time. A concept used for scrupulous devotion was retooled to refer to a particular type of social practice. But the question—what type?—is now convoluted. The cosmic version of the concept is broader than the polytheistic version, which is in turn broader than the theistic version, and the functional definitions shift the sense of the term into a completely different register. What is counted as religion by one definition is often not counted by others. How might this disarray be understood? Does the concept have a structure? This section distinguishes between two kinds of answer to these questions. Most of the attempts to analyze the term have been “monothetic” in that they operate with the classical view that every instance that is accurately described by a concept will share a defining property that puts them in that category. The last several decades, however, have seen the emergence of “polythetic” approaches that abandon the classical view and treat religion , instead, as having a prototype structure. For incisive explanations of the classical theory and the prototype theory of concepts, see Laurence and Margolis (1999).

Monothetic approaches use a single property (or a single set of properties) as the criterion that determines whether a concept applies. The key to a monothetic approach is that it proposes necessary and sufficient conditions for membership in the given class. That is, a monothetic approach claims that there is some characteristic, or set of them, found in every religion and that if a form of life has it, then that form of life is a religion. Most definitions of the concept religion have been of this type. For example, as we saw above, Edward Tylor proposes belief in spiritual beings as his minimal definition of religion, and this is a substantive criterion that distinguishes religion from non-religion in terms of belief in this particular kind of entity. Similarly, Paul Tillich proposes ultimate concern as a functional criterion that distinguishes religion from non-religion in terms of what serves this particular role in one’s life. These are single criterion monothetic definitions.

There are also monothetic definitions that define religion in terms of a single set of criteria. Herbert’s five Common Notions are an early example. More recently, Clifford Geertz (1973: ch. 4) proposes a definition that he breaks down into five elements:

a system of symbols
about the nature of things,
that inculcate dispositions for behavior
through ritual and cultural performance, [ 3 ]
so that the conceptions held by the group are taken as real.

One can find each of these five elements separately, of course: not all symbols are religious symbols; historians (but not novelists) typically consider their conceptions factual; and so on. For Geertz, however, any religious form of life will have all five. Aware of functional approaches like that of Tillich, Geertz is explicit that symbols and rituals that lack reference to a metaphysical framework—that is, those without the substantive element he requires as his (2)—would be secular and not religious, no matter how intense or important one’s feelings about them are (1973: 98). Reference to a metaphysical entity or power is what marks the other four elements as religious. Without it, Geertz writes, “the empirical differentia of religious activity or religious experience would not exist” (1973: 98). As a third example, Bruce Lincoln (2006: ch. 1) enumerates four elements that a religion would have, namely:

“a discourse whose concerns transcend the human, temporal, and contingent, and that claims for itself a similarly transcendent status”,
practices connected to that discourse,
people who construct their identity with reference to that discourse and those practices, and
institutional structures to manage those people.

This definition is monothetic since, for Lincoln, religions always have these four features “at a minimum” (2006: 5). [ 4 ] To be sure, people constantly engage in practices that generate social groups that then have to be maintained and managed by rules or authorities. However, when the practices, communities, and institutions lack the distinctive kind of discourse that claims transcendent status for itself, they would not count for Lincoln as religions.

It is worth noting that when a monothetic definition includes multiple criteria, one does not have to choose between the substantive and functional strategies for defining religion , but can instead include both. If a monothetic definition include both strategies, then, to count as a religion, a form of life would have to refer to a distinctive substantive reality and also play a certain role in the participants’ lives. This double-sided approach avoids the result of purely substantive definitions that might count as religion a feckless set of beliefs (for instance, “something must have created the world”) unconnected from the believers’ desires and behavior, while also avoiding the result of purely functional definitions that might count as religion some universal aspect of human existence (for instance, creating collective effervescence or ranking of one’s values). William James’s definition of religion (“the belief that there is an unseen order, and our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto”) is double-sided in this way, combining a belief in the existence of a distinctive referent with the spiritual disciplines with which one seeks to embody that belief. Geertz’s definition of religion also required both substantive and functional aspects, which he labelled “worldview” and “ethos” (1973: ch. 5). To treat religion as “both/and” in this way is to refuse to abstract one aspect of a complex social reality but instead recognizes, as Geertz puts it, both “the dispositional and conceptual aspects of religious life” (1973: 113). [ 5 ]

These “monothetic-set definitions” treat the concept of religion as referring to a multifaceted or multidimensional complex. It may seem avant garde today to see religion described as a “constellation”, “assemblage”, “network”, or “system”, but in fact to treat religion as a complex is not new. Christian theologians traditionally analyzed the anatomy of their way of life as simultaneously fides , fiducia , and fidelitas . Each of these terms might be translated into English as “faith”, but each actually corresponds to a different dimension of a social practice. Fides refers to a cognitive state, one in which a person assents to a certain proposition and takes it as true. It could be translated as “belief” or “intellectual commitment”. Beliefs or intellectual commitments distinctive to participation in the group will be present whether or not a religious form of life has developed any authoritative doctrines. In contrast, fiducia refers to an affective state in which a person is moved by a feeling or experience that is so positive that it bonds the recipient to its source. It could be translated as “trust” or “emotional commitment”. Trust or emotional commitment will be present whether or not a religious form of life teaches that participation in their practices aims at some particular experience of liberation, enlightenment, or salvation. And fidelitas refers to a conative state in which a person commits themselves to a path of action, a path that typically involves emulating certain role models and inculcating the dispositions that the group considers virtuous. It could be translated as “loyalty” or “submission”. Loyalty or submission will be present whether or not a religious form of life is theistic or teaches moral rules. By the time of Martin Luther, Christian catechisms organized these aspects of religious life in terms of the “three C’s”: the creed one believed, the cult or worship one offered, and the code one followed. When Tillich (1957: ch. 2) argues that religious faith is distorted when one treats it not as a complex but instead as a function of the intellect alone, emotion alone, or the will alone, he is speaking from within this tradition. These three dimensions of religious practices—symbolically, the head, the heart, and the hand—are not necessarily Christian. In fact, until one adds a delimiting criterion like those discussed above, these dimensions are not even distinctively religious. Creed, cult, and code correspond to any pursuit of what a people considers true, beautiful, and good, respectively, and they will be found in any collective movement or cultural tradition. As Melford Spiro says, any human institution will involve a belief system, a value system, and an action system (Spiro 1966: 98).

Many have complained that arguments about how religion should be defined seem unresolvable. To a great extent, however, this is because these arguments have not simply been about a particular aspect of society but rather have served as proxy in a debate about the structure of human subjectivity. There is deep agreement among the rival positions insofar as they presuppose the cognitive-affective-conative model of being human. However, what we might call a “Cartesian” cohort argues that cognition is the root of religious emotions and actions. This cohort includes the “intellectualists” whose influence stretches from Edward Tylor and James Frazer to E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Robin Horton, Jack Goody, Melford Spiro, Stewart Guthrie, and J. Z. Smith, and it shapes much of the emerging field of cognitive science of religion (e.g., Boyer 2001). [ 6 ] A “Humean” cohort disagrees, arguing that affect is what drives human behavior and that cognition serves merely to justify the values one has already adopted. In theology and religious studies, this feelings-centered approach is identified above all with the work of Friedrich Schleiermacher and Rudolf Otto, and with the tradition called phenomenology of religion, but it has had a place in anthropology of religion since Robert Marett (Tylor’s student), and it is alive and well in the work of moral intuitionists (e.g., Haidt 2012) and affect theory (e.g., Schaefer 2015). A “Kantian” cohort treats beliefs and emotions regarding supernatural realities as relatively unimportant and argues instead that for religion the will is basic. [ 7 ] This approach treats a religion as at root a set of required actions (e.g., Vásquez 2011; C. Smith 2017). These different approaches disagree about the essence of religion, but all three camps operate within a shared account of the human. Thus, when William James describes religion as

the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual [people] in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. (1902 [1985: 34])

he is foregrounding an affective view and playing down (though not denying) the cognitive. When James’s Harvard colleague Alfred North Whitehead corrects him, saying that “[r]eligion is what a person does with their solitariness” (1926: 3, emphasis added), Whitehead stresses the conative, though Whitehead also insists that feelings always play a role. These are primarily disagreements of emphasis that do not trouble this model of human subjectivity. There have been some attempts to leave this three-part framework. For example, some in the Humean camp have suggested that religion is essentially a particular feeling with zero cognition. But that romantic suggestion collapses under the inability to articulate how an affective state can be noncognitive but still identifiable as a particular feeling (Proudfoot 1985).

Although the three-sided model of the true, the beautiful, and the good is a classic account of what any social group explicitly and implicitly teaches, one aspect is still missing. To recognize the always-presupposed material reality of the people who constitute the social group, even when this reality has not been conceptualized by the group’s members, one should also include the contributions of their bodies, habits, physical culture, and social structures. To include this dimension mnemonically, one can add a “fourth C”, for community. Catherine Albanese (1981) may have been the first to propose the idea of adding this materialist dimension. Ninian Smart’s famous anatomy of religion (1996) has seven dimensions, not four, but the two models are actually very similar. Smart calls the affective dimension the “experiential and emotional”, and then divides the cognitive dimension into two (“doctrinal and philosophical” and “narrative and mythological”), the conative into two (“ethical and legal” and “ritual”), and the communal into two (“social and institutional” and “material”). In an attempt to dislodge the focus on human subjectivity found in the three Cs, some have argued that the material dimension is the source of the others. They argue, in other words, that the cognitive, affective, and conative aspects of the members of a social group are not the causes but rather the effects of the group’s structured practices (e.g., Asad 1993: ch. 1–4; Lopez 1998). Some argue that to understand religion in terms of beliefs, or even in terms of any subjective states, reflects a Protestant bias and that scholars of religion should therefore shift attention from hidden mental states to the visible institutional structures that produce them. Although the structure/agency debate is still live in the social sciences, it is unlikely that one can give a coherent account of religion in terms of institutions or disciplinary practices without reintroducing mental states such as judgements, decisions, and dispositions (Schilbrack 2021).

Whether a monothetic approach focuses on one essential property or a set, and whether that essence is the substance or the function of the religion, those using this approach ask a Yes/No question regarding a single criterion. This approach therefore typically produces relatively clear lines between what is and is not religion. Given Tylor’s monothetic definition, for instance, a form of life must include belief in spiritual beings to be a religion; a form of life lacking this property would not be a religion, even if it included belief in a general order of existence that participants took as their ultimate concern, and even if that form of life included rituals, ethics, and scriptures. In a famous discussion, Melford Spiro (1966) works with a Tylorean definition and argues exactly this: lacking a belief in superhuman beings, Theravada Buddhism, for instance, is something other than a religion. [ 8 ] For Spiro, there is nothing pejorative about this classification.

Having combatted the notion that “we” have religion (which is “good”) and “they” have superstition (which is “bad”), why should we be dismayed if it be discovered that that society x does not have religion as we have defined the term? (1966: 88)

That a concept always corresponds to something possessing a defining property is a very old idea. This assumption undergirds Plato’s Euthyphro and other dialogues in which Socrates pushes his interlocutors to make that hidden, defining property explicit, and this pursuit has provided a model for much not only of philosophy, but of the theorizing in all fields. The traditional assumption is that every entity has some essence that makes it the thing it is, and every instance that is accurately described by a concept of that entity will have that essence. The recent argument that there is an alternative structure—that a concept need not have necessary and sufficient criteria for its application—has been called a “conceptual revolution” (Needham 1975: 351), “one of the greatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made of late years in the republic of letters” (Bambrough 1960–1: 207).

In discussions of the concept religion , this anti-essentialist approach is usually traced to Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953, posthumous). Wittgenstein argues that, in some cases, when one considers the variety of instances described with a given concept, one sees that among them there are multiple features that “crop up and disappear”, the result being “a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing” (Wittgenstein 1953, §68). The instances falling under some concepts lack a single defining property but instead have a family resemblance to each other in that each one resembles some of the others in different ways. All polythetic approaches reject the monothetic idea that a concept requires necessary and sufficient criteria. But unappreciated is the fact that polythetic approaches come in different kinds, operating with different logics. Here are three.

The most basic kind of polythetic approach holds that membership in a given class is not determined by the presence of a single crucial characteristic. Instead, the concept maps a cluster of characteristics and, to count as a member of that class, a particular case has to have a certain number of them, no particular one of which is required. To illustrate, imagine that there are five characteristics typical of religions (call this the “properties set”) and that, to be a religion, a form of life has to have a minimum of three of them (call this the “threshold number”). Because this illustration limits the number of characteristics in the properties set, I will call this first kind a “bounded” polythetic approach. For example, the five religion-making characteristics could be these:

belief in superempirical beings or powers,
ethical norms,
worship rituals,
participation believed to bestow benefits on participants, and
those who participate in this form of life see themselves as a distinct community.

Understanding the concept religion in this polythetic way produces a graded hierarchy of instances. [ 9 ] A form of life that has all five of these characteristics would be a prototypical example of a religion. Historically speaking, prototypical examples of the concept are likely to be instances to which the concept was first applied. Psychologically speaking, they are also likely to be the example that comes to mind first to those who use the concept. For instance, robins and finches are prototypical examples of a bird, and when one is prompted to name a bird, people are more likely to name a robin or a finch than an ostrich or a penguin. A form of life that has only four of these characteristics would nevertheless still be a clear example of a religion. [ 10 ] If a form of life has only three, then it would be a borderline example. A form of life that has only two of these characteristics would not be included in the category, though such cases might be considered “quasi-religions” and they might be the most interesting social forms to compare to religions (J. E. Smith 1994). A form of life that only had one of the five characteristics would be unremarkable. The forms of life that had three, four, or five of these characteristics would not be an unrelated set but rather a “family” with multiple shared features, but no one characteristic (not even belief in superempirical beings or powers) possessed by all of them. On this polythetic approach, the concept religion has no essence, and a member of this family that only lacked one of the five characteristics— no matter which one —would still clearly be a religion. [ 11 ] As Benson Saler (1993) points out, one can use this non-essentialist approach not only for the concept religion but also for the elements within a religion (sacrifice, scripture, and so on) and to individual religions (Christianity, Hinduism, and so on).

Some have claimed that, lacking an essence, polythetic approaches to religion make the concept so vague that it becomes useless (e.g., Fitzgerald 2000: 72–3; Martin 2009: 167). Given the focused example of a “bounded” approach in the previous paragraph and the widespread adoption of polythetic approaches in the biological sciences, this seems clearly false. However, it is true that one must pay attention to the parameters at work in a polythetic approach. Using a properties set with only five elements produces a very focused class, but the properties set is simply a list of similarities among at least two of the members of a class, and since the class of religions might have hundreds of members, one could easily create a properties set that is much bigger. Not long after Wittgenstein’s death, a “bounded” polythetic approach was applied to the concept religion by William Alston who identified nine religion-making characteristics. [ 12 ] Southwold (1978) has twelve; Rem Edwards (1972) has fourteen and leaves room for more. But there is no reason why one might not work with a properties set for religion with dozens or even hundreds of shared properties. Half a century ago, Rodney Needham (1975: 361) mentions a computer program that sorted 1500 different bacterial strains according to 200 different properties. As J. Z. Smith (1982: ch. 1) argues, treating the concept religion in this way can lead to surprising discoveries of patterns within the class and the co-appearance of properties that can lead to explanatory theories. The second key parameter for a polythetic approach is the threshold number. Alston does not stipulate the number of characteristics a member of the class has to have, saying simply, “When enough of these characteristics are present to a sufficient degree, we have a religion” (1967: 142). Needham (1975) discusses the sensible idea that each member has a majority of the properties, but this is not a requirement of polythetic approaches. The critics are right that as one increases the size of the properties set and decreases the threshold number, the resulting category becomes more and more diffuse. This can produce a class that is so sprawling that it is difficult to use for empirical study.

Scholars of religion who have used a polythetic approach have typically worked with a “bounded” approach (that is, with a properties set that is fixed), but this is not actually the view for which Wittgenstein himself argues. Wittgenstein’s goal is to draw attention to the fact that the actual use of concepts is typically not bound: “the extension of the concept is not closed by a frontier” (Wittgenstein 1953, §67). We can call this an “open” polythetic approach. To grasp the open approach, consider a group of people who have a concept they apply to a certain range of instances. In time, a member of the group encounters something new that resembles the other instances enough in her eyes that she applies the concept to it. When the linguistic community adopts this novel application, the extension of the concept grows. If their use of the concept is “open”, however, then, as the group adds a new member to the category named by a concept, properties of that new member that had not been part of the earlier uses can be added to the properties set and thereby increase the range of legitimate applications of the concept in the future. We might say that a bounded polythetic approach produces concepts that are fuzzy, and an open polythetic approach produces concepts that are fuzzy and evolving . Timothy Williamson calls this “the dynamic quality of family resemblance concepts” (1994: 86). One could symbolize the shift of properties over time this way:

Wittgenstein famously illustrated this open polythetic approach with the concept game , and he also applied it to the concepts of language and number (Wittgenstein 1953, §67). If we substitute our concept as Wittgenstein’s example, however, his treatment fits religion just as well:

Why do we call something a “religion”? Well, perhaps because it has a direct relationship with several things that have hitherto been called religion; and this can be said to give an indirect relationship to other things we call the same name. (Wittgenstein 1953, §67)

Given an open polythetic approach, a concept evolves in the light of the precedents that speakers recognize, although, over time, what people come to label with the concept can become very different from the original use.

In the academic study of religions, discussions of monothetic and polythetic approaches have primarily been in service of developing a definition of the term. [ 13 ] How can alternate definitions of religion be assessed? If one were to offer a lexical definition (that is, a description of what the term means in common usage, as with a dictionary definition), then the definition one offers could be shown to be wrong. In common usage, for example, Buddhism typically is considered a religion and capitalism typically is not. On this point, some believe erroneously that one can correct a definition by pointing to some fact about the referents of the term. One sees this assumption, for example, in those who argue that the western discovery of Buddhism shows that theistic definitions of religion are wrong (e.g., Southwold 1978: 367). One can correct a real or lexical definition in this way, but not a stipulative definition, that is, a description of the meaning that one assigns to the term. When one offers a stipulative definition, that definition cannot be wrong. Stipulative definitions are assessed not by whether they are true or false but rather by their usefulness, and that assessment will be purpose-relative (cf. Berger 1967: 175). De Muckadell (2014) rejects stipulative definitions of religion for this reason, arguing that one cannot critique them and that they force scholars simply to “accept whatever definition is offered”. She gives the example of a problematic stipulative definition of religion as “ice-skating while singing” which, she argues, can only be rejected by using a real definition of religion that shows the ice-skating definition to be false. However, even without knowing the real essence of religion, one can critique a stipulative definition, either for being less adequate or appropriate for a particular purpose (such as studying forms of life across cultures) or, as with the ice-skating example, for being so far from a lexical definition that it is adequate or appropriate for almost no purpose.

Polythetic definitions are increasingly popular today as people seek to avoid the claim that an evolving social category has an ahistorical essence. [ 14 ] However, the difference between these two approaches is not that monothetic definitions fasten on a single property whereas polythetic definitions recognize more. Monothetic definitions can be multifactorial, as we have seen, and they can recognize just as many properties that are “common” or even “typical” of religions, without being essential. The difference is also not that the monothetic identification of the essence of religion reflects an ethnocentrism that polythetic approaches avoid. The polythetic identification of a prototypical religion is equally ethnocentric. The difference between them, rather, is that a monothetic definition sorts instances with a Yes/No mechanism and is therefore digital, and a polythetic definition produces gradations and is therefore analog. It follows that a monothetic definition treats a set of instances that all possess the one defining property as equally religion, whereas a polythetic definition produces a gray area for instances that are more prototypical or less so. This makes a monothetic definition superior for cases (for example, legal cases) in which one seeks a Yes/No answer. Even if an open polythetic approach accurately describes how a concept operates, therefore, one might, for purposes of focus or clarity, prefer to work with a closed polythetic account that limits the properties set, or even with a monothetic approach that limits the properties set to one. That is, one might judge that it is valuable to treat the concept religion as structurally fuzzy or temporally fluid, but nevertheless place boundaries on the forms of life one will compare.

This strategy gives rise to a third kind of polythetic approach, one that stipulates that one property (or one set of properties) is required. Call this an “anchored” polythetic definition. Consistently treating concepts as tools, Wittgenstein suggests this “anchored” idea when he writes that when we look at the history of a concept,

what we see is something constantly fluctuating … [but we might nevertheless] set over against this fluctuation something more fixed, just as one paints a stationary picture of the constantly altering face of the landscape. (1974: 77)

Given a stipulated “anchor”, a concept will then possess a necessary property, and this property reintroduces essentialism. Such a definition nevertheless still reflects a polythetic approach because the presence of the required property is not sufficient to make something a religion. To illustrate this strategy, one might stipulate that the only forms of life one will consider a religion will include

(thereby excluding nationalism and capitalism, for example), but the presence of this property does not suffice to count this form of life as a religion. Consider the properties set introduced above that also includes

If the threshold number is still three, then to be a religion, a form of life would have to have three of these properties, one of which must be (A) . An anchored definition of religion like this would have the benefits of the other polythetic definitions. For example, it would not produce a clear line between religion and nonreligion but would instead articulate gradations between different forms of life (or between versions of one form of life at different times) that are less or more prototypically religious. However, given its anchor, it would produce a more focused range of cases. [ 15 ] In this way, the use of an anchor might both reflect the contemporary cosmological view of the concept religion and also address the criticism that polythetic approaches make a concept too vague.

Over the past forty years or so, there has been a reflexive turn in the social sciences and humanities as scholars have pulled the camera back, so to speak, to examine the constructed nature of the objects previously taken for granted as unproblematically “there”. Reflexive scholars have argued that the fact that what counts as religion shifts according to one’s definition reflects an arbitrariness in the use of the term. They argue that the fact that religion is not a concept found in all cultures but rather a tool invented at a certain time and place, by certain people for their own purposes, and then imposed on others, reveals its political character. The perception that religion is a politically motivated conceptual invention has therefore led some to skepticism about whether the concept picks out something real in the world. As with instrumentalism in philosophy of science, then, reflection on religion has raised doubts about the ontological status of the referent of one’s technical term.

A watershed text for the reflexive turn regarding the concept religion is Jonathan Z. Smith’s Imagining Religion (1982). Smith engages simultaneously in comparing religions and in analyzing the scholarly practice of comparison. A central theme of his essays is that the concept religion (and subcategories such as world religions , Abrahamic faiths , or nonliterate traditions ) are not scientific terms but often reflect the unrecognized biases of those who use these concepts to sort their world into those who are or are not “like us”. [ 16 ] Smith shows that, again and again, the concept religion was shaped by implicit Protestant assumptions, if not explicit Protestant apologetics. In the short preface to that book, Smith famously says,

[ T ] here is no data for religion . Religion is solely the creation of the scholar’s study. It is created for the scholar’s analytic purposes by his imaginative acts of comparison and generalization. Religion has no independent existence apart from the academy. (1982: xi, italics in original)

This dramatic statement has sometimes been taken as Smith’s assertion that the concept religion has no referent. However, in his actual practice of comparing societies, Smith is not a nonrealist about religion . In the first place, he did not think that the constructed nature of religion was something particular to this concept: any judgement that two things were similar or different in some respect presupposed a process of selection, juxtaposition, and categorization by the observer. This is the process of imagination in his book’s title. Second, Smith did not think that the fact that concepts were human products undermined the possibility that they successfully corresponded to entities in the world: an invented concept for social structures can help one discover religion—not “invent” it—even in societies whose members did not know the concept. [ 17 ] His slogan is that one’s (conceptual) map is not the same as and should be tested and rectified by the (non-conceptual) territory (J. Z. Smith 1978). Lastly, Smith did not think that scholars should cease to use religion as a redescriptive or second-order category to study people in history who lacked a comparable concept. On the contrary, he chastised scholars of religion for resting within tradition-specific studies, avoiding cross-cultural comparisons, and not defending the coherence of the generic concept. He writes that scholars of religion should be

prepared to insist, in some explicit and coherent fashion, on the priority of some generic category of religion. (1995: 412; cf. 1998: 281–2)

Smith himself repeatedly uses religion and related technical terms he invented, such as “locative religion”, to illuminate social structures that operate whether or not those so described had named those structures themselves—social structures that exist, as his 1982 subtitle says, from Babylon to Jonestown.

The second most influential book in the reflexive turn in religious studies is Talal Asad’s Genealogies of Religion (1993). Adopting Michel Foucault’s “genealogical” approach, Asad seeks to show that the concept religion operating in contemporary anthropology has been shaped by assumptions that are Christian (insofar as one takes belief as a mental state characteristic of all religions) and modern (insofar as one treats religion as essentially distinct from politics). Asad’s Foucauldian point is that though people may have all kinds of religious beliefs, experiences, moods, or motivations, the mechanism that inculcates them will be the disciplining techniques of some authorizing power and for this reason one cannot treat religion as simply inner states. Like Smith, then, Asad asks scholars to shift their attention to the concept religion and to recognize that assumptions baked into the concept have distorted our grasp of the historical realities. However, also like Smith, Asad does not draw a nonrealist conclusion. [ 18 ] For Asad, religion names a real thing that would operate in the world even had the concept not been invented, namely, “a coherent existential complex” (2001: 217). Asad’s critical aim is not to undermine the idea that religion exists qua social reality but rather to undermine the idea that religion is essentially an interior state independent of social power. He points out that anthropologists like Clifford Geertz adopt a hermeneutic approach to culture that treats actions as if they are texts that say something, and this approach has reinforced the attention given to the meaning of religious symbols, deracinated from their social and historical context. Asad seeks to balance this bias for the subjective with a disciplinary approach that sees human subjectivity as also the product of social structures. Smith and Asad are therefore examples of scholars who critique the concept religion without denying that it can still refer to something in the world, something that exists even before it is named. They are able, so to speak, to look at one’s conceptual window without denying that the window provides a perspective on things outside.

Other critics have gone farther. They build upon the claims that the concept religion is an invented category and that its modern semantic expansion went hand in hand with European colonialism, and they argue that people should cease treating religion as if it corresponds to something that exists outside the sphere of modern European influence. It is common today to hear the slogan that there is no such “thing” as religion. In some cases, the point of rejecting thing-hood is to deny that religion names a category, all the instances of which focus on belief in the same kind of object—that is, the slogan is a rejection of substantive definitions of the concept (e.g., Possamai 2018: ch. 5). In this case, the objection bolsters a functional definition and does not deny that religion corresponds to a functionally distinct kind of form of life. Here, the “no such thing” claim reflects the unsettled question, mentioned above, about the grounds of substantive definitions of “religion”. In other cases, the point of this objection is to deny that religion names a defining characteristic of any kind—that is, the slogan is a rejection of all monothetic definitions of the concept. Perhaps religion (or a religion, like Judaism) should always be referred to in the plural (“Judaisms”) rather than the singular. In this case, the objection bolsters a polythetic definition and does not deny that religion corresponds to a distinct family of forms of life. Here, the “no such thing” claim rejects the assumption that religion has an essence. Despite their negativity, these two objections to the concept are still realist in that they do not deny that the phrase “a religion” can correspond to a form of life operating in the world.

More radically, one sees a denial of this realism, for example, in the critique offered by Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1962). Smith’s thesis is that in many different cultures, people developed a concept for the individuals they considered pious, but they did not develop a concept for a generic social entity, a system of beliefs and practices related to superempirical realities. Before modernity, “there is no such entity [as religion and] … the use of a plural, or with an article, is false” (1962: 326, 194; cf. 144). Smith recommends dropping religion . Not only did those so described lack the concept, but the use of the concept also treats people’s behavior as if the phrase “a religion” names something in addition to that behavior. A methodological individualist, Smith denies that groups have any reality not explained by the individuals who constitute them. What one finds in history, then, is religious people, and so the adjective is useful, but there are no religious entities above and beyond those people, and so the noun reifies an abstraction. Smith contends that

[n]either religion in general nor any one of the religions … is in itself an intelligible entity, a valid object of inquiry or of concern either for the scholar or for the [person] of faith. (1962: 12)

More radical still are the nonrealists who argue that the concepts religion, religions, and religious are all chimerical. Often drawing on post-structuralist arguments, these critics propose that the notion that religions exist is simply an illusion generated by the discourse about them (e.g., McCutcheon 1997; 2018; Fitzgerald 2000; 2007; 2017; Dubuisson 1998; 2019). As Timothy Fitzgerald writes, the concept religion

picks out nothing and it clarifies nothing … the word has no genuine analytical work to do and its continued use merely contributes to the general illusion that it has a genuine referent …. (2000: 17, 14; also 4)

Advocates of this position sometimes call their approach the “Critical Study of Religion” or simply “Critical Religion”, a name that signals their shift away from the pre-critical assumption that religion names entities in the world and to a focus on who invented the concept, the shifting contrast terms it has had, and the uses to which it has been put. [ 19 ] Like the concept of witches or the concept of biological races (e.g., Nye 2020), religion is a fiction (Fitzgerald 2015) or a fabrication (McCutcheon 2018), a concept invented and deployed not to respond to some reality in the world but rather to sort and control people. The classification of something as “religion” is not neutral but

a political activity, and one particularly related to the colonial and imperial situation of a foreign power rendering newly encountered societies digestible and manipulable in terms congenial to its own culture and agenda. (McCutcheon & Arnal 2012: 107)

As part of European colonial projects, the concept has been imposed on people who lacked it and did not consider anything in their society “their religion”. In fact, the concept was for centuries the central tool used to rank societies on a scale from primitive to civilized. To avoid this “conceptual violence” or “epistemic imperialism” (Dubuisson 2019: 137), scholars need to cease naturalizing this term invented in modern Europe and instead historicize it, uncovering the conditions that gave rise to the concept and the interests it serves. The study of religions outside Europe should end. As Timothy Fitzgerald writes, “The category ‘religion’ should be the object, not the tool, of analysis” (2000: 106; also 2017: 125; cf. McCutcheon 2018: 18).

Inspired by the post-structuralist critiques that religion does not apply to cultures that lack the concept, some historians have argued that the term should no longer be used to describe any premodern societies, even in Europe. For example, Brent Nongbri (2013), citing McCutcheon, argues that though it is common to speak of religions existing in the past, human history until the concept emerged in modernity is more accurately understood as a time “before religion”. His aim is “to dispel the commonly held idea that there is such a thing as ‘ancient religion’” (2013: 8). Citing Nongbri, Carlin Barton and Daniel Boyarin (2016) argue that the Latin religio and the Greek thrēskeia do not correspond to the modern understanding of religion and those studying antiquity should cease translating them with that concept. There was no “Roman religious reality”, they say (2016: 19). These historians suggest that if a culture does not have the concept of X , then the reality of X does not exist for that culture. Boyarin calls this position “nominalism”, arguing that religion is

not in any possible way a “real” object, an object that is historical or ontological, before the term comes to be used. (2017: 25)

These critics are right to draw attention to the fact that in the mind of most contemporary people, the concept religion does imply features that did not exist in ancient societies, but the argument that religion did not exist in antiquity involves a sleight of hand. None of these historians argues that people in antiquity did not believe in gods or other spiritual beings, did not seek to interact with them with sacrifices and other rituals, did not create temples or scriptures, and so on. If one uses Tylor’s definition of religion as belief in spiritual beings or James’s definition of religion as adjusting one’s life to an unseen order— or any of the other definitions considered in this entry —then religion did exist in antiquity. What these historians are pointing out is that ancient practices related to the gods permeated their cultures . As Nongbri puts it,

To be sure, ancient people had words to describe proper reverence of the gods, but … [t]he very idea of “being religious” requires a companion notion of what it would mean to be “not religious” and this dichotomy was not part of the ancient world; (2013: 4)

there was no “discrete sphere of religion existing prior to the modern period” (2019: 1, typo corrected). And Barton and Boyarin:

The point is not … that there weren’t practices with respect to “gods” (of whatever sort) but that these practices were not divided off into separate spheres …. (2016: 4)

Steve Mason also argues that religion did not exist in antiquity since religion is “a voluntary sphere of activity, separate in principle” from politics, work, entertainment, and military service (2019: 29). In short, what people later came to conceptualize as religion was in antiquity not a freestanding entity. The nominalist argument, in other words, adds to the definition of the concept religion a distinctively modern feature (usually some version of “the separation of church and state”), and then argues that the referent of this now-circumscribed concept did not exist in antiquity. Their argument is not that religion did not exist outside modernity, but that modern religion did not exist outside modernity.

These post-structuralist and nominalist arguments that deny that religion is “out there” have a realist alternative. According to this alternative, there is a world independent of human conceptualization, and something can be real and it can even affect one’s life, whether or not any human beings have identified it. This is true of things whose existence does not depend on collective agreement, like biochemical signaling cascades or radioactive beta particles, and it is equally true of things whose existence does depend on collective agreement, like kinship structures, linguistic rules, and religious commitments. A realist about social structures holds that a person can be in a bilateral kinship system, can speak a Uralic language, and can be a member of a religion—even if they lack these concepts.

This realist claim that social structures have existed without being conceptualized raises the question: if human beings had different ways of practicing religion since prehistoric times, why and when did people “finally” create the taxon? Almost every scholar involved in the reflexive turn says that religion is a modern invention. [ 20 ] The critique of the concept religion then becomes part of their critique of modernity. Given the potent uses of religion —to categorize certain cultures as godless and therefore inferior or, later, to categorize certain cultures as superstitious and therefore backwards—the significance of the critique of religion for postcolonial and decolonial scholarship is undeniable. Nevertheless, it is not plausible that modern Europeans were the first to want a generic concept for different ways of interacting with gods. It is easy to imagine that if the way that a people worship their gods permeates their work, art, and politics, and they do not know of alternative ways, then it would not be likely that they would have created a concept for it. There is little need for a generic concept that abstracts a particular aspect of one’s culture as one option out of many until one is in a sustained pluralistic situation. The actions that today are categorized as religious practices—burial rites, the making of offerings, the imitation of divinized ancestors—may have existed for tens of thousands of years without the practitioners experiencing that diversity or caring to name it. Nevertheless, it is likely that a desire to compare the rules by which different people live in relation to their gods would have emerged in many parts of the world long before modernity. One would expect to find people developing such social abstractions as cities and then empires emerged and their cultures came into contact with each other. From this realist perspective, it is no surprise that, according to the detailed and example-filled argument of Barton and Boyarin (2016), the first use of religion as a generic social category, distinct from the concept of politics , for the ways that people interact with gods is not a product of the Renaissance, the Reformation, or modern colonialism at all, but can be found in the writings of Josephus (37–c. 100 CE) and Tertullian (c. 155–c. 220 CE). [ 21 ] From the realist perspective, it is no surprise to see the development of analogous terms in medieval China, centuries before interaction with Europeans (Campany 2003, 2012, 2018) and in medieval Islam (Abbasi 2020, 2021). The emergence of social kinds does not wait on language, and the development of language for social kinds is not only a Western project. If this is right, then the development of a concept for religion as a social genus is at least two thousand years old, though the social reality so labeled would be much older.

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Mental Health Topics

Understanding Spirituality: A Journey Beyond Religion

Spirituality is a term that has been used and interpreted in various ways across different cultures and religious backgrounds. It often elicits images of prayer beads, mystic visions, or secluded meditation retreats. But what does spirituality truly mean? Is it just another word for religion, or does it encompass something broader, deeper, and more personal? In this article, we’ll delve into the realm of spirituality, exploring its definitions, dimensions, and how it can enrich our lives.

What is Spirituality?

Spirituality is the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. It often involves a search for meaning in life, a journey towards self-discovery, and the quest for a connection with something greater than oneself. Unlike religion, which is structured around a specific set of beliefs, rituals, and a community, spirituality is more individualistic and open to interpretation.

The Many Dimensions of Spirituality

1. inner peace.

One of the most significant aspects of spirituality is the pursuit of inner peace. This involves cultivating a sense of balance and harmony within oneself, often through practices like meditation, mindfulness, or prayer.

2. Connection

Spirituality often involves a sense of connection to a higher power, whether it’s God, the Universe, or simply the interconnectedness of all life.

3. Purpose and Meaning

Many people turn to spirituality to find a deeper sense of purpose or meaning in their lives, especially during times of crisis or change.

4. Ethics and Values

Spirituality can also involve a focus on ethical or value-based living, encouraging individuals to strive for qualities like compassion, love, and kindness.

Spirituality vs. Religion

While spirituality and religion can overlap, they are not the same thing. Religion generally involves community, organized practices, and a specific set of beliefs, often outlined in sacred texts. Spirituality is more about individual practice and personal beliefs, and it doesn’t necessarily require a communal or organized approach.

How to Cultivate Spirituality

Mindfulness and Meditation : Learning to be present can help you become more aware of your spiritual self.
Reading and Learning : Spiritual growth often involves continuous learning, whether through sacred texts, philosophical works, or self-help books.
Community : While spirituality is individualistic, finding a like-minded community can offer support and enrich your spiritual life.
Self-reflection : Taking time to examine your thoughts, actions, and motivations can provide valuable insights into your spiritual well-being.

Spirituality is a multi-faceted, complex, and highly individualistic aspect of human life. It is a journey of self-discovery, a quest for meaning, and a way to connect with something greater than oneself. Whether you are a devout follower of a religious faith or an agnostic, spirituality can offer a framework for finding peace, purpose, and connection in an increasingly chaotic world.

So, wherever you are on your spiritual journey, remember that the path is yours to create and that each step, no matter how small, is a move towards a more fulfilling life.

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Tourism and Religion: Spiritual Journeys and Their Consequences

First Online: 21 November 2014

Cite this chapter

Noga Collins-Kreiner 2 &
Geoffrey Wall 3

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Religion and tourism are inextricably linked. There are also many implications for the sites themselves and those who visit and are visited. We provide a comprehensive assessment of the primary issues and concepts related to tourism-religion intersections and discuss them from theoretical and applied perspectives. Empirical cases are from Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Baha’ism. Scholarly research has barely touched upon these relationships, although interest is growing. We delineate the category of religious tourists and other types of religiously-motivated tourists, identify holy sites and draw attention to numerous contemporary issues requiring additional research. And we address both sides of the religion-tourism connection: supply, stemming from the large number of major tourist destinations, places, and events; and demand, fuelled by visitors, who embody the intersection of spirituality, religiosity, and tourism. Thus far the conceptualization of the connection between religion and mobility is weak, especially within the new mobility paradigm, which is a reflection of the relative neglect of the relationships between tourism and religion. The connection between religion and tourism transcends geographical and sociological emphases and involves an interpretative approach seeking alternative and multiple meanings. Mobilities are products of the norms and values of disparate social traditions and order and also create and modify culture and its expressions.

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Noga Collins-Kreiner

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Geoffrey Wall

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Collins-Kreiner, N., Wall, G. (2015). Tourism and Religion: Spiritual Journeys and Their Consequences. In: Brunn, S. (eds) The Changing World Religion Map. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9376-6_34

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Passing Thru Travel

The Ultimate Guide to Exploring 10 Historic Churches 2024 – Sacred Spaces and Their Stories

Posted: February 21, 2024 | Last updated: February 21, 2024

<p><strong>Exploring historic churches is not just a journey through religious architecture; it’s an exploration of history, art, and spirituality. These sacred spaces, ranging from grand cathedrals to intimate chapels, offer a glimpse into their times’ cultural and spiritual life. This guide will take you through 10 of the world’s most historic and awe-inspiring churches, revealing their stories and the secrets they hold.</strong></p>

Exploring historic churches is not just a journey through religious architecture; it’s an exploration of history, art, and spirituality. These sacred spaces, ranging from grand cathedrals to intimate chapels, offer a glimpse into their times’ cultural and spiritual life. This guide will take you through 10 of the world’s most historic and awe-inspiring churches, revealing their stories and the secrets they hold.

<p><span>Experience the grandeur of Gothic architecture at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Situated on the Île de la Cité, this historical marvel boasts flying buttresses, gargoyles, and remarkable rose windows. Inside, the cathedral is just as impressive, with its high vaulted ceilings and beautiful stained glass. Don’t miss the Treasury for its sacred relics and the opportunity to climb the towers, where you can enjoy a stunning view of the Seine and the Parisian skyline. Visit in the evening to catch the magnificent light show or attend an organ concert for an immersive experience.</span></p> <p><b>Insider’s Tip: </b><span>Attend an evening concert to experience the cathedral’s acoustics.</span></p> <p><b>When To Travel: </b><span>Spring or fall for fewer crowds. </span></p> <p><b>How To Get There: </b><span>Easily accessible via the Cité or Saint-Michel Notre-Dame metro stations.</span></p>

1. Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris, France

Experience the grandeur of Gothic architecture at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Situated on the Île de la Cité, this historical marvel boasts flying buttresses, gargoyles, and remarkable rose windows. Inside, the cathedral is just as impressive, with its high vaulted ceilings and beautiful stained glass. Don’t miss the Treasury for its sacred relics and the opportunity to climb the towers, where you can enjoy a stunning view of the Seine and the Parisian skyline. Visit in the evening to catch the magnificent light show or attend an organ concert for an immersive experience.

Insider’s Tip: Attend an evening concert to experience the cathedral’s acoustics.

When To Travel: Spring or fall for fewer crowds.

How To Get There: Easily accessible via the Cité or Saint-Michel Notre-Dame metro stations.

<p><span>Visit St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City to witness the heart of the Catholic world and a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture. Inside, you’ll find stunning works of art, including Michelangelo’s Pietà and Bernini’s Baldachin. The climb to the top of the dome offers a breathtaking panoramic view of Rome and the Vatican gardens. The scale of the basilica is awe-inspiring, from its imposing facade to the vastness of its interior. Remember to dress modestly as a sign of respect when visiting this sacred site.</span></p> <p><b>Insider’s Tip: </b><span>Dress conservatively as a sign of respect for this sacred site. </span></p> <p><b>When To Travel: </b><span>Visit in the off-season to avoid long lines. </span></p> <p><b>How To Get There: </b><span>Reachable by metro (Ottaviano-S. Pietro-Musei Vaticani station).</span></p>

2. St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, Italy

Visit St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City to witness the heart of the Catholic world and a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture. Inside, you’ll find stunning works of art, including Michelangelo’s Pietà and Bernini’s Baldachin. The climb to the top of the dome offers a breathtaking panoramic view of Rome and the Vatican gardens. The scale of the basilica is awe-inspiring, from its imposing facade to the vastness of its interior. Remember to dress modestly as a sign of respect when visiting this sacred site.

Insider’s Tip: Dress conservatively as a sign of respect for this sacred site.

When To Travel: Visit in the off-season to avoid long lines.

How To Get There: Reachable by metro (Ottaviano-S. Pietro-Musei Vaticani station).

<p><span>The Sagrada Família, Antoni Gaudí’s renowned unfinished masterpiece, uniquely explores architectural innovation in Barcelona. The church’s facades, each depicting different biblical themes, are a testament to Gaudí’s creative genius. The stained-glass windows create a symphony of light that illuminates the intricate columns and ceilings. Ascend the towers for a closer look at the architectural details and a panoramic view of the city. The ongoing construction, part of the church’s charm, speaks to the evolving nature of this iconic structure.</span></p> <p><b>Insider’s Tip: </b><span>Book tickets online in advance to skip the long queues. </span></p> <p><b>When To Travel: </b><span>Early spring or late fall for a more peaceful visit. </span></p> <p><b>How To Get There: </b><span>Accessible via the Sagrada Família metro station.</span></p>

3. Sagrada Família, Barcelona, Spain

The Sagrada Família, Antoni Gaudí’s renowned unfinished masterpiece, uniquely explores architectural innovation in Barcelona. The church’s facades, each depicting different biblical themes, are a testament to Gaudí’s creative genius. The stained-glass windows create a symphony of light that illuminates the intricate columns and ceilings. Ascend the towers for a closer look at the architectural details and a panoramic view of the city. The ongoing construction, part of the church’s charm, speaks to the evolving nature of this iconic structure.

Insider’s Tip: Book tickets online in advance to skip the long queues.

When To Travel: Early spring or late fall for a more peaceful visit.

How To Get There: Accessible via the Sagrada Família metro station.

<p><span>Explore the rich history of England at Westminster Abbey in London. This Gothic church is a place of worship and a significant site for royal ceremonies and burials. The abbey houses tombs of monarchs, poets, and scientists, each with their own story. The Poets’ Corner is particularly noteworthy, resting place of figures like Shakespeare and Dickens. Try to attend Evensong for a traditional Anglican service accompanied by the renowned choir, a truly serene experience.</span></p> <p><b>Insider’s Tip: </b><span>Attend the Evensong service for a spiritual and musical experience. </span></p> <p><b>When To Travel: </b><span>Weekday mornings are typically less crowded. </span></p> <p><b>How To Get There: </b><span>A short walk from Westminster or St. James’s Park tube stations.</span></p>

4. Westminster Abbey, London, England

Explore the rich history of England at Westminster Abbey in London. This Gothic church is a place of worship and a significant site for royal ceremonies and burials. The abbey houses tombs of monarchs, poets, and scientists, each with their own story. The Poets’ Corner is particularly noteworthy, resting place of figures like Shakespeare and Dickens. Try to attend Evensong for a traditional Anglican service accompanied by the renowned choir, a truly serene experience.

Insider’s Tip: Attend the Evensong service for a spiritual and musical experience.

When To Travel: Weekday mornings are typically less crowded.

How To Get There: A short walk from Westminster or St. James’s Park tube stations.

<p><span>St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, with its colorful, onion-domed towers, symbolizes Russia’s architectural creativity. Each dome of this iconic cathedral represents a different chapel, with vibrant frescoes and ornate altars. The interior is a maze of narrow corridors and small chapels, each uniquely decorated. Visit at night when the cathedral is illuminated to fully appreciate its beauty and the intricate details of its design.</span></p> <p><b>Insider’s Tip: </b><span>Visit at night when the cathedral is beautifully illuminated. </span></p> <p><b>When To Travel: </b><span>Late spring or early summer for pleasant weather. </span></p> <p><b>How To Get There: </b><span>Located in Red Square, it’s easily accessible on foot from many parts of central Moscow.</span></p>

5. St. Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow, Russia

St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, with its colorful, onion-domed towers, symbolizes Russia’s architectural creativity. Each dome of this iconic cathedral represents a different chapel, with vibrant frescoes and ornate altars. The interior is a maze of narrow corridors and small chapels, each uniquely decorated. Visit at night when the cathedral is illuminated to fully appreciate its beauty and the intricate details of its design.

Insider’s Tip: Visit at night when the cathedral is beautifully illuminated.

When To Travel: Late spring or early summer for pleasant weather.

How To Get There: Located in Red Square, it’s easily accessible on foot from many parts of central Moscow.

<p><span>Immerse yourself in the spiritual ambiance of Chartres Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its stunning architecture and stained-glass windows. The cathedral’s labyrinth on the floor is a highlight, offering a meditative journey for visitors. The blue Chartres stained glass, especially in the famous Rose Window, is renowned for its vibrancy and craftsmanship. The cathedral also hosts light shows illuminating its exterior, showcasing its spectacular architectural details.</span></p> <p><b>Insider’s Tip: </b><span>Try to visit on a sunny day when the stained glass truly comes to life. </span></p> <p><b>When To Travel: </b><span>Spring or early fall to avoid the tourist peak season. </span></p> <p><b>How To Get There: </b><span>About an hour by train from Paris.</span></p>

6. Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France

Immerse yourself in the spiritual ambiance of Chartres Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its stunning architecture and stained-glass windows. The cathedral’s labyrinth on the floor is a highlight, offering a meditative journey for visitors. The blue Chartres stained glass, especially in the famous Rose Window, is renowned for its vibrancy and craftsmanship. The cathedral also hosts light shows illuminating its exterior, showcasing its spectacular architectural details.

Insider’s Tip: Try to visit on a sunny day when the stained glass truly comes to life.

When To Travel: Spring or early fall to avoid the tourist peak season.

How To Get There: About an hour by train from Paris.

<p><span>Discover the Duomo di Milano, an iconic symbol of Milan and one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in the world. Its elaborate façade, adorned with numerous statues and spires, is an architectural marvel. The interior is equally impressive, with high ceilings and stained-glass windows depicting various biblical stories. Don’t miss the chance to visit the rooftop terraces, where you can walk among the spires and enjoy a unique view of Milan’s cityscape.</span></p> <p><b>Insider’s Tip: </b><span>The rooftop is especially impressive at sunset. </span></p> <p><b>When To Travel: </b><span>Visit in the shoulder season to avoid crowds. </span></p> <p><b>How To Get There: </b><span>It’s located in the city center and accessible by metro (Duomo station).</span></p>

7. Duomo di Milano, Milan, Italy

Discover the Duomo di Milano, an iconic symbol of Milan and one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in the world. Its elaborate façade, adorned with numerous statues and spires, is an architectural marvel. The interior is equally impressive, with high ceilings and stained-glass windows depicting various biblical stories. Don’t miss the chance to visit the rooftop terraces, where you can walk among the spires and enjoy a unique view of Milan’s cityscape.

Insider’s Tip: The rooftop is especially impressive at sunset.

When To Travel: Visit in the shoulder season to avoid crowds.

How To Get There: It’s located in the city center and accessible by metro (Duomo station).

<p><span>Explore the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, a magnificent structure that has stood as a church, a mosque, and now a museum. This architectural marvel boasts a massive dome, stunning mosaics, and Islamic calligraphy. Its upper galleries provide a closer view of the intricate mosaics and offer a unique perspective of the interior and the sprawling city outside. The Hagia Sophia is a testament to Istanbul’s diverse religious history and architectural innovation.</span></p> <p><b>Insider’s Tip: </b><span>Look for the Viking graffiti on the upper gallery marble balustrades. </span></p> <p><b>When To Travel: </b><span>Early morning or late afternoon to avoid crowds. </span></p> <p><b>How To Get There: </b><span>Situated in Sultanahmet, it’s easily accessible by tram.</span></p>

8. Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey

Explore the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, a magnificent structure that has stood as a church, a mosque, and now a museum. This architectural marvel boasts a massive dome, stunning mosaics, and Islamic calligraphy. Its upper galleries provide a closer view of the intricate mosaics and offer a unique perspective of the interior and the sprawling city outside. The Hagia Sophia is a testament to Istanbul’s diverse religious history and architectural innovation.

Insider’s Tip: Look for the Viking graffiti on the upper gallery marble balustrades.

When To Travel: Early morning or late afternoon to avoid crowds.

How To Get There: Situated in Sultanahmet, it’s easily accessible by tram.

<p><span>Visit the Florence Cathedral, an architectural masterpiece in the heart of the city. Known for its striking red dome designed by Brunelleschi, the cathedral stands as a testament to the ingenuity of the Renaissance. The exterior, with its intricate marble panels, is as impressive as the vast interior. Climbing the dome is a highlight, offering stunning views of Florence and a close-up look at the frescoes inside the dome.</span></p> <p><b>Insider’s Tip: </b><span>Visit the adjacent Baptistery to see the famous bronze doors. </span></p> <p><b>When To Travel: </b><span>Early spring or late fall to avoid the heavy tourist crowds. </span></p> <p><b>How To Get There: </b><span>Located in the heart of Florence, it’s best explored on foot.</span></p>

9. Florence Cathedral (Duomo), Florence, Italy

Visit the Florence Cathedral, an architectural masterpiece in the heart of the city. Known for its striking red dome designed by Brunelleschi, the cathedral stands as a testament to the ingenuity of the Renaissance. The exterior, with its intricate marble panels, is as impressive as the vast interior. Climbing the dome is a highlight, offering stunning views of Florence and a close-up look at the frescoes inside the dome.

Insider’s Tip: Visit the adjacent Baptistery to see the famous bronze doors.

When To Travel: Early spring or late fall to avoid the heavy tourist crowds.

How To Get There: Located in the heart of Florence, it’s best explored on foot.

<p><span>Experience the awe-inspiring grandeur of Cologne Cathedral, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture. The cathedral’s twin spires dominate Cologne’s skyline, and its interior houses an impressive collection of art, including the Shrine of the Three Kings. The stained-glass windows, particularly the modern ones in the south transept, are notable for their intricate designs and vivid colors. Climbing the south tower rewards you with a panoramic view of Cologne and the Rhine River.</span></p> <p><b>Insider’s Tip: </b><span>Climb the south tower for a breathtaking view of the city and the Rhine. </span></p> <p><b>When To Travel: </b><span>Visit during the week to avoid weekend crowds. </span></p> <p><b>How To Get There: </b><span>Conveniently located near the main train station in Cologne.</span></p>

10. Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany

Experience the awe-inspiring grandeur of Cologne Cathedral, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture. The cathedral’s twin spires dominate Cologne’s skyline, and its interior houses an impressive collection of art, including the Shrine of the Three Kings. The stained-glass windows, particularly the modern ones in the south transept, are notable for their intricate designs and vivid colors. Climbing the south tower rewards you with a panoramic view of Cologne and the Rhine River.

Insider’s Tip: Climb the south tower for a breathtaking view of the city and the Rhine.

When To Travel: Visit during the week to avoid weekend crowds.

How To Get There: Conveniently located near the main train station in Cologne.

<p><span>Exploring the Scottish Highlands is not just about seeing the sights; it’s about experiencing them in comfort and style. From the Victorian elegance of The Fife Arms in Braemar to the secluded luxury of Boath House in Nairn, each location offers a unique way to enjoy the region’s natural beauty and rich history.</span></p> <p><span>Whether you’re looking for outdoor adventures, cultural immersion, or simply a peaceful retreat amidst stunning landscapes, these destinations cater to various preferences. With insights on the best times to visit, how to get there, and insider tips, planning your Highland adventure becomes a straightforward task. In the wilds of Scotland, each of these luxury experiences promises a memorable journey, blending the allure of the past with the comforts of the present.</span></p> <p><span>The post <a href="https://passingthru.com/luxury-experiences-in-scotlands-historic-highlands/">6 Luxury Experiences in Scotland’s Historic Highlands 2024</a> republished on </span><a href="https://passingthru.com/"><span>Passing Thru</span></a></p> <p><span>Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock / JeniFoto.</span></p> <p><span>For transparency, this content was partly developed with AI assistance and carefully curated by an experienced editor to be informative and ensure accuracy.</span></p>

The Bottom Line

Your journey through these historic churches is more than just a tour of religious sites; it explores history, culture, and art. Each church offers a unique window into the past, from the Gothic spires of Cologne to the Byzantine domes of Hagia Sophia. As you wander these sacred spaces, take a moment to appreciate the silence, the beauty, and the stories they hold. Every stone, window, and painting in these churches has a tale to tell, waiting for you to discover.

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March for the Martyrs: 'Follow Jesus no matter the cost'

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Russell brand announces baptism after months-long spiritual journey: 'taking the plunge', brand says many returning to christianity as world crumbles.

Actor and comedian Russell Brand announced Friday that he is going to be baptized this weekend, the culmination of his months-long public wrestling with the tenets of Christianity.

"This Sunday, I'm taking the plunge," Brand, 48, said in a video he posted to X. "I'm getting baptized."

Baptism. This Sunday I’m taking the plunge! How was it for you? pic.twitter.com/DnwcUrzoqa Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe — Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) April 26, 2024

Brand said he had heard baptism explained to him as "an opportunity to die and be reborn; an opportunity to leave the past behind and be reborn in Christ's name like it says in Galatians — that you can live as an enlightened and awakened person."

He also referenced what he suggested were non-Christian reflections on the same theme of embracing death for the sake of life, quoting Stoic philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and the Buddha.

"All of these things seem so inviting and beautiful," he said.

Brand also suggested that increasing numbers are turning back to Christianity as the empty value system of modernity disintegrates and leaves them wanting more.

"I know a lot of people are sort of cynical about the increasing interest in Christianity and the return to God, but to me, it's obvious," he said. "As meaning deteriorates in the modern world, as our value systems and institutions crumble, all of us become increasingly aware that there is this eerily familiar awakening and beckoning figure that we've all known all of our lives, within us and around us. And for me, it's very exciting."

Brand added that he intends to get baptized in the heavily polluted River Thames, joking that he might be also getting baptized in toxoplasmosis and E. coli.

"I may be leaving behind the sins, but I might be picking up some pretty serious viruses," he said.

Brand's baptism comes after other videos he has been making in recent months about his spiritual journey to the Christian faith.

In December , he told followers he was reading the Bible and The Problem of Pain , a 1940 book by C.S. Lewis that explores the role of suffering in the Christian life.

In January, he noted that he was reading Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life , and that he desired a "personal relationship with God" as he found Jesus Christ increasingly important as he grows older, despite once seeing many churches as either too "old-fashioned" or too modernized.

"The reason I wear a cross is because Christianity and, in particular, the figure of Christ, are, it seems to me, inevitably becoming more important as I become more familiar with suffering, purpose, self, and not-self," he said at the time.

In March, he posted a video explaining that he had been visiting churches of various denominations with the intention of possibly getting baptized, and asked his followers their opinions on the sacrament.

During an interview with Tucker Carlson last year, Brand said, "Like many desperate people, I need spirituality. I need God, or I cannot cope in this world. I need to believe in the best in people."

Acknowledging he "didn't have enough self-discipline to resist the allure of stardom," he said he "fell face-first into the glitter, and I'm only just pulling myself out now."

Brand faces multiple allegations of sexual misconduct going back years, including one report that claims he assaulted a 16-year-old girl after pulling her into an "emotionally and sexually abusive" relationship.

Brand has denied the "very serious criminal allegations" and maintained that while he was "very, very promiscuous" in the past, all of his sexual relationships were "always consensual."

Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to [email protected]

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Jonathan Tetelman recalls his journey from a nightclub DJ to an international opera star

In this image provided by the Met Opera, Jonathan Tetelman portrays Ruggero in Puccini’s “La Rondine.” Tetelman has transformed from nightclub DJ to international opera star. (Karen Almond/Met Opera via AP)

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NEW YORK (AP) — Jonathan Tetelman transformed from a nightclub DJ to an international opera star, a music detour that was quite, well, operatic.

He stopped singing in 2011 and mixed music for New York’s clubbers at Webster Hall, Pacha, Greenhouse and W.i.P. These days, the 35-year-old’s gigs are at posher places such as London’s Royal Opera House and the Salzburg Festival.

His career revived by a transition to tenor from baritone, Tetelman will be featured as Ruggero in a Metropolitan Opera performance of Puccini’s “La Rondine (The Swallow)” with soprano Angel Blue, televised live to theaters worldwide Saturday. Starting April 26, he sings Pinkerton in “Madama Butterfly” opposite soprano Asmik Grigorian in her Met debut.

“I kept saying to people, ‘You know, I’m a DJ, but I’m actually an opera singer.’ And the more I said it, the more I was like: ’Am I really an opera singer?’” Tetelman recalled of his singing sabbatical.

So he gave himself six months.

“I just sold everything. I sold all my equipment. All my speakers, all my turntables — everything — and just focused,” he said.

Born in Chile, Tetelman was adopted at about 7 months and grew up in Hopewell Township, New Jersey. He got a degree from the Manhattan School of Music in 2011 and considered himself a baritone.

A white horse on the loose bolt through the streets of London near Aldwych, on Wednesday April 24, 2024. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)

Tetelman moved on to the Mannes School of Music for a graduate program where he was told his upper register was his future but struggled with even audition standards. Overcome with frustration, he headed to the downtown nightlife scene in 2013.

“It just wasn’t — it wasn’t clicking. I threw it all away,” he said.

After concluding that club life wasn’t a future, Tetelman began listening to recordings of Luciano Pavarotti, Enrico Caruso, Franco Corelli and Jonas Kaufmann to understand how they used their voices. Working with Mark Schnaible and Patricia McCaffrey, a husband-and-wife vocal coach team, he began building his tenor technique in 2015.

“This young man is wildly talented,” Schnaible said.

By his mid-20s, Tetelman thought himself too old for professional training programs, so he found an agent. He sang Eisenstein in Johann Strauss II’s “Die Fledermaus (The Bat)” at the Martina Arroyo Foundation’s young artists program in 2016. He then paid a few hundred dollars to attend an open call casting audition. That led to the role of Rodolfo in Puccini’s “La Bohème” at the Fujian Grand Theatre in China in 2017.

He was hired for “Bohème” in November 2018 at the English National Opera, where all performances are in English.

Tetelman prepared by singing in “La Boheme Warhola” — an adaptation of the classic that shifts to Andy Warhol’s The Factory studio — with Pittsburgh Festival Opera at the Falk Auditorium, a 360-seat school theater. Around the same time, agent Alan Green arranged for Tetelman to take over Rodolfo for a concert performance at the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Festival after Piotr Beczała withdrew to replace Roberto Alagna at the Bayreuth Festival’s “Lohengrin.”

That raised Tetelman’s profile before he headed to the London Coliseum for the revival of Jonathan Miller’s 2009 staging, a key accelerant of his career.

“The production and the theater are wonderful. ‘La Bohème’ in English is disgusting,” Tetelman recalled vividly.

A dashing 6-foot-4 with dark hair and a wide smile, he became an in-demand singer for Puccini.

“He has a very solid top. When he sings soft, which I always encourage, especially in the very intimate moments, there’s a tenderness,” conductor Speranza Scappucci said.

On the night of Tetelman’s Met debut on March 26, an audience member tossed a bouquet he caught on the fly.

“He’s certainly a very, very charismatic presence and the audiences are responding,” Met general manager Peter Gelb said.

Tetelman made his Salzburg Festival debut last summer in Krzysztof Warlikowski’s “Macbeth.” The staging opened in an obstetrician’s office with children wearing black and yellow patches warning of radiation.

“You had to be on like mushrooms or something to really understand it,” Tetelman said, quickly adding, “It was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had. ... I think working with him was actually a really inspiring moment for me.”

Future roles include Turiddu in Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana” and a title role in Saint-Saëns’ “Samson et Dalila” along with the heavier Puccini parts of Dick Johnson in “La Fanciulla del West (Girl of the Golden West)” and des Grieux in “Manon Lescaut.” He’d like to take on Strauss’ Apollo in “Daphne” and Bacchus in “Ariadne auf Naxos” one day.

“I’m trying to book actually less and less Puccini just because I’ve booked so much,” Tetelman said.

IMAGES

Faith Journey
New Testament 5, Lesson 9: Paul's First Missionary Journey
How To Write A Faith Spiritual Journey Essay
Our Relationship with Jesus is a Journey
Living Spiritually: Your How-To Guide to Christianity's Great Spiritual
Faith Journey

COMMENTS

Using the 'journey metaphor' to restructure philosophy of religion
Thus, this essay concludes that the journey metaphor is able to offer a new orientation and point of origin for philosophy of religion that is inclusive of a global diversity of religious traditions.
What is the Point of a Pilgrimage?
Christ's death on the cross has a massive effect on the evolving definition of pilgrimage. His sacrifice introduces the idea of redemption, and the temporary nature of what we experience, as we journey toward heaven. We see this in the Gospels, or in the accounts of the apostles. They recount to us how Jesus' death has opened the door to ...
Pilgrimage
Pilgrimages frequently involve a journey or search of moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith, although sometimes it can be a metaphorical journey into someone's own beliefs.. Many religions attach spiritual importance to particular places: the place of birth or death of founders or saints, or to ...
What Inspires Spiritual Journeys? Explore the World's Pilgrimages
Spiritual Journeys: The Ganges is one of the places Hindus consider to have "spirit of place" that attracts sensitive souls. Photo: Scott Dexter. According to Professor Singh, "Along the riverfront Ganga Ghats in Varanasi 'life' and 'death' both go together in the vision of Shiva's cosmic dance. Shiva is the supreme and ultimate god ...
The Journey
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, "God freely willed to create a world 'in a state of journeying.'". [1] Christ comes to guide us as pilgrims on this journey. The journey will end with the loving, face to face, encounter with our heavenly Father. Christians often understand the journey in spatial terms.
Pilgrimage
pilgrimage, a journey undertaken for a religious motive. Although some pilgrims have wandered continuously with no fixed destination, pilgrims more commonly seek a specific place that has been sanctified by association with a divinity or other holy personage. The institution of pilgrimage is evident in all world religions and was also important ...
Pilgrims and Pilgrimage
Faith-based pilgrimage. Journeying to a place of special significance plays a part in almost all cultures and religions (see Place and Journey in Cultures and Faiths Worldwide).The goal may be a site given prominence by particular events, the shrine of a saint or other significant figure, or a remarkable geographical feature. Pilgrimage motivated by religious belief is still very much alive in ...
Religions
We find, for example, that pilgrimage is, "a religious journey made out of faith or devotion" (Frey 1998, p. 26), "a traditional religious or modern secular journey" (Collins-Kreiner 2010, p. 440), and "a substantial journey undertaken with reverential intent" (LeSueur 2018, p. 21).
A Guide to Exploring Religious Faith as an Adult
He is a Pharisee and one of the religious elders with whom Jesus is in constant conflict. ... But for those who feel the common spiritual stirrings of midlife, the journey can be difficult. The ...
Experiencing God on Our Journey of Faith
Matthew reminds us that we can experience God on our journey through the long story of Scripture that ends in Jesus ( Matthew 1:23 ), radical and loving community ( Matthew 18:20 ), compassionate care of those in need ( Matthew 25:40 ), and in walking beside people until Jesus' will transforms them into authentic disciples ( Matthew 28:19-20 ).
The Hero's Journey: A Common Theme Across All Religions
The life of Prophet Mohammad also included many of the elements of the classic hero's journey described by Joseph Campbell. He too faced significant opposition spreading the message of Allah but eventually established Islam as a major world religion. Hindu mythology is full of the classic hero's journey archetypes as well.
Spiritual Journeys: Religious Pilgrimages Around the World
Pilgrimages have been a part of human culture for centuries, transcending geographical boundaries and religious affiliations. A pilgrimage is a journey, often to a sacred place, taken for religious or spiritual reasons. It's a time for personal reflection, spiritual growth, and a quest for deeper religious or personal significance.
Falling into Faith: A Beginner's Journey to Belief
That continuum broke when Mr. Eo-ryong Lee passed away on Feb 18th of that year. Mr. Lee, one of Korea's most highly regarded thinkers, published his last lecture online, and the contents of his video shocked my mom. He shared the story of how he was convinced by his daughter to believe in the Christian God, and my mom found truth in his tale.
Exploring Social Belonging and Meaning in Religious Groups
Quest religious orientation, which involves viewing religion as more of a journey, may be more closely linked with IH, because changes or shifts in one's religious perspective are expected and viewed as normal. Interestingly, political conservatism was initially negatively related to IH, but this effect was not significant when the religious ...
What is a spiritual journey?
Spiritual journey is a phrase used by many different religions to mean the natural progression of a person as they grow in understanding of God, the world, and himself. It is an intentional lifestyle of growing deeper in knowledge and wisdom. But what is meant by a spiritual journey toward Christlikeness is vastly different from a journey ...
Finding Christ in the Hero's Journey
People are so attracted to myth, and "hero's journey" myths in particular, that it is only natural to frame Christianity as the "true myth," as C.S. Lewis describes it. Thus, the Christian need not reject offhand Campbell's theory of the hero's journey. Campbell, in an interview with PBS, calls the resurrection of Christ, "a ...
3 Ways to Go on a Spiritual Journey
If a religion or its followers begin to control or scare you, consider backing up and consulting a different source. 2. Keep a journal of your thoughts and feelings. [2] Though this may seem like pre-planning, your journey begins now. Take inventory of your thoughts, feelings, fears, and expectations.
What is the Christian Journey?
The Christian Journey is a process of learning and growing. It is a process of coming to know ourselves honestly and our Creator intimately. It is a process of receiving healing for emotional pain and harmful ways of thinking. We learn to hear God's voice more clearly. We learn to recognize and practice the presence of God.
The Concept of Religion
1. A History of the Concept. The concept religion did not originally refer to a social genus or cultural type. It was adapted from the Latin term religio, a term roughly equivalent to "scrupulousness".Religio also approximates "conscientiousness", "devotedness", or "felt obligation", since religio was an effect of taboos, promises, curses, or transgressions, even when these ...
Understanding Spirituality: A Journey Beyond Religion
It often involves a search for meaning in life, a journey towards self-discovery, and the quest for a connection with something greater than oneself. Unlike religion, which is structured around a specific set of beliefs, rituals, and a community, spirituality is more individualistic and open to interpretation. The Many Dimensions of Spirituality 1.
Tourism and Religion: Spiritual Journeys and Their Consequences
Today, religion and tourism are inextricably bound together. Religion is still among the most common motivations for travel, and religiously motivated pilgrimage, which remains one of the world's oldest and most basic forms of population mobility, is emerging as a major tourism phenomenon in the twenty-first century (Collins-Kreiner 2010).In this context, religious sites are becoming main ...
Taylor Swift's 'TTPD': Religious imagery for a spiritually syncretic era
Kathryn Post, Madeline Macrae. (RNS) — When pop icon Taylor Swift disclosed her religion in the 2020 Netflix documentary "Miss Americana," she was unambiguous. "I live in Tennessee. I'm ...
A journey in Southern Siberia, the Mongols, their religion and their
A journey in Southern Siberia, the Mongols, their religion and their myths by Curtin, Jeremiah, 1835-1906. Publication date 1909 Topics Siberia (Russia)--Description and travel Publisher Boston, Little, Brown Collection indianauniversitylibrary; americana Contributor Indiana University
The Ultimate Guide to Exploring 10 Historic Churches 2024
Exploring historic churches is not just a journey through religious architecture; it's an exploration of history, art, and spirituality. These sacred spaces, ranging from grand cathedrals to ...
‎The Perspective with Pastor Caleb Windley on Apple Podcasts
Religion & Spirituality Embark on a transformative journey with The Perspective Podcast, a soul-nourishing extension of the dynamic MEDIA Ministry, seamlessly blending Audio, Video, and Livestream experiences. Join Pastor Caleb Windley as he opens doors to a vital space tailored for church media tech enthusiasts.
Russell Brand announces he is getting baptized as Christian
Brand says many returning to Christianity as world crumbles. Actor and comedian Russell Brand announced Friday that he is going to be baptized this weekend, the culmination of his months-long public wrestling with the tenets of Christianity. "This Sunday, I'm taking the plunge," Brand, 48, said in a video he posted to X. "I'm getting baptized."
Jonathan Tetelman recalls his journey from a nightclub DJ to an
Updated 2:40 PM PDT, April 19, 2024. NEW YORK (AP) — Jonathan Tetelman transformed from a nightclub DJ to an international opera star, a music detour that was quite, well, operatic. He stopped singing in 2011 and mixed music for New York's clubbers at Webster Hall, Pacha, Greenhouse and W.i.P. These days, the 35-year-old's gigs are at ...

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Experiencing God on Our Journey of Faith

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