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‘Spiritual But Nor Religious’ – Some Final Reflections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Gemma Simmonds CJ
Gemma Simmonds CJ*
Affiliation:
Heythrop College University of London, Kensington Square, London, W8 5HQ, UK
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Abstract

In the discourse of a number of theologians there is a perceived gap between spirituality and ‘theology proper’. This gap would not have been perceived or understood by Aquinas, Augustine or others of the long tradition of theological enquiry, since they saw union with God as the highest fruit of theological thinking. There is another gap today between the term ‘spirituality’ used in a loose and decontextualized fashion by the Mind, Body, Spirit industry and those for whom its study is part of mystical theology and its practice part of the church's mystagogia. The fact that many otherwise orthodox believers, as well as those alienated from regular church belief and practice, turn to more esoteric spiritual paths may be a sign that a return to a better-informed and theologically grounded knowledge of the mystical tradition is long overdue.

Keywords

SpiritualityMysticismPrayerHolinessDualism
Type
Catholic Theological Association 2015 Conference Papers
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 97 , Issue 1068 , March 2016 , pp. 218 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 The Dominican Council. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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References

1 The following section owes a heavy debt to Lynch, Gordon, The New Spirituality: an Introduction to Progressive Belief in the Twenty-First Century (London, I.B.Tauris, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8970031/The-return-to-religion.html referenced 1.9.2015.

3 G. Lynch, The New Spirituality, p.5.

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9 See the opening paper in this collection: P. Endean, ‘Theology and “What Matters Most”: Distinctions, Connections and Confusions’.

10 Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Wreck of the Deutschland and As Kingfishers Catch Fire.

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21 This section is a reflection on and conversation with a paper given at the conference on textual reading given by Dr. Mark Barrett OSB.

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23 Augustine, In Epistolam Joannis ad Parthos, IV, 6.