Home » News » Student Life »

Speaker discusses difference between being spiritual, religious

By on February 17, 2010 1:00 am in Student Life / 2 comments

 
email

Laurel Zwissler, a University of Toronto professor , told about 70 people in the Charles V. Park Library auditorium Wednesday many people describe themselves as “spiritual, but not religious.”

This is a subject Zwissler has studied in detail.

Zwissler has performed field studies in which she interviewed several feminist political activists belonging to the Catholic, Protestant and Neo-Pagan religions.

She discovered that members of these religions often felt conflicted between their personal beliefs and experiences.

Zwissler noticed the people she talked to used the terms “spirituality” and “religion” quite differently.

“In my interview question template, I exclusively used the term ‘religion,’” she said. “But often spirituality and religion were intertwined in their narratives.”

Zwissler described the rhetoric of “spirituality” as language that refers to individual experience.

In her lecture, she discussed “spiritual” language in terms of something central to religion.

In contrast, “religion” was described in terms of the rituals, traditions and institutions inherent in varying faiths.

Zwissler felt it is important for students to realize the validity of “spiritual” and “religious” rhetoric in political activism.

“Religion can be an important tool in social justice activism,” she said.

David Smith, a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion, said the speech had valuable information for students.

“I hope students get a better understanding of the ways that people talk about their religious beliefs and commitments in the modern world,” he said.

Jim O’Bryan reacted differently.

“I was kind of disappointed,” the Livonia senior said of the presentation. “I didn’t expect her to just read her essay.”

O’Bryan was raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic schools for most of his educational career.

He enjoyed Zwissler’s explanations of “spirituality” and “religion” and how the two compliment one another.

“She was trying to merge the two,” he said. “People can be spiritual and religious.”

Traverse City senior Brett Bowers found the information interesting.

However, he was a bit disappointed that Zwissler’s studies focused solely on Western religions.

“I know it was outside the scope of her studies,” Bowers said, “but I would have loved to have seen a brief discussion on Eastern religions.”

Raised in a secular household, Bowers is currently exploring the religious aspects of Zen Buddhism.

“I’ve been exposed to Christianity, but I guess I’ve never been a religious individual,” he said.



 

Tags

Related Posts

 
  • Jim O’Bryan

    Just to comment on the discussion that happened last night… Zwissler was a great public speaker, or should I say reader, but when it came to the question and answer portion, she beat around the bush and was vague. As an anthropologist discussing both “spiritual” and “religious” ideas, she should have had an opinion on what the meanings behind each were. Instead she relied heavily on the views of her participants, who might I add, were restricted to North American, feminist political activists, who believed in western religions. Granted, she did only have limited time and resources for her project, but to find meanings and opinions from this small concentration of people doesn’t clarify or even help balance spirituality and religious ideas very well. I started the Q and A portion with a difficult but manageable question of “How would you define what it is to be religious, personally?”Her response was only further quoting her participants, which in turn never really told me her personal opinion.
    All in all, I am glad I went, but I feel like I could have showed up 45 minutes late and still found out the same information. In my opinion, people both have beliefs, and have a need to belong in groups of people like them. Spirituality is an individual feeling, so people have made different sects to suite their religious beliefs. This individual spirituality leads to the need to belong in a particular sect that incorporates your beliefs. This leads to a compromise a lot of the time, and people settle for the religious group, rather than the spiritual individuality. What needs to happen is the realization of the symbiotic and emergent connection we all have with each other and with nature. We can try to explain what we do not know through beliefs, but when it comes down to it, we are all very similar, more so than different. We all share the ability to create things that are good for humanity, so instead of defining whats spiritual and religious, we should realize that we all have our axioms and beliefs, and being open minded will be the key to understanding and helping each other. To be proven wrong is to be enlightened, it is not failure, and close-mindedness is the barrier, not our beliefs.

  • D. Ferris

    I am not sure that the terms “religious” and “spiritual” are easy to give simple definition in a field where you research how people think about and live their religion. In the context of a study, doesn’t it make more sense to define what the people being studied think, rather than putting some kind of universal standard on the terms they use? I really don’t understand what you expected as an answer – did you want to know about Prof. Zwissler’s personal religious or spiritual beliefs?

    Anyway, I think the interesting point of her presentation (which seemed different to me from her published article on the subject) is that the term “spiritual” while used to describe personal religious experience is also used to bridge apparant gaps between people who identify with different “religious” traditions. Thus, the individual and personal “spiritual” component turns out to have a public and social use in creating ecumenical connections between activists of different religious backgrounds.