Another tension can surface when religious liberals feel a need for more spiritual depth but find themselves reluctant to engage in the kinds of sustained spiritual practices that could provide it. Practices such as prayer and meditation on scripture may carry the negative weight of now-rejected childhood religious practices. Or they may be narrowly conceived in supernaturalistic terms or smack of pietistic and emotion-laden traditions that rational-minded liberals find uncomfortable. Of course spiritual depth may be found in many places, from nature to music to long-distance running, and many liberals (and others) find fulfillment along these spiritual paths. But if these practices are to become deep spiritual resources, they require discipline and regular practice. Liberals can fall too easily into the trap of thinking that the rational and the spiritual are opposing poles rather than mutually reinforcing parts of our human condition
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 16:08:31 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015