Die niederländischen Soziologen Houtman & Aupers untersuchten die Entwicklung der post-christlichen Spiritualität in Europa (siehe hier). Der Verfall traditioneller moralischer Werte hat einem Anstieg der individualisierten Spiritualität Auftrieb gegeben.
It demonstrates that this type of spirituality, characterized by a sacralization of the self, has become more widespread during the period 1981–2000 in most of these countries. It has advanced farthest inFrance, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden. This spiritual turn proves a byproduct of the decline of traditional moral values and hence driven by cohort replacement. Spirituality’s popularity among the well educated also emerges from the latter’s low levels of traditionalism.
Die Religion wird individuell “zusammengestellt”:
Most participants in the spiritual milieu, it is generally argued, draw upon multiple traditions, styles, and ideas simultaneously, combining them into idiosyncratic packages. Spirituality is thus referred to as “do-it-yourself religion” (Baerveldt 1996), “pick-andmix religion” (Hamilton 2000), a “spiritual supermarket” (Lyon 2000), or “religious consumption à la carte” (Possamai 2003).
Diese Form der Spiritualität geht auf Selbstkontruktion der Romantik zurück.
Post-Christian spirituality, in short, constitutes a basically romanticist conception of the self that is intrinsically connected to an immanent conception of the sacred. It “lays central stress on unseen, even sacred forces that dwell within the person, forces that give life and relationships their significance.”
Nicht die Religiosität verschwindet, sondern er verliert seinen transzendenten Charakter.
What we are witnessing today is not so much a disappearance of religion, but rather a relocation of the sacred. Gradually losing its transcendent character, the sacred becomes more and more conceived of as immanent and residing in the deeper layers of the self.
