The Aspiring Side of Religion: Nineteenth Century Religious Liberalism and the Birth of Contemporary American Spirituality

"Spirituality," as a modern religious category, is in large part an artifact of nineteenth-century religious liberalism.  That tradition first gave the notion of "spirituality" currency and bequeathed it, in turn, to contemporary American culture as all that was best and most desirable about religion.  Six characteristics came to define spirituality within the matrices of religious liberalism:  1) aspiration after mystical experience; 2) practices of solitude, retreat, and meditation; 3) the transcendent as immanent within individuals and nature rather than institutions, liturgies, or creeds; 4) cosmopolitan piety; 5) seeker as ideal religious type; and 6) progressive social measures of mysticism.