The Christian Path in a Pluralistic World and the Study of Spirituality (review)

In postmodern cultural reality, a wide range of spiritual options bombards everyone and most are at least somewhat eclectic in their spiritual practice. At the same time, academic programs for the study of spirituality are grounded in specific religious traditions and have as one of their major concerns the preparation of people who will teach the spiritual practices and doctrines of the tradition. This book positions itself squarely within the tension between these two facts. Within this context, Villegas argues that the study of spirituality needs to be explicitly theological. The dialogue between the lived reality of spiritual bricolage and the finely-woven tapestry of values, beliefs, and meanings that make up a religious tradition should not be ignored; rather, it demands even more serious engagement.

The second and third chapters of the book examine this issue in relation to the historical development of the study of spirituality, thus situating the recent movement that led to the founding of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality in a far broader context. Villegas reviews the relationship between spirituality and theology in the patristic era, the medieval period, the seventeenth century, and the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries. Of particular interest is her discussion of the thought of Joseph de Guibert and Charles Bernard, two Gregorian University theologians of the early to mid-twentieth century who began the work of revising earlier doctrine-based approaches to spirituality in favor of a more interdisciplinary approach. Villegas makes the point that Bernard, in particular, offered a balanced view of the interplay between theology and other disciplines in the study of spirituality, and that in some ways, this balance has not been fully maintained in subsequent developments. In a kind of pendulum swing against the dominance of theology over spirituality, the second half of the twentieth century saw the rise of a more religious-studies approach that strongly de-emphasized theology.

Since Sandra Schneiders has been so influential in this more recent movement, Villegas examines several phases in the development of her thought. She finds that while at first Schneiders was eager to downplay the role of theology in the study of spirituality, her view has moderated over time. Thus, the pendulum has already begun to swing back toward the center. Villegas aims to complete that move, giving theology its due as an essential means of clarifying and evaluating the values, beliefs, and meanings involved in spiritual practices. Using terminology that Schneiders proposed, one might say that for Villegas theology should be the central “constitutive discipline” within the interdisciplinary study of spirituality.

The fourth chapter, entitled “Religion’s Role in Human Culture: Relevance for Spirituality,” is intended to be the heart of the book. Its central contention is that despite popular slogans about the possibility of being “spiritual but not religious,” the two really are two sides of one coin. Religions are lived out in spiritualities, and spiritualities inevitably are shaped by elements of one or more religious traditions. For religions that affirm very specific values, beliefs, and meanings, an eclectic or relativistic approach to spirituality is problematic. An example that Villegas frequently mentions is a Christian who believes in reincarnation. While the study of spirituality need not a priori position itself as opposing this kind of eclecticism, it at least needs to examine its implications in depth by using theological tools.

The final chapter discusses a series of examples of studies in spirituality that incorporate theology. This is a useful exercise, although I found a good deal to quibble with in the way the examples were played out. The first example critiques Barbara Fiand’s Awe-Filled Wonder: The Interface of Science and Spirituality (Paulist 2008), focusing in on the ways in which it does not fully identify or explore the aspects of the theology presented that are more difficult to reconcile with traditional Christian doctrine. Another example takes a phrase that might appear in an ethnographic...