Reconsidering “Secular Religion”: On Modern, Postmodern, and Metamodern Spirituality

Abstract The meaning of spirituality has changed sinced the Second World War. Even if we limit its use to people who (would) identify as “spiritual but not religious,” much ambiguity and diversity remains around the concept of spirituality. Elsewhere, I suggested abandoning “spirituality” and replacing it with a precisely defined “secular religion,” as a more useful analytical tool. Here, I reconsider this suggestion since secular religion is unable to discern between modern, postmodern, and metamodern entanglements of secular and religious beliefs and practices in Western cultures. I offer a contextual approach based on ideal types, which allows for distinctions within contemporary spirituality, without having to abandon or define the word.