Religion, Spirituality, Worldviews, and Discourses: Revisiting the term "Spirituality" as opposed to "Religion"
Abstract
In the last few decades, usage of the term "spirituality" has plummeted in an unprecedented way and has significantly contributed to the question what is "religion" and what is not. Although the notion that the word "spirituality" is an emic term, closely tied to postmodern situation and specifically the New Age scene, is occasionally referred to scholars, mainly by Steven Sutcliffe, the consequences of this fact remain largely unexplored.
This article shows the term has been largely accepted by scholarly community with all its implicit emic baggage and discusses different aporia and questionable results that emerge from its uncritical usage. Consequently, from the traditional perspective, the term should be treated as emic.
At the same time, however, the term should be subject to rigorous discursive analysis to uncover all its implications, contexts, and implicit relationships of power.