The new age of "spirituality"

Between the foundation of the US Library of Congress in 1800 and 1955 just 58 books were published with the title keyword “spirituality”.

One every three years.

"Spirituality" books are now published in the US at the rate of eight a week. Just over one a day.

New research* shows that during the last thirty years there has been there has been an explosion in the number of books published  both in the United States and United Kingdom which have the word “spirituality” in either the title (BL) or the title keyword (USLofC).

The research is based on an examination of the electronic online catalogues of the US Library of Congress and the British Library, to which publishers are obliged to submit books in order to protect their copyright in the respective territories.

During the 1960s the Library of Congress added a further 94 titles. In the 1970s, 156 new titles were catalogued. The 1980s saw a three fold increase in new titles to 454. In the 1990s this more than doubled to 937. The 2000s saw this more than double again to 2092.

Over the ten years since the millennium 400 more books on "spirituality" were published in the US than in the previous two centuries.

In the first six months of 2010 the Library of Congress recorded 195 new titles suggesting that by 2020 another 4000 titles are projected to appear.

A similar picture emerges in Great Britain. Before 1955 the British Library recorded just 91 books with “spirituality” in the title. Over the following 13 years a further 96 titles were collected. During the 1970s about 200 new books were added, in the 1980s this increased four fold. Since 1994 a further 2516 books on spirituality have been published.

In order to be certain that the increase in the number of books published on “spirituality” was not a reflection of a growing market for religious books, or the printed word generally, the researcher used the name “Jesus” in a book title as a control on the British Library catalogue. This revealed that by 1955 the British Library stocked 19734 “Jesus” titles. In the 1960s a further 2000 titles were added, in the 1970s another 3000. Over the last 25 years new “Jesus” titles have stabilised at just fewer than 500 a year.  In was not possible to conduct a similar control using the available US data

Why has there been this rapid and sustained increase in the use of the word “spirituality” in the printed word?

The books published prior to 1955 in both the US and UK seemed to focus on Catholic spiritual experiences, focusing on groups such as the Franciscans and Jesuits and individuals such as Saint John of the Cross.

By the 1980s “spirituality” was seen as having relevance to politics, pastoral care, mental health, the environment and even management. By and large these titles mainly came from a Christian perspective, especially that of Catholicism.

During the 1990s the word “spiritually” broke out of its mainly Christian perspective and books appeared which highlighted the spirituality of other faiths and peoples, with a growing emphasis on feminism, ecology and pre-Christian religious practises. There is even one book on the “spirituality” of comedy.

So this begs the question of what we mean by “spirituality” and how large parts of the English speaking world managed to exist without using the word until the last 20 years of the last century?

My guess is that our spiritual lives are focused less on God and more on ourselves. “Spirituality” is essentially inward looking whereas  "worship" and "holiness", the words we may have used previously, are focused on our relationship with the transcendent God and His Son Jesus.

The growing interest in “spirituality” is part of a pick and mix individualism which diminishes the historic Gospel rather than enhances it. Very often  the term “spirituality” is used to describe religious experiences which are “Jesus Lite” but are promoted as alternatives, add-ons or even competitors to the Gospel.

We should use the word “spirituality” with a great deal of care: it increasingly means very different things to different people. In fact it can mean whatever the speaker or writer wants it to mean. Engaging in "spirituality", of whatever form, is no substitute for knowing Jesus as Lord and Saviour.

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 * This research was carried out during the week of 14 June 2010 by the blogger Methodist Preacher.

The word "spirituality" was entered into the US Library of Congress Catalog (sic) search facility as a title keyword. The results were then sorted by date (oldest to newest) and then analysed manually:

“Spirituality”
Before 1955:    58
1955-59:          23
1960-69:          94
1970-79:        156
1980-89:        454
1990-99:        937
Before 2000: 1722
2000-09:      2092
2010:             195
After 2000:  2516

1960	6	1980	35	2000	146
1961	6	1981	31	2001	128
1962	5	1982	40	2002	168
1963	5	1983	35	2003	183
1964	8	1984	44	2004	203
1965	15	1985	47	2005	183
1966	8	1986	43	2006	264
1967	8	1987	39	2007	275
1968	14	1988	67	2008	268
1969	10	1989	64	2009	264
1970	3	1990	70	2010	195*
1971	15	1991	70	2011	7**
1972	10	1992	73
1973	11	1993	77
1974	13	1994	79
1975	12	1995	99
1976	17	1996	103
1977	15	1997	132
1978	27	1998	109
1979	24	1999	116

* Part year
** Already catalogued for 2011

 The word "spirituality" was entered in the British Library Beta Catalogue BETA search facility as a main title. The timeline for publication appears on a side bar to the search results:

Before 1955:     91
1955-68:           96
1968-81:         268
1981-94:         844
1994-2009:   2516

The name "Jesus" was entered in the British Library Beta Catalogue BETA search facility as a main title. The timeline for publication appears on a side bar to the search results:

 Before 1955: 19734
1955-69:         2961
1969-83:         4458
1983-97:         6336
1997-2010:     6399

© D.Hallam 2010. All rights reserved. Please quote the source.