The New Spiritualities, East and West
Colonial Legacies and the Global Spiritual Marketplace in Southeast Asia
Keywords:
New spiritualities, globalization and religionAbstract
Scholars who recognise an increasingly common distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ in Western popular usage have suggested that the new spiritualities, framed in contrast to ‘religion’, are largely confined to North Atlantic and Australasian societies. This paper, examining recent developments in the practice and framing of ‘religion’ in Indonesia, argues that comparable new spiritualities, emphasising subjective experience and individual autonomy and existing in tension with congregational religion, have emerged in this Asian country amongst people participating in the modern sector of the economy and the global spiritual marketplace. However the differing institutionalisation of Indonesia’s new spiritualities from those of Western and other Asian countries needs to be understood in the historical context of Muslim reactions to colonialism and give due attention to particular national legacies of colonial administration.
References
Berger, Peter L. 1999 The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI.
Bruce, Steve 2002 God is Dead: Secularization in the West. Blackwell, Oxford.
Campbell, Colin 1999 The Easternisation of the West. In New Religious Movements, Challenge and Response, edited by B. Wilson and J. Cresswell, 35-48. Routledge, London.
Hardjoprakoso, R.T., and R. Trihardono Sumodiharjo, eds. 1978 True Light (Sasangka Jati), a collection of the teachings of the World Teacher (Guru Sejati, Suksma Sejati) delivered via his disciple R. Sunarto Mertowardojo. Translated by R. Marsaid Susila Sastradiharja. 2nd rev. edn, [Pangestu], Jakarta.
Heelas, Paul, and Linda Woodhead 2005 The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Way to Spirituality. Blackwell, Oxford.
Howell, Julia Day 2005 Muslims, the New Age and Marginal Religions in Indonesia: Changing Meanings of Religious Pluralism. Social Compass 52(4): 473-93.
King, Ursula 1997 Spirituality. In A New Handbook of Living Religions, edited by John R. Hinnells, 667-81. Penguin, London.
Lee, Raymond L.M. 2003 The Re-enchantment of the Self: Western Spirituality, Asian Materialism. Journal of Contemporary Religion 18(3): 351-69.
Lee, Raymond L.M., and S.E. Ackerman 1997 Sacred Tensions: Modernity and Religious Transformation in Malaysia. University of South Carolina Press, Columbia.
Martin, David 2005 Secularisation and the Future of Christianity. Journal of Contemporary Religion 20(2): 145-60.
McGuire, Meredith 1997 Mapping Contemporary American Spirituality: A Sociological Perspective. Christian Spirituality Bulletin 5(1): 1-8.
Roof, Wade Clark 1993 A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation. HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco.
The Spiritual Marketplace. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Salamon, Karen Lisa Goldschmidt 2001 ‘Going Global from the Inside Out’: Spiritual Globalism in the Workplace. In New Age Religion and Globalization, edited by Mikael Rothstein, 150-72. Aarhus University Press, Aarhus.
Subagya, Rachmat 1976 [1973] Kepercayaan, Kebatinan, Kerohanian, Kejiwaan dan Agama. Penerbitan Yayasan Kanisius, Yogyakarta.
Wuthnow, Robert 1998 After Heaven: Spirituality in America since the 1950s. University of California Press, Berkeley.
