Spirituality — What's Religion Got to Do With it?

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

5:00 PM-6:30 PM

Marilyn Piety, PhD, Drexel University

Many people today describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious." That's understandable given the bad name organized religion has come to have in the eyes of many as a result of its having so often betrayed its most fundamental humanistic and ethical principles. Still, this divorce of spirituality from religion seems strange when one reflects on the fact that "spiritual" comes from the Latin "spiritus," literally "breath" of God, and that to be "spiritual" originally meant to be "imbued with the Holy Spirit." How has spirituality come to be considered not merely distinct from, but occasionally even opposed to religion? This talk examines the relation between spirituality and religion and looks, in particular, at the issue of whether religion has anything positive to contribute to spirituality.

Contact Information

Marilyn Foley Piety
mp34@drexel.edu