How has this general cultural shift affected the realm of “the religious”? With the emergence of capitalist forms of spirituality we are seeing a shift in relation to the ethico-cultural space traditionally inhabited by ‘the religions’ in terms of its increasing subordination to a particular economic ideology. Entering public institutions that provide education, health-care and professional expertise within society as a whole, the ideologies of consumerism and business enterprise are now infiltrating more and more aspects of our lives. The result of this shift has been a curtailment of the social and ethical concerns associated with religious traditions and communities and the subordination of “the religious” and the ethical to the realm of economics, which is now rapidly replacing science (just as science replaced theology in a previous era), as the dominant mode of authoritative discourse within society. Capitalism and consumerism have become, for many today, a powerful life-orienting ideology—a new world religion, and “spirituality” is at the frontline of the missionary activity to spread this religion and its impoverished view of the human around the globe.
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