Evolving and Flourishing in an Age of Disruption: The Role of Spirituality in Rea-Lignment and Transformation

Dear Colleagues,

Across the lifespan, spirituality is integral to resilience and wellbeing, relationships, posttraumatic growth, success, and creativity (Boynton & Vis, 2022; Margolin & Jones, 2024). Spirituality fosters resilience, is central to post-traumatic growth, supports meaning-making, harmony, and finding purpose through addressing existential questions, and is integral to flourishing (Boynton & Vis, 2022; McEntee et al., 2013). Human flourishing is a complex interconnected process integrating the physical, social, emotional, and spiritual dimensions which nurture overall wellbeing, and the dynamic relationships between individuals, their environments, and societal systems (Ellyatt, 2020; McEntee et al., 2013). In this era of rapid transformation, global challenges, and social disruption, spirituality is even more relevant. Working collaboratively and creating collective understandings of spirituality are crucial for co-creating knowledge through combining insights and a common language, fostering innovative solutions, resources, strategies, and best practices that can advance wellbeing and creative transformative change on a global scale (Gillis et al., 2017; Yeung et al., 2021). Yet, there is a critical gap in transdisciplinary scholarship, knowledge sharing, collaboration, integrated research, and pedagogical approaches that are centred on spirituality.

With this in mind, we seek manuscripts that will encourage spiritually informed knowledge, research, and practice frameworks that can create a springboard for ongoing transdisciplinary collaborative knowledge development focused on the role of spirituality in fostering resilience, growth, and transformation to support societies through this age of turmoil and disruption. We envision that this Special Issue will create a resource platform that practitioners, researchers, and educators can utilize for ongoing collaboration on the topic of spirituality and flourishing. This Special Issue is centred on proceedings from the 12^th International Spirituality Conference, although other papers that align with the topic will be considered. The aim is to offer transdisciplinary perspectives on spirituality and its role in transformation, evolving and flourishing in various contexts, populations, while combining Eastern, Indigenous, and Western perspectives.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but not limited to) the following:

• Transdisciplinary collaborative approaches to health and wellbeing;
• Paradigms and practices for mind, body, spirit synchronicity;
• Indigenous, Africentric, and Eastern wisdoms for flourishing;
• Cultivating relationships and connectedness for practice, pedagogy, and research;
• Incorporating innovative spiritual pedagogical approaches in curriculum;
• Spirituality, global systems, social justice, and social transformation in a changing world.

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We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200-300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor, or to the Assistant Editor of Religions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Heather Boynton
Prof. Dr. Indrani Margolin
Dr. Jo-Ann Vis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• spirituality
• religion
• evolving
• flourishing
• transformation
• transdisciplinary
• spiritually sensitive practice