Spirituality, Spiritual Needs, Diversity, Crisis, & Transformation

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue invites social scientists and humanities scholars to engage in creative interdisciplinary discussions on the function, diversity, crisis, and transformation of spirituality. Beyond such a general notion that spirituality is concerned with human search for security, happiness, empowerment, and the meaning and teleology of life, there have been very little systematic discussions, theoretical formulations, measurements, and hypotheses testing on exactly what constitutes spirituality. A distinction has also been made between sacred and secular spirituality, but the conceptual and empirical boundaries of the former with religious beliefs and practices, and of the latter with secular and scientific discourses have remained murky and unspecified. Intellectually innovative essays that challenge current conceptions of spirituality are welcome, but the primary concern is on empirical assessment of the subject, using a diversity of historical, qualitative, hermeneutic, and quantitative approaches. Selected contributions will demonstrate interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives, primarily based on empirical research analyzing sundry aspects of spirituality, the crisis of spirituality, and spiritual transformation. In particular, contributors are encouraged to shed light on the ways in which spiritual transformation and mobilization shape orientation toward religion, science, politics, and social relations. They should provide critical reflections on the ongoing tensions between the secular and the sacred, science and religion. The ultimate objective of this special issue is to provide a better grasp of the phenomenon of spirituality: how to distinguish it from other subjective-cum-intellectual experiences, operationalize the construct, broaden the understanding of the subject, and push the limit to the current knowledge of the ways in which humans attempt to make sense of their experience and the events they encounter, seek for sources of empowerment, and yearn for security, peace, and permanence in life.

Dr. Mansoor Moaddel
Guest Editor

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 papers will be 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. 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.