Your definition is specifically Christian, which is valid in light of the focus of Howard’s book. I have many friends here in NZ who are spiritual but do not acknowledge God.
In discussing spirituality with many Chinese students at the university, I must start with the feelings associated with a sunrise or newborn baby. Some of these students seem to have little or no framework for spirituality.
At a chaplains’ retreat this week we arrived at “religion being the container and spirituality being the contents”. Some people practice religion but don’t seem to engage spiritually.

While Jill has affirmed your definition as specifically Christian, I would ask whether it is sufficiently Christian, or whether it is simply theistic. (I understand that contextually it is Christian because it was written by you Scot, on Jesus Creed.) And I also understand the value of affirming what is routinely called “spirituality” or “being spiritual”, for the purposes of building common ground and a bridge towards further communication with individuals. But to be a fully Christian definition, would we want to see a reference to Jesus, who said “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life”? Just a thought…I’m not throwing rocks.

Jill,
I live in China and also frequently work with Chinese students. Let me thank and encourage your work with overseas Chinese students! I’d also like to encourage you and say that although it seems like you are working with people who have no concept of spirituality, they actually do! They are very spiritual, but have had no outlet to ask questions or nurture their spiritual desires.
They grew up in a society of forced atheism beginning in elementary school, and continuing in middle and high school. Teachers, even if they are Christian, are not allowed to answer spiritual questions from students, but are required by law in many areas to actively criticize students who say something spiritual or ask a spiritual question.
Others outside of the schools would love to answer their questions, but face severe persecution. A good friend spent six months in a Chinese jail because he was caught teaching Bible stories to teenagers on a Sunday afternoon. He was 21 at the time of his imprisonment, and is now 27. He had his citizenship revoked, meaning that he can’t even move to a different city. Now six years later he still hasn’t been given his citizenship back and deals with all of this because he rebelled against the atheistic system of indoctrination.
That’s the world that most of the Chinese students grew up in, and it’s therefore very hard to dig through these layers and find the spiritual desires that they all have, but haven’t been able to express.

I appreciate your definition Scot..my version might be something like this: The process/journey/dynamic of relationship of self, others and the Ultimate Other. As a Christian, of course, all of that centers on Christ as revealed in the Great Story and the discovery/ knowing of God and Self and Others through relationship with the Trinity. Is this too culturally specific or limited? Too vague or generic?

I think any definition of Christian spirituality has to contain some notion of outwardness. And, I think the Lutheran doctrine of justification is actually really instructive here, for it is based on a turning away from ourselves to Christ. Indeed, I think that is what makes Christian spirituality almost paradoxical; that is, where many spiritualities focus on an inward journey, ours is one of dying to self, continually turning away from ourselves to Christ, who in turn sends us to others. Spiritual practices, then, are a performance of the story of God. They remind us of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, which compels us to act.

This is interesting. I’ve never like this term until recently, when I found a definition for it that seemed really useful. Since then, I’ve used the term, I think, similarly to the way Howard mentions in points 2 & 3, but I tend to use to denote a specific camp’s overall approach to life and the world in light of and formed by their beliefs and practices. For example, I may talk about “Reformed Spirituality” as a way of talking about how their theology, practices, values and priorities all combine to shape individual and corporate lives of those in that camp. I might talk about one of the benefits of Reformed Spirituality (their whole approach to God, life, others, etc.) is __________.” I’ve used the term in the same way to talk about “Benedictine Spirituality” or even “AA Spirituality” or “Buddhist Spirituality”. I could be completely misusing the term (!), but for me the term talks about how a given group’s understandings of God, people, the physical world all fit together into an approach to life, which forms its participants in different ways.

Your Name (#6),
I think what you are describing is not so much spirituality, but rather their practices. Spirituality is certainly part of a given group’s practices, and spirituality is certainly instructive on all the things you mention, but I think it is more specifically a subset of a group’s practices. Just my two cents.

Spirituality and mysticism is the foundation of all the outward form of all religions. Jesus and Buddha are archetypal holy men as an example for us to live by. The foundation of all mystics is love of other and peacemakers. It is this realization and bringing to fruition the God that lives in all of us. Once god is experienced religion is not needed anymore. Conflicts in religion happens at the external level