Ursula King - The Search for Spirituality

In our contemporary age, when modernity’s advancements have freed millions from the struggle to survive, a whole new demographic of people now has the time and inspiration for higher spiritual pursuits. An Iowa teenager on an iPhone, for example, can now read texts and teachings that were once available only to society’s elite. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman might say, “The spiritual world is flat.” The big question is: In this spiritually democratized world, how do we distinguish depth from superficiality and learn to navigate the subtle and complex terrain that the great religious traditions once helped us with?

In this fascinating EnlightenNext interview, senior editor Elizabeth Debold speaks with University of Bristol theologian Ursula King about her new book, The Search for Spirituality: Our Global Quest for a Spiritual Life, and what she proposes the spirituality of the twenty-first century might look like. King has been deeply influenced by the French priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, having published several books about his life and work, and she echoes his call for a new evolutionary ethos that sees reality—both its interior and exterior—as part of one process of “divinization.” But in this “dynamic unity” she argues, we need to be able to recognize and respect real differences in “spiritual endowment,” much like we acknowledge artistic or intellectual greatness.

BIO

Ursula King is Professor Emerita of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Bristol, and a vice president of the World Congress of Faiths. Her specific areas of expertise are in the life and work of the French Jesuit priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and in feminist theology. She has published numerous books and articles on different religious topics including Christian Mystics: Their Lives and Legacies throughout the Ages (2001), Spirit of Fire: The Life and Vision of Teilhard de Chardin (1998), Religion and Gender (1995), and her most recent The Search for Spirituality: Our Global Quest for a Spiritual Life (2008). She acted as consultant for the content on gender and religion in the revised edition of the Encyclopedia of Religion (2005). She is a renowned speaker and she lectures at conferences and universities around the world.