Sacred Content, Secular Context: A Generative Theory of Religion and Spirituality for Social Work

Abstract

Although a secular profession, social work practitioners and educators do explore human spirituality, and this is embraced now by the profession as integral to a holistic view of the human being. Social workers in hospice and end-of-life care are on the front line of this shift. Still needed is for the profession to coalesce around a generative theory of religion to inform the discipline. The author proposes that a synthesis of ideas, particularly from anthropologists Ernest Becker and Fredrick Streng, provides a generative theory of religion that advances meaningful interface between diverse religious and spiritual ideations of clients and clinicians alike. This theory of generative death anxiety locates the basic religious urge as response to the human awareness of the ontological condition of mortality, which then becomes expressed existentially in all of its diverse particularities. This approach avoids being overly reductionist, yet does provide categories for clear analysis. It cultivates critical respect for human religiosity and fosters productive and creative incorporation of human spirituality into the practical and pragmatic clinical perspective.

KEYWORDS:

• anthropology
• Ernest Becker
• Frederick Streng
• generative death anxiety
• mortality
• religion
• religious pluralism
• spirituality
• terror management theory
• theoretical perspectives