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Society still needs religion, says Archbishop

Interest in spirituality may be on the rise, but traditional religions still have a crucial role to play in a genuinely plural society, the Archbishop of Canterbury said in a lecture at Westminster Cathedral last night.

In his lecture entitled “The Spiritual and the Religious: is the territory changing?”, Dr Rowan Williams pointed to the likes of Bono who epitomise the growing trend across Britain and large parts of Europe of individuals choosing to identify themselves as ‘spiritual but not religious’.

“While the spiritual may be a resource for health, even for ‘capital’ … the ‘religious’ is seen as ambivalent at best, dangerous at worst,” the Archbishop conceded, adding that for some it was the fear of compromising individual liberty in favour of a collective mentality that made them shun religion.

He argued, however, that traditional religious commitment goes beyond an experience of the spiritual and is able to furnish society with the resources it needs to be just.

Full story at Christian Today.

Full lecture transcript at the Archbishop of Canterbury's site.