A Critical Review of the Components of Humanistic Spirituality in Emerging Spirituality-based Movements within the Postmodern Context
International Multidisciplinary Journal of Pure Life May 30, 2026 Hamid Moridian, Hamzeh-Ali Islaminasab, Sayed Mohammad Tabatabaei et al.
Contemporary emerging spirituality, arising from postmodern conditions, responds to the spiritual shortcomings of modernity by pursuing tranquility, accommodating existing circumstances, and disengaging from moral and political commitments. Using qualitative content analysis, the study extracted and critically reviewed components of humanistic spirituality in these movements. A defining characteristic is humanism, which regards humans as the measure of all things and the axis of the universe, opposing theocentric religious thought. Prioritizing humanity and its desires over God's primacy leads to empiricism, pluralism, liberty, and individualism. Spiritual modernism re-presents the sacred in different forms, and religious experientialism stems from flawed understandings of God, cosmos, and humanity, making religiosity relative and replacing religious realism with relativism.