Critical Spirituality: A Holistic Approach to Contemporary Practice

There is a poetry anthology edited by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes entitled The Rattle Bag (1982). The poems are arranged alphabetically according to title and are texts of tremendous variety. This means you can dip into it and find, almost randomly, a treasure. Fiona Gardner's new book on spirituality and the human services reminds me a little of The Rattle Bag. It is full of good things and is a wonderful book to dip into for anyone interested in spirituality and professional practice. They might find something by Reuther on feminist theology, a bit of Jung or a short section on Fowler on the stages of faith. Unlike The Rattle Bag, however, this is a text with a unifying theme. That theme is provided in the title, which indicates that this is not only a book about spirituality, but it is also about critical spirituality. Gardner is one of a group of writers in Australia who have taken and adapted the ideas of radical social work and transformed them into a new and updated version—critical social work. This is what Gardner is alluding to when she refers to critical spirituality. She is interested in a spirituality based on, or at least related to, critical social theory. This means that this is the most political book yet written about spirituality and practice. One of the drivers for critical social work was postmodernism and ideas about plurality and multiplicity. In this text, too, Gardner uses postmodern ideas to further her arguments, although she does even-handedly raise the concerns that postmodernism is preoccupied with individuals and it rejects universal values.