A Thirst for God or Consumer Spirituality? Cultivating Disciplined Practices of Being Engaged by God

This essay offers a critique of contemporary popular spirituality, specifically by focusing on Thomas Moore's best-selling book Care of the Soul . Moore's perspective is juxtaposed with Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs, displaying the widely divergent views of God, the self, and the practices of spiritual living. The essay also sketches several reasons which help to explain the popularity of generic spirituality such as Moore's, and it concludes by responding to some potential objections to the account offered in the essay. Overall, the essay displays the marked contrasts between disciplined practices of Christian spirituality and the simulacra of consumer spirituality.