WiUiam G. McGready
Spiritual Life in Conlemporary American Society Quality concern for the transcendent remains high among Americans. The author explores the nature of people's expressed religious needs and the possible responses religious leadership might make to it.
An editor of a prestigious literary magazine enjoys telling of his favorite technique for responding to those critics who write, "the quality of your journal is nowhere as near as good as it was a few years ago !" His answer is a simple form letter, "Thanks; it never was !" It is tempting to apply the same dictum to the current queries about the state of Americans' spiritual lives. Ali about us we hear that our sociey is not as concerned with things spiritual as it used to be. The abiding question is "relative to what ?" Religion is multi-dimensional in nature and different aspects of it are more prominent than others at different times in history. ln this article we will use recent data from national surveys to circumscribe the multifaceted concept of religion in our society, and to describe the spiritual needs of contemporary Americans. Robertson (1970) makes the distinction, in the process of defining religions culture, between the empirical and the super13