Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution

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Fans of The Office will find a few scattered nods to the beloved show, but Rainn is not Dwight, and this is not a book about the show... at *all*. Instead it is a thought provoking, inspiring call to spiritual growth and reformation, not just for ourselves, but for the entirety of humanity. The word “spirituality,” as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it, means “the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.” This is exactly what I’m talking about. Way to go, OED! I will delve into all these concepts in far greater detail as the book progresses, but if we are to believe, as I very much do, that we have some kind of “soul” that continues on some kind of journey after our bodies fall away, and that this spiritual essence of who we are is just as real (if not more so) than our bodies—in other words, that this “soul” is the nonanimal, nonmaterial, non-pleasure-and-power-seeking dimension of ourselves that continues in some form after our physical existence ceases—and if this soul exists, then there are certain practices, processes, and perspectives that might help to shape our human beingness, the reality of who we really are. This is what I’m referring to when I talk about the word “spirituality”: this eternal/divine aspect of ourselves that longs for higher truth and journeys toward heart-centered enlightenment and, dare I say it, God. I believe exploring “Life’s Big Questions” is an exciting and important part of our fragile and exhilarating human journey. I have seen this again and again—in my study of various religious traditions, in my life as a Baha’i, and in my work with Geography of Bliss, SoulPancake, and the podcast series Metaphysical Milkshake, which I host with the amazing author/provocateur Reza Aslan. And my personal battles with mental health demons have given me firsthand experience in the high-stakes pursuit of meaning, purpose, and serenity from a spiritual perspective. Rainn unfortunately never warns the reader that not all paths are good. The individual must test and see if it is a good path. And then I thought to myself, "Maybe I've done myself a disservice here. Maybe I need to re-explore those ideas about God and life and soul and the meaning of life and purpose and the nature of suffering because I'm so very unhappy maybe this will help me." And it did. It hasn't always been easy. It's been a very difficult, arduous road with a lot of ups and downs in it. But that is what really sparked my deep and abiding interest in these gigantic topics was they personally affected me and in the exploration of them, they made my life better. And I believe they can make other people's lives better, and I believe collectively they can make our lives better.

It took me a long, long time and a great deal of therapuetic work to discover the spiritual, emotional, and psychological tools I needed to understand and eventually quell that inner discomfort and chronic imbalance. As an agnostic, I found myself agreeing with Wilson's premises, yet wishing that they were envisioned humanistically, instead of continually chasing a religious structure. That's not Wilson's vision, though. As warm and as inviting as he is to atheists and atheism, he is a person of faith, and that friction will be felt by atheist and agnostic readers. On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast:Through life experiences and his Baháʼí faith, which embraces anessential unity of allreligionsand the unity of humanity,Rainn Wilson takes readers on a 10-chapter journey that touches on how spirituality can be found in everything from official religious texts to quotes from Captain James T. Kirk, the “Star Trek” character.

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The teachings of Baháʼu'lláh, as well as his son and grandson and the Universal House of Justice, the faith’s governing body since 1963, are quite ecumenical. For starters, they draw widely from world religions to form the basis of their teachings. In addition—and more provocatively, at least from this Christian’s perspective—the faith rejects the exclusivist claims of world religious leaders, making figures like Jesus far less consequential than he appears in any historic Christian creed.

What's going through your mind, especially when you read that headline and maybe dive a little more into that story? The real problem with this book is it doesn't really teach you anything you don't already know, or convince you of anything you didn't already agree with. Empathy is good, consumerism is bad, people need community, etc. And have you heard that racism and sexism plague human societies around the world?Sometimes I find that in books like these, there are a couple of minor paragraphs that are especially intriguing or revelatory. For me, I'll remember these short sections; 1) Andre Gregory's pleading with Wilson to resist cynicism, and 2) the character development exercises that Wilson used with teenagers at a Baha'i camp, and 3) the election methods that the Baha'i members use to elect their community leadership. Comedic actor, producer, and writer Rainn Wilson, cofounder of the media company SoulPancake, explores the problem-solving benefits that spirituality gives us to create solutions for an increasingly challenging world. I work at a Christian study center serving a large public university, so the trends of “nones” and the “spiritual but not religious” are present every day. Wilson should be lauded for breaking down the artificial “privatization” of spirituality that reduces faith to an individualistic pursuit of self-actualization or a distant set of dogmas. To the extent that SoulBoom’s spirituality fosters values that make it possible for people to become more Christlike, Christian readers can affirm the value of Soul Boom’s intervention. The God of SoulBoom is distant and elusive—a “Big Guy/Gal/Force/God/Creator thingy,” in Wilson’s words—that mostly just has “our best interests in mind.” Although Wilson’s theism moves beyond a vapid “spirituality” and includes a public, rather than simply private, dimension of faith, it does not do enough to differentiate itself from what sociologist Christian Smith has termed “moralistic therapeutic deism.” In contrast, the God of the Bible is engaged and relational, constantly drawing close to his creation and expressing love, concern, anger, and sacrifice toward humans, who reflect God’s own image. Ultimately, I believe this entire crazy Soul Boom dissertation boils down to a single concept: unity . What we must seek in this spiritual revolution is a profound unity unlike anything humanity has ever experienced before.