The Enchanting Dream of “Spiritual Capital”

Abstract

Spiritual capital has gained prominence in the past decade as the social capital of faith based organizations (FBOs). In a previous issue of Implicit Religion, Chris Baker and Jonathan Miles-Watson, of the William Temple Foundation (WTF), presented an exhaustive review of the relevant literature on social capital and spiritual capital, and proposed a notion of spiritual capital that includes religious culture motivating social action (Baker and Miles-Watson 2010). This interpretation has transformed the original notion of spiritual capital into a normative concept that seeks to celebrate spirituality rather than understand it. This paper presents a critical reflection on the implications of such an approach and argues for the differentiation and analysis of religious phenomena.