"Religion is manifested in a culture through institutional forms and traditions on the surface landscape, as it were, just as are science, education, politics, economics, health care, etc. Spirituality, on the other hand, is all-pervasive. It is the underground river which nourishes the entire landscape. Spirituality is that which emerges from our soul. It both stimulates our questions regarding meaning and purpose and guides us toward answers. The spirituality that is the organic outcome of the deep soul-level value system precedes and informs all religions on the surface, just as it precedes and informs all the other institutions and traditions in our culture.
"Religion, if it is doing its job, gives more intentionality than other institutions to providing a well, as it were, for access to the underground river of soul. Ideally, that is the special role of religion in a culture. The root of the word religion is religare whicn means "to bind back," or "to re-connect." Religion, if it is true to the name, assists us in re-connecting with our soul. *If an old institution is to tap into the new soul-river, it must be courageous enough to dig a new well. If religious institutions are not up to that transformative task, they will eventually fail to serve as a re-connecting force for their people, will lose legitimacy, and will eventually die. Unfortunately, there has been a great deal of evidence over the past three decades, of just such a massive loss of legitimacy on the part of mainstream religion. It is a time of crisis for religion — grow into Epoch III or die off."