NATURALISTIC SPIRITUALITY

For a non-denominational college like Rollins to promote the spiritual development of its students, such spirituality must be natural and not supernatural: a testable, measurable, definable phenomenon of personal growth, the farther reaches of health and wellness.  It is a matter of psychology and physiology, not of theology or religiosity—of doctoring, not doctrine.

This is not to deny that supernatural spirituality, based on visionary insight and faith in scriptures has long been a powerful force in society and in personal conviction, but a secular college grounds its curriculum on scientific rationalism, not on belief; on evidence and argument, not on untestable assumptions endorsed by Authority.

Let the spirituality promoted by Rollins, then, be naturalistic and humanistic, not faith-based; cultivated as well by atheists and agnostics as by believers, and regarded as a vital dimension of personal development.  In the venerable triad of Body, Mind and Spirit, understand spirit to mean one’s highest and deepest potential Self, the best person one might aspire and labor to become.

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