I was stoked to write the Foreword to Spiritual Edge by my buddy Joran Oppelt. It’s a featured Speakeasy selection, and there are still limited review copies available for qualified reviewers. Here’s what I said to kick things off!
Looking Back, Then Foreword
When’s the last time you’ve darkened the doors of a church, mosque, or synagogue? If you’re like many in the Western world, it’s been months, years, or even decades.
If you’re one of the many who are done with conventional forms of religious participation, you may have understandably said “good riddance!” to stale, outmoded, or even harmful ideas, beliefs, community-forms, or practices.
But if you’re like many in the Contemplative Composting workshops I lead across North America and Europe, there are elements of religious gathering you wish to bring forward in your life, if you but had the option and the agency. Maybe it’s ecstatic worship, moving storytelling, a way to transmit lasting values to your children, or even a really good potluck. Perhaps it’s gathering with a group of people who are similar yet not exactly like you, not entirely of your own choosing. “Iron sharpening iron,” as one ancient Proverb (Proverbs 27:17, to be exact) says. Or as Ram Dass put it: “We’re all just walking each other home.”
Is it possible to savor the wisdom, groundness, transcendence, and fun of spirituality’s healthiest aspects, while pouring it into new forms of gathering that are uniquely suited to today’s ever-evolving world?
It’s not just possible, it’s happening. And Joran Oppelt is sharing field reports of how these new decanters of joy are emerging.
There’s something both timeless and utterly present-moment about the book you hold in your hands (or on your screen), Joran’s Spiritual Edge. As someone who has spent years exploring the intersections of contemplative practice, community building, and social transformation, I recognize in these pages a kindred spirit asking the essential questions of our age:
How do we gather in ways that honor both ancient wisdom and emerging consciousness? What forms of spiritual community can meet people where they actually are, while calling them toward their highest potential? How do we create containers strong enough to hold both tradition and innovation?These are not merely academic questions. As our world faces overlapping crises of meaning, belonging, and planetary survival, the need for authentic spiritual community has never been more acute. Yet traditional religious institutions often seem trapped in amber, unable to evolve quickly enough to serve an increasingly complex world. Meanwhile, more and more people find themselves “spiritual but not religious,” yearning for connection and transformation but alienated from conventional forms of belief and practice.
This is the edge that Joran’s work illuminates so powerfully – the creative tension between preserving what’s essential in religious tradition while pioneering new forms that can speak to contemporary longings and challenges. Drawing on integral theory, developmental psychology, and years of hands-on experience building innovative spiritual communities (from his pioneering Integral Church to the clients he serves through Illustrious and beyond), Joran charts a path forward that is both radical and deeply grounded.
I’m particularly struck by Joran’s recognition that we need “a spirituality that radically includes” – one capable of holding multiple perspectives, bridging apparent contradictions, and fostering both individual growth and collective wisdom. As he writes, “We need a spirituality of ‘both/and’ — a spirituality that doesn’t force us to choose sides against men, women, or even love itself.”
This both/and spirit runs throughout the book, as Joran explores how we might:
- Honor both ancient wisdom traditions and emerging forms of meaning-making
- Cultivate both personal transformation and social change
- Embrace both careful discernment and radical inclusion
- Build both strong boundaries and genuine openness
- Support both individual spiritual paths and collective awakening
The case studies he shares of experiments in reimagining spiritual community are especially valuable, from Taborspace’s transformation of a traditional church building into a vibrant community hub to The Abbey’s innovative “3rd space ministry.” These examples show how the principles he articulates can take concrete form in specific contexts.
What makes Spiritual Edge particularly relevant is its clear-eyed assessment of our current predicament. Joran doesn’t shy away from naming the shadows in traditional religious institutions or the legitimate reasons why so many have walked away. Yet he also recognizes what we lose when we abandon the project of intentional spiritual community altogether. As he notes, “Religion alone owns that 70% of the world’s population that is at [early developmental] stages.” Any vision of transformation has to reckon with this reality.
His proposal for an “interspiritual order” that can honor distinct traditions while fostering genuine dialogue and cross-pollination is both ambitious and deeply necessary. We need spaces that can help people navigate between the rigid certainties of fundamentalism and the rootless relativism of pure individualism – spaces that teach discernment without dogmatism, commitment without exclusion.
I’ve witnessed firsthand how hungry people are for this kind of nuanced, integral approach to spirituality. In my own work with citywide social change initiatives, Christian churches, Sufi-oriented mosques, Pagan song circles, inner work schools, and interfaith festivals, I constantly meet folks who are done with both religion-as-they-know-it and purely secular materialism. They’re seeking something deeper – genuine transformation, authentic community, and ways of being that can help us face our planetary challenges with wisdom and courage.
This is where Joran’s practical experience proves invaluable. He’s not just theorizing about new forms of spiritual community – he’s been building them, learning what works and what doesn’t, developing concrete tools and practices that others can adapt to their contexts.
His “five suggestions” for integral spirituality offer a powerful framework:
- A spirituality that is critical (but not cynical)
- A spirituality that is compassionate (but not naive)
- A spirituality that is competent (but not rigid)
- A spirituality that is conscious (but not self-absorbed)
- A spirituality that is creative (but not ungrounded)
These qualities point toward what might be possible if we’re willing to work this edge with skill and dedication. The future of spiritual community won’t look like the past, but neither will it emerge from simply abandoning tradition. It requires exactly the kind of careful discernment, creative experimentation, and committed practice that Joran models in these pages.
The urgency of this work becomes even clearer when we consider the data on America’s loneliness epidemic. A 2021 Harvard study found that 36% of Americans report feeling “serious loneliness,” including 61% of young adults. Meanwhile, participation in traditional community organizations continues to plummet – religious attendance has dropped by 20 percentage points since 1999, while membership in civic groups like Rotary and Lions Clubs has halved since 1980.
Robert Putnam’s prescient warning about “bowling alone” has evolved into “scrolling alone,” with Americans spending an average of 7 hours per day on screens outside of work.* The cost of this isolation is staggering: loneliness increases mortality risk by 26% according to a 2015 meta-analysis in Perspectives on Psychological Science, making it as dangerous as obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
The flipside of this crisis is equally telling: regular participation in religious communities is associated with significantly better health outcomes and increased life satisfaction. A 2019 Pew Research study found that actively religious people are more likely to describe themselves as “very happy,” while Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that attending religious services at least once a week was associated with a 33% lower risk of death compared to those who never attend.** These benefits appear to stem not from specific beliefs but from the simple power of gathering regularly in community around shared meaning and purpose.
In many ways, this book is both a map and an invitation – a map of the territory where tradition meets innovation, where individual growth meets collective transformation, where ancient wisdom meets emerging consciousness. And it’s an invitation to join in the vital work of reimagining spiritual community for our time.
As someone who has spent years wrestling with these same questions, I’m deeply grateful for Joran’s contribution to this conversation. Spiritual Edge offers practical wisdom, theoretical depth, and most importantly, hope that we can indeed create new forms of gathering that serve both personal and planetary transformation.
In our fragmenting world, re-membering ourselves into spiritual bodies of tangible practice may be some of the most important work we can do.
Praise for Spiritual Edge
“For anyone who questions religions of any kind, this book is for you. Joran speaks clearly about where religions come from, the myths that grew out of them, and a deeply spiritual way of looking at the issues.”
—Kate Shulamit Fagan, Rabbinic Pastor, Aleph; Co-founder, Multifaith Storytelling Institute
“Drawing on integral theory, developmental psychology, and years of hands-on experience building innovative spiritual communities (from his pioneering Integral Church to the clients he serves through Illustrious and beyond), Joran charts a path forward that is both radical and deeply grounded. This book is both a map and an invitation—a map of the territory where tradition meets innovation, and an invitation to join in the vital work of reimagining spiritual community for our time. Spiritual Edge offers practical wisdom, theoretical depth, and most importantly, hope that we can indeed create new forms of gathering that serve both personal and planetary transformation.”
—Michael Morrell, Co-Author, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation
“A pioneering document. It will go down in history as perhaps one of the first statements of this form of evolutionary spirituality. It should be a manual for all of us.”
—Barbara Marx Hubbard, Author of Emergence and Conscious Evolution
“Joran Oppelt pursues questions so many (alive and caring) church leaders are asking: Where is the younger generation? And what are the spiritual paths they are traveling with—or more likely without—the church?”
—Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox, Author of Creation Spirituality and Original Blessing
About the Author
Joran Oppelt is an international speaker, author, award-winning musician and producer, interfaith minister, executive and team coach, graphic facilitator, visual consultant, father, teacher, marketer, and community organizer. Who he really is can be found somewhere in the edges between those labels. He currently lives in Asheville, NC, where he enjoys building fires and occasionally still picks up the guitar.
Spiritual Edge Website
Joran Oppelt’s Website
Illustri.us Website
Related posts:
The Hive: Where Indigenous Wisdom Meets the Way of Jesus | Hillary Raining and Mike Morrell
The Cosmic Lens: Dr. Birgit Viertlböck on Healing Trauma & Evolving Consciousness
Where the Trickster Meets the Angel: Animist Readings for Apocalyptic Times
Consciousness or Collapse? | A New Republic of the Heart | Terry Patten
No comments yet.