The Value of Spirituality in an Increasingly Secular, Agnostic Age

A Saint David’s seventh grader stands before a group of his peers in Chapel. He talks about an "Agent for the Good" he has researched—someone, often courageous, who has had a positive impact on others. In this particular case, it is the World War II Hero Desmond Doss, who saw the importance of “fighting” for his country but refused to carry a weapon or kill an enemy soldier in combat because of his deeply held convictions. The seventh grader connects Doss' legacy serving as a medic and saving the lives of his comrades and his enemy with something personal from his own life and with a value drawn from our school's mission.

There is no rustling in the pews. The boys reflect on the message of this Chapel and how it might be applied to their own lives. Every boy in this quiet space is connected, bonded with his schoolmates, and feels a part of something bigger than himself. He knows too, that one day, he will be that boy. 

The power of spirituality. 

It is no secret that we live in an increasingly secular world. As the Wall Street Journal reported: “In 2023, only 39 percent of respondents said religion was very important to them, compared to 62 percent who said that in 1998.” However, the Journal also noted that “60 percent said it was very or somewhat important, and 65 percent said that belief in God was very or somewhat important.”

I would advocate that in an increasingly agnostic or secular age, spirituality informed by a faith tradition plays an even more essential role. Mother Teresa once said, “The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for.” We have a problem in American culture today. Too many of our children and young adults suffer from this exact “disease.” Mother Teresa went on to write, “The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty—it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”

To find the joyful balance our school’s founders included in our mission, we must satiate this hunger, be nourished with the food that feeds the soul—love and spirituality. We stand firm in our mission and advocate for the role of the spiritual in forming and framing the moral and ethical. It is for this reason that our founders identified Spirituality as the fourth of our school’s four pillars. If we want our boys to fulfill their potential, to live full, productive, good lives, they must feel wanted, loved, and cared for. This spiritual dimension of the human experience must be cultivated… and the research backs us up. 

 In her book The Spiritual Child, Lisa Miller, Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, lays out the scientific link between spirituality and health and well-being. Children who have a positive, active relationship to spirituality are 40 percent less likely to use and abuse substances, 60 percent less likely to be depressed as teenagers, 80 percent less likely to have dangerous or unprotected sex, and have significantly more positive markers for thriving—including an increased sense of meaning and purpose, and high levels of academic success.

We know from noted psychiatrist and author Ned Hallowell and others that boys’ sense of connection to parents is the most important factor influencing their well-being and whether they decide to engage in risky behavior as they grow older; the second most influential factor is a boy’s sense of connection to his school. When there is consistency within the community, shared with both parties, the impact is enhanced.

In his book How God Works, the psychologist David DeSteno, an agnostic, cites how various faith traditions such as Buddhist meditation and the Jewish practice of sitting Shiva, provide strength and comfort, increase compassion, and are positively associated with health and happiness. Of the current move by our culture away from faiths, Dr. DeSteno observes that people, “are looking for new ways to be spiritual. But when you leave the institution behind, you often leave behind all these tools, rituals and practices that form the daily rhythms of life. You can't just create a ritual randomly.” No, you can’t. Humans have spent thousands of years creating, evolving, and reflecting upon these beliefs, practices, rituals, and traditions.

 We know that boys find value in tradition and ritual, in having a common reference that enables experiences to be shared, to be transcendent, connecting them to all who have passed through these halls, are passing through them now, and will pass through them in the future. Deeply related to the ability of boys to experience this connection is the work of Michael Reichert, Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives at UPenn (now known as the School Participatory Action Research Collaborative or SPARC) and Saint David’s Teaching Boys Initiative Visiting Scholar. The results of three global studies (2010, 2013, and 2016), which he conducted through the International Boys’ Schools Coalition (IBSC), of which Saint David’s is a member, have demonstrated the importance of the relational dimension in teaching boys. 

Dr. Reichert and his research partners found that, above all, boys are relational learners and that “the establishment of an affective relationship is a precondition to successful teaching” and learning. At Saint David’s, we frame much of “the relational” through the perspective of our founding faith, helping to shape the moral compass of our boys. The shared experiences of ritual, ceremony, and tradition that this faith tradition provides, help bond boys to each other and to the higher ideas that define what “good” looks like. 

When we examine our school’s pillars, we constantly ask our boys to find “the good.” In Academics, does the good lie in being top of the class, getting straight A’s, being smarter than everyone else? No. It lies instead in scholarship—in the questions asked rather than the answers given, in the constant and unquenched search for more knowledge and deeper understanding. In Athletics, the good doesn’t lie in being the fastest, or jumping the highest, or having the best season record; the good lies in sportsmanship, in honoring the game itself, our teammates, the opposing team, and the officials. It lies in being physically active and engaged throughout their lives. In the Arts, the good isn’t found in being a better cellist than all others or the best painter; it lies in the aesthetic, in being able to recognize and appreciate beauty… beauty is found in truth, and the truth isn’t always pretty. Likewise, in Spirituality, the good doesn’t lie in being more religious than the person next to you; it lies in doing good, in the actions one chooses to take. 

With our culture in the midst of an adolescent mental health crisis, we are fortunate to be able to use tools from our founding Catholic faith’s framework as well as our school-wide Sophrosyne health and wellness course, advisory program, religion and world-religion courses, and other programmatic initiatives to guide the moral development and social-emotional health of our boys. For our children, spirituality can help promote a sense of peace and security, lessen anxiety, build community, and increase empathy. Spirituality also fosters important values like gratitude, optimism, generosity of spirit, an ability to move past regrets, capacity to inspire others, and humility as a core strength. We see it every day. During the pandemic, we could lean into a common structure to frame the questions, concerns, and fears in ways that supported and lifted our community members. 

Dr. Miller defines spirituality as “an awareness of a relationship with a loving higher power. It is a reality to be experienced, not a proposition that must be understood.” 

We might call the higher power god, nature, spirit, the universe, creator, the inner voice. The name matters much less than the outcome: the cultivation of a sense of connection and belonging to something greater than oneself. Families and teachers do not need to be Roman Catholic, and many are not—we don’t even ask at Saint David’s—to understand the value of faith, any faith. 

Our school’s founding faith informs our traditions, ceremonies, and rites of passage. The school does not evangelize or proselytize. Instead, Saint David’s faith dimension provides for us a framework for exploration and contemplation in service of cultivating boys who are strong emotionally, physically, intellectually, and morally. It continues a long history, more than two millennia, of critical thought and questioning, of deliberate moral introspection into the spiritual dimension of what it means to be human and into the nature of what good looks like and what good is. This is the essence of what makes our school the unique and special place it is, now more than ever. 

Ut viri boni sint.

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