A narrative-historical approach brings into view the large-scale, national and civilisational events and processes that frame “theological” reflection. What it comes down to is that we cannot properly understand Jesus without taking into account the foreseen war against Rome, or understand the apostolic mission apart from the horizon of the conversion of the Greek-Roman world.

In the modern Western context, spirituality has largely become a reaction against institutional religion and a quest for personal fulfilment, though it has acquired a new, hard technological edge—I hadn’t heard of Dataism before. Gotta know these things.

But the question I ask here is whether, at the dawn of the Anthropocene, we are witnessing a spirituality in crisis.