A Visionary’s Call to Remake a Troubled World

Michael Lerner wants nothing less than to remake the world. In “Spirit Matters,” he sets down in exacting detail the problems plaguing current society--materialism, alienation, rampant consumerism, spiritual deadness, ecological insanity--and just how “emancipatory spirituality,” a term he introduces to delineate his proposed mind-set, will provide far-reaching solutions.

A San Francisco rabbi and psychologist, Lerner is the author of “The Politics of Meaning” and the editor of Tikkun, a magazine of visionary Jewish thought. In “Spirit Matters,” he takes many of the topics examined in Tikkun to their ideological limits, cataloging how he’d like to alter all aspects of society--legal, educational, political, medical, corporate--to fully embrace and reflect the spiritual essence of its members. Though Lerner’s perspective is rooted in Judaism, his concepts are not tied to any particular religion or doctrine and are inclusive enough even for atheists. His hope is that these revolutionary ideas might help humanity take the next step in its spiritual evolution.

Lerner’s plan starts with a basic if often overlooked concept: that we are all spiritual creatures endowed with an innate need to connect with the “Unity of All Being” (or, in religious terms, God). As long as we live in a world that demands a bottom line of profit and selfishness, manifested in the current “looking out for No. 1” ethos, Lerner suggests, we will continue to ignore our spiritual needs. This neglect results in a hunger that will never be sated by SUVs, stock options or corporate perks. The paradox is this: In our misguided efforts to satisfy our unacknowledged hunger, we perpetrate great harm on ourselves, each other and our planet. Lerner provides, as a counterbalance, simple spiritual practices for individual use and then widens his gaze to the world at large.

“There is an alternative to unrestrained globalization,” Lerner writes, after itemizing the evils of globalized capitalism as it is now being practiced. “It is the globalization of spirit.” To this end, he proposes “a new bottom line of love and caring, awe and wonder” that embodies ethical, spiritual and ecological sensitivity--a societal framework whose popularity “will spread like wildfire, because people hunger for . . . spiritual-aliveness . . . that is denied them in so many corners of reality.”

His call to “emancipatory spirituality” opens with getting people to “come out of the closet” with their spiritual needs, to recognize the sacred element in all and to take responsibility for their role on this planet. The plan then goes into specifics, encyclopedic proposals that require more than a few leaps of faith to imagine.

For instance, he proposes the creation of a spiritual political party that would embody its utopian vision without focusing solely on victory and whose meetings might include music, poetry and meditation. He argues for a nationwide (if not worldwide) sabbatical, based on biblical economics, in which all people take one year every seven to play, explore and feed their ongoing needs for education and enlightenment.

During the sabbatical year, all commerce would cease, factories would close; only those services vitally necessary to sustaining life would continue. He also calls for adding a social responsibility amendment to the U.S. Constitution as a way of forcing corporations to prove their benefit to society if they wish to do business with or within the United States.

Many of Lerner’s more extreme ideas require readers to suspend disbelief long enough to follow along. After the concepts have taken root, one can reengage critical thinking to assess the proposals on their merits. Unfortunately, to get to the more interesting nuts and bolts of his plan, one must wade through 167 pages, that, in overly vague and simplistic terms, endlessly remind readers of how spiritually deadened their lives are.

Dangling his undefined “emancipatory spirituality” like a carrot, Lerner lures readers through largely unnecessary text before finally delivering concrete recommendations in the second half of the book. This delay, combined with the author’s tendency to be repetitive and the book’s inconsistent copy editing, makes it at times a tedious read. Still, when he finally spells them out, there’s little tedium in the author’s ideas, which are genuinely startling and thought-provoking, if not easy to envision.

“If the picture I draw seems utopian, it is meant to be,” Lerner writes. “Remember how utopian it seemed a mere 50 years ago to talk about full equality for women, African Americans, or other minority groups. Yesterday’s utopian visions can become the realities of tomorrow.” One must give Lerner credit for imagining what might, in some unforeseeable future, come to be.

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Bernadette Murphy is a critic and fiction writer now completing “Venice Street,” a novel.