Conceptualizing religion and spirituality: Points of commonality, points of departure

psychologists' emerging interest in spirituality and religion as well as th e relevance of each phenomenon to issues of psychological importance requir es an understanding of the fundamental characteristics of each construct. O n the basis of both historical considerations and a limited but growing emp irical literature, we caution against viewing spirituality and religiousnes s as incompatible and suggest that the common tendency to polarize the term s simply as individual vs, institutional or "good" vs. "bad" is not fruitfu l for future research. Also cautioning against the use of restrictive, narr ow definitions or overly broad definitions that can rob either construct of its distinctive characteristics, we propose a set of criteria that recogni zes the constructs' conceptual similarities and dissimilarities. Rather tha n trying to force new and likely unsuccessful definitions, we offer these c riteria as benchmarks for judging the value of existing definitions.