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organisation to deliver its product may remain elusive. A risk inherent within post-

modernism comes to the fore in that the human person can become both ‘eroded’,
and indeed ‘instrumentalised by the dominant economic, social, and cultural forces’

(CES 2005:24). This can be true not only with regard to the people that the police
serve, but also the members of the service itself who are increasingly scrutinised,

and held to account by managers for whom performance is critical. This stands in
contrast with a concept of policing as a people business in which ‘how officers treat

the citizen, rather than what they accomplish as a result of their contact is more
important’ (Stanko cited in HMIC 2003:13).

iii) Spirituality & interiority within post-modernism

And so we come to the third identified feature of post-modernism which deals with

the cultural divide between the secular and the religious. As we have seen religion
and spirituality are somewhat set in opposition with a perceived decline in institutional
or communal faith, being the result of an increasingly relativistic, personalised, and

holistic understanding of spirituality. The heart of the crisis is that ‘a coherent system
of belief, let alone complex language about the nature of God, are no longer

presumed to be necessary for a fruitful spiritual journey. Rather the contrary is the
case and ‘experience is felt to liberate, definition to enslave’ (Sheldrake 1996:6).

Hence as religion becomes privatised the theological hermeneutic for spirituality
becomes fragmented and obscure, to be replaced by a more psychological

concentration on interiority.

Understanding and indeed reclaiming spirituality is the key challenge for those

involved in pastoral ministry, and there is a need for clarity regarding the meaning of
the term. In a certain sense spirituality is difficult to delineate as it ‘encompasses the

whole of life’ and is a ‘fundamental component of our human beingness’ (McCarthy
2000:196). As Rolheiser suggests, spirituality concerns something primordial, the

‘fire’ that is within us all, and how we are integrated both within ourselves and within
our communities. It is not something that can be ignored as ‘we all have a spirituality

whether we want one or not, whether we are religious or not’ (1998:5-11). This kind
of spirituality has been described, as a philosophical or ‘lower-case’ spirituality that
contrasts with a fully religious and ‘upper-case’ spirituality that involves an ‘active

(and) disciplined search for God’ (Warren cited in Bredin 1994:54-55).