What embodied characteristics are associated with mature spirituality, character, and virtue? Our work over the past several years has found that several characteristics associated with Christian spirituality can be meaningfully identified and assessed empirically over time.

However, these findings lead to another set of crucial questions:

• To what degree can North American understandings and embodiments of character, virtue, and spirituality be generalized to cultural contexts outside North America?  And relatedly,

• How can a more global, multicultural perspective on character, virtue, and spirituality enrich current understandings of these topics (including those in North America)? 

The urgency of this matter is underscored by several considerations.  First, much of what we know about spiritual maturity is culturally centered in the West, where Christianity is in decline, which in turn may influence how spirituality is perceived and practiced.  In contrast, Christianity is dynamic and growing dramatically in the majority world, which could give rise to differing understandings, characteristics, and embodiments of spirituality that are underrepresented in both the research and resource literature.

Some have also noted potential deficiencies of churches in the West, who may take on a largely business/managerial approach to the leadership of spiritual communities, focusing their energies instead on outcomes related to congregation size, fundraising, and the protection of religious institutions.  Altogether, these considerations highlight the timeliness of a systematic exploration into spiritual maturity and character as they are understood and embodied by Christians across the globe.