Celebrating ten years of the Journal for the Study of Spirituality

Abstract

The British Association for the Study of Spirituality (BASS) was launched in January 2010 in the splendid surroundings of the Charterhouse in London, a building that ‘has been living the nation’s history since 1348’. The launch may have been a very small step in that history but, as Bailey (2011, 10–12) records, for the ‘small ad hoc group of volunteers’ who, for more than two years, ‘with no designated funding and no permanent meeting place’ had been exploring ‘what might be possible in terms of creating a network of academics, scholars and practitioners interested in the study of spirituality’, it represented a giant ‘leap of faith’. A decade later, it gives me great pleasure, as one of those original volunteers, to see the energy of that leap continuing to flow through the work of BASS and this journal. The volunteer group had come together in the hope of forging links between various professional and disciplinary ‘silos’ in which separate discussions and studies of spirituality were taking place, but rarely engaging with each other. One of our key aspirations for BASS was to: ‘Encourage and facilitate scholarship and research in spirituality through the development of a journal, joint collaborative research projects, and a biennial conference’. In June of this year, 2020, the tenth anniversary of the Journal for the Study of Spirituality (JSS) will coincide with the Sixth International BASS Conference in York. The conference title, ‘Spirituality in Research, Professional Practice and Education’, reflects the three primary interests that have guided the development of both BASS and JSS. This anniversary issue of JSS is intended as a celebration of the 10-year journey from Charterhouse to York, and the milestones that have been passed along the way. In the lead article, John Swinton revisits and further develops the substance of the inaugural address he gave at Charterhouse. He notes that the launch of BASS was the product of ‘multiple minds, much passion and many invaluable gifts of time’. So, too, is this journal. It would not exist without the work of its contributors, editorial board, guest reviewers, and production teams, past and present. It is my privilege to have worked alongside them all. There have been times over the past decade when the future of JSS has looked bleak. Indeed, it almost did not come into being at all. The original proposal for a yet-to-be-named journal which would focus on the study of spirituality was written in 2008. It was subsequently rejected by several publishers on the grounds of financial viability and the nature of the field. Feedback included: