Humans are bio-psycho-social-spiritual beings. Each aspect of functioning needs attention and care. Religions have the potential to contribute to the holistic development of people. Religious leaders have the responsibility to contextualise religious principles into modern and post-modern idioms and not expect people to bracket their intellectual inquisitiveness and general knowledge. In this way, they could provide guidance for people on their spiritual quest for connectedness and significance. When the central part of religion becomes but ritualistic behaviours that bind people together and keep existential anxiety at bay, religion's core spirituality is lost. Then meaning might be sought in money, power and even feelings, at whatever cost. A loss of meaning may also lead to escapism in consumerism and alcohol and drug abuse. In our predominantly religious society, societal evils are rife. This situation may in part be attributed to religious communities primarily serving a social function and fulfilling the most basic psychological needs for safety and security.
Religions all fulfil the same spiritual function - to map a road for spiritual development and to nurture and enhance spiritual maturity. Pastors and other helping professionals fail in their responsibilities if they do not acknowledge and attend to the spirituality of their charges.
Religions serve many psychological functions. They are indivisibly entwined with humans' evolution and their search for meaning. As humans evolve, so their beliefs need to evolve from egocentrism to world centrism, whilst this may also entail a change from absolute certainty to a tolerance of ambiguity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's view (as quoted by Spong 2001) provides a perspective on spiritual maturity:
Our coming of age leads us to a true recognition of our situation before God. God would have us know that we must live as those who manage our lives without God. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us. The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continuously. Before God and with God we live without God.