Draft for 3 rd edition of the Handbook of Theories of Aging June 2015 Religion, Spirituality and Aging Peter G. Coleman, Elisabeth Schrӧder-Butterfill, John H. Spreadbury University of Southampton, England, U.K. The subject of religion and the related topic of spirituality have become of increasing interest to gerontologists in the twenty first century. This has resulted in conceptual and theoretical developments alongside empirical data collection. In this chapter we focus on three major areas of investigation into the role of religion and spirituality in older people’s lives: age differences in the nature of religious and spiritual belief and practice; health benefits that accrue to older people who profess a religious faith and engage in spiritual activities; influences on social and intergenerational relationships and support resulting from membership of a faith tradition. The study of religion and spirituality with age would benefit from greater investment in comparative research. Excellent examples are provided by studies of black and white older Americans (Krause, 2002; Taylor, Chatters and Jackson, 2007), but there remains a huge untapped potential for detailed investigation of differences relating to ethnicity, gender, education, religious socialization and other demographic factors in addition to age. The vast majority of studies into older people’s spiritual beliefs and practices over the last fifty years have been conducted in western societies and with those socialized into Christian traditions (notable exceptions include Mehta, 1997; Lamb, 2000; Traphagan, 2004; MacKinlay 2010). This has inevitably given a biased understanding of the relationships between religion, spirituality and ageing. We therefore conclude this chapter with a stress on the importance of conducting research on religion, spirituality and aging in non-western and non-Christian 1