Religious attributions pertaining to the causes and cures of mental illness

In this Australian study, 126 Protestant Christian participants, 52 females and 74 males, were assessed for their beliefs about the importance of 26 causal variables and 25 treatment variables for two mental disorders: Major Depression and Schizophrenia. Factor analysis revealed four causal factors, common to both conditions, labelled as religious factors, physical factors, coping style and social/environmental stressors. Furthermore, four treatment factors emerged: religious means, professional help, help from others (non-professional) and self-initiated means. Explanatory variables for these beliefs were assessed using: a Religious Beliefs Inventory (RBI) to measure religious beliefs; a Values Survey (VS) including a measure of Christian religious values; and a Religion and Mental Health Inventory (RMHI) to measure cognitive dissonance (cf. Festinger, 1957 Festinger L 1957 A Theory of cognitive dissonance Evanston IL Row & Peterson  [Google Scholar]) between religious faith and perceptions of mental-health principles. The results revealed that religious beliefs, religious values and cognitive dissonance function as predictors of the attribution of the causes and treatments, for Major Depression and Schizophrenia, to religious factors. An additional finding of this study was that 38.2% of the participants endorsed a demonic aetiology of Major Depression, and 37.4% of the participants endorsed a demonic aetiology of Schizophrenia.     

A Three-Dimensional Concept of Worldview

Several Christian school associations and many Christian schools identify developing a Biblical worldview in their students as an essential component of their organizational mission, yet few report on their level of success. This study investigates the concept of worldview from an Evangelical Christian perspective. The first step in investigating worldview is to establish a working definition of the term worldview. A Biblical definition of worldview is a challenge since Scripture does not use the term, but various writers have defined the term with language that is Biblically relevant. This study used the definition of worldview as derived by James W. Sire in 2004 Sire , J. W. (2004). Naming the elephant: Worldview as a concept . Downer's Grove , IL : InterVarsity Press. [Google Scholar] as the basis for a three-dimensional conception of worldview. The dimensions are propositional, behavioral, and heart-orientation.     

Religious teaching and political context: the case of Cyprus

In this article I aim to explore some philosophical issues involved in teaching religion in Cyprus and suggest some preconditions in order for this teaching to be sensitive to the multicultural character of the island and conducive to the vision of reconciliation and reunification. First, I shall clarify some particularities of the political problem of Cyprus, since many misconceptions obscure the understanding of the real stakes at issue, having crucial repercussions for demarcating the role of religious belief. For the Cyprus problem has been misconceived by many people as a kind of religious and ethnic conflict, thus raising various kinds of false dilemmas and expectations in relation to the local religions (Christian Orthodoxy and Islam) and their future cultivation in the schools of the two communities. I shall attempt to ‘put the record straight’ in a way, showing that the Cyprus issue is not reducible to the religious difference of the peoples involved, and suggest what I believe is the real challenge now regarding the teaching of religion in this part of the world.

The independence treaties left Cypriots—particularly Greek Cypriots—with a political half‐life. If the NATO allies thought the contrived constitutional arrangement would enable the two communities to live peacefully together, they were badly mistaken. (O’Malley & Craig, 2002 O’Malley, B. and Craig, I. 2002. The Cyprus conspiracy: America, espionage and the Turkish invasion, New York: I. B. Tauris Publishers.  [Google Scholar], p. 87)     

Moral Politics in the 2008 Presidential Convention Acceptance Speeches

This study examines the 2008 presidential party convention acceptance speeches from the perspective of George Lakoff's (1996 Lakoff , G. ( 1996 ). Moral politics: What conservatives know that liberals don't . Chicago , IL : University of Chicago Press . [Google Scholar], 2002 Lakoff , G. ( 2002 ). Moral politics: How liberals and conservatives think . Chicago , IL : University of Chicago Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) theory of moral politics, which argues that a metaphor of the nation as a family guides the adoption of a political ideology and facilitates persuasion. We coded speeches for instantiations of Strict Father and Nurturant Parent morality and for the social and political issues they contained. We found, as expected, that Democrats referenced more Nurturant Parent themes than Strict Father themes but that Republicans used instantiations from both moral worldviews at similar rates. Democrats, but not Republicans, framed party-owned issues in terms of their corresponding moral worldview. We discuss implications for Lakoff's theory and avenues for future research.     

Medical Marijuana and Social Control: Escaping Criminalization and Embracing Medicalization

The medicalization of marijuana represents an evolving trend across the United States, yet researchers have yet to focus on the reasons users obtain cannabis licenses or the changing methods of State control that emerge in the legal-medicalized industry. In this article I draw on 40 in-depth interviews and participant observation with undergraduate cardholders to examine college students' motivations to get medical marijuana cards and the process of social learning and resocialization they undergo in shifting away from an illicit and unregulated market to one that is State-sanctioned and controlled. I analyze the medicalization of cannabis as part of a “new culture of crime control” (Garland 2001 ——— . 2001 . The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society . Chicago , IL : The University of Chicago Press . [Google Scholar]), showing how, in contrast to criminalization, the legal-medical model offers the State potent forms of social control at the structural, cultural, and interactional levels of society. I conclude with a discussion of the benefits gained by the State from this legal-medicalization on both the effects and causes of crime.     

Christian Nurture of Children in the Writings of Horace Bushnell and Ellen G. White

Until the 20th century, the spiritual nurture of children was not a high priority for the Christian church. In fact, for most of Christian history, reflection on the nature of children and their faith formation was often considered “beneath” the work of theologians. Two 19th-century American Christian writers, however, stand in sharp contrast to this trend: Horace Bushnell (1802–1876) and Ellen G. White (1827–1915 White, E. G. (1915). Life sketches of Ellen G. White. Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press. [Google Scholar]). This article examines, compares, and contrasts the thoughts of these two thinkers on Christian nurture within the context of their lives and theologies of human nature and salvation.     

Saints With Glasses: Mexican Catholics in Alcoholics Anonymous

Observers of religion in the contemporary United States have interpreted participation in quasi-religious organizations as evidence of dissatisfaction with traditional religious institutions. In Latin America, the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous Alcoholics Anonymous Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age: A Brief History of AA New York Alcoholics Anonymous World Services 1983  [Google Scholar] are associated with Protestant spirituality and membership in the group has been seen as rejection of the Roman Catholic Church. However, instead of abandoning their religious affiliations, Catholic men in one Mexican Alcoholics Anonymous chapter put their new beliefs and practices into the service of the old. They revised both their conception of God and their manner of participating in fiestas to become better functioning Catholics.     

Assumptive Worldviews and Religious Coping With Bereavement and Type 2 Diabetes

This study explored the effects of deferring and self-directed religious coping on the assumptive worldviews of women following the death of a child, the death of another friend or family member, or diagnosis with type 2 diabetes mellitus (n = 284). Participants completed the World Assumptions Scale (Janoff-Bulman, 1989 Janoff-Bulman, R. 1989. Assumptive worlds and the stress of traumatic events: Application of the schema construct. Social Cognition, 7: 113–136. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the Religious Problem-Solving Scales (Pargament et al., 1988 Pargament, K. I., Kennell, J., Hathaway, W., Grevengoed, N., Newman, J. and Jones, W. 1988. Religion and the problem-solving process: Three styles of coping. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 27: 90–104. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and the Deistic and Supportive but Nonintervening God Scale (Phillips, Pargament, Quinten, & Crossley, 2004 Phillips, R. E., Pargament, K. I., Quinten, K. L. and Crossley, C. 2004. Self-directing religious coping: A deistic God, abandoning God, or no God at all?. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 43: 409–418. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Women who had lost a child saw the world as least meaningful, followed by women otherwise bereaved, followed by women diagnosed with diabetes. Different religious coping styles offered different advantages in coping with these stressors. Across groups, deferring coping was associated with greater world meaning, whereas self-directed coping was associated with greater self-worth. The findings are discussed in the context of previous research finding inconsistent relationships between deferring and self-directed religious coping styles and adjustment.     

Religious fundamentalism and primitive projective processes

In her book on the origins, nature and contemporary global significance of religious fundamentalism, Karen Armstrong cites the example of an early twentieth-century, ultra-Orthodox Jewish spirituality1 ¹Such a spirituality may be characterized as ‘fundamentalist’ inasmuch as it appeals to the inerrancy of sacred texts to legitimize conceptions of the purity of the ‘Holy Land’ as exclusively a place for prayer and the study of Scripture and not as a site for the erection of a nation state. For a brief account of the history of ultra-Orthodox, anti-Zionist spirituality from 1900 to the present, see Armstrong 2000 Armstrong K 2000 The Battle for God. Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (London: Harper Collins)  [Google Scholar], pp.?201–217. vehemently opposed to the creation of the state of Israel. Armstrong suggests that

This rejectionist vision is utterly incomprehensible to Jews who regard the Zionist achievement as wondrous and salvific. This is the dilemma that Jews, Christians and Muslims have all had to face in the twentieth century: between the fundamentalists and those who adopt a more positive attitude to the modern world there is an impassable gulf. Rational arguments are of no avail, because the divergence springs from a deeper and more instinctual level of the mind (Armstrong 2000 Armstrong K 2000 The Battle for God. Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (London: Harper Collins)  [Google Scholar], pp.?204–205 [my highlighting]).

This paper will try and show that Melanie Klein's depiction of primitive mental processes serves to elucidate both the nature of this ‘impassable gulf’ and the ‘deeper’ levels of psychic functioning from which it originates. By shedding a specifically Kleinian psychoanalytic and object relations light on what appears to both warrant and inform the discourse on fundamentalism, it hopes to show how individual and group formation, and the interaction between them, are profoundly influenced by unconscious processes. Such processes are shown to be characterized by mechanisms of defence against anxieties – mechanisms induced by changes that threaten existing social relationships (Jaques 1955 The Guardian (2001) (London and Manchester) 13 October  [Google Scholar], p.?479).     

Religious Commitment and the Benefits of Cognitive Diversity: a Reply to Trakakis

Metaphilosophical discussions about the philosophy of religion are increasingly common. In a recent article in Sophia, N.N. Trakakis (56:605–630, 2017) advances the view that Christian Philosophy is closer to ideology than philosophy. This is because philosophy conducted in the Socratic tradition tends to emphasize values antithetical to religious faith such as independence of thought, rationality, empiricism, and doubt. A philosopher must be able to follow the arguments wherever they lead, something that the religious believer cannot do. I argue that there are two main problems with this view. First, Takakis faces an unpalatable dilemma. It is possible his view recommends a rejection of itself, making it self-referentially incoherent. If it does not recommend such a rejection, then Trakakis’s preferred method is not necessary for genuine philosophical inquiry. Second, Trakakis makes numerous knowledge claims about the psychological motivation of religious philosophers but never offers evidence for these claims. Third, Trakakis never considers that the existence of cognitive diversity is truth conducive. Even if devout religious believers cannot conduct genuine philosophical inquiry, unless Trakakis thinks we should ignore all works by religious believers, then it is irrelevant whether they are genuine philosophy.     

Adrian van Kaam, (1920–2007)

On the 10th anniversary of her doctoral dissertation on the psychology of fame and celebrity, Donna Rockwell shares a journal entry from that time related to working with her qualitative data. Donna was mentored by the late Clark Moustakas, Ph.D., at the Center for Humanistic Studies (now the Michigan School of Professional Psychology), in both Heuristic and Transcendental Phenomenological research methods (Moustakas, 1990 Moustakas , C. ( 1990 ). Heuristic research. Design, methodology, and applications . Newbury Park , CA : Sage .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 1994 Moustakas , C. ( 1994 ). Phenomenological research methods . Thousand Oaks , CA : Sage .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Exploring the mysteries of human experience as sacred ground, Donna describes her way of being-with the lived-world of her research participants.     

Constraints on the Acquisition of Social Category Concepts

Determining which dimensions of social classification are culturally significant is a developmental challenge. Some suggest this is accomplished by differentially privileging intrinsic visual cues over nonintrinsic cues (Atran, 1990 Atran , S. (1990). Cognitive foundations of natural history: Towards an anthropology of science . New York , NY : Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]; Gil-White, 2001 Gil-White , F. J. ( 2001 ). Are ethnic groups biological ‘species’ to the human brain? Essentialism in our cognition of some social categories . Current Anthropology , 42 , 515 – 554 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), whereas others point to the role of noun labels as more general promoters of kind-based reasoning (Bigler &; Liben, 2007 Bigler , R. S. , &; Liben , L. S. ( 2007 ). Developmental intergroup theory: Explaining and reducing children's social stereotyping and prejudice . Current Directions in Psychological Science , 16 , 162 – 166 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Gelman, 2003 Gelman , S. A. ( 2003 ). The essential child: Origins of essentialism in everyday thought . New York , NY : Oxford University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). A novel groups procedure was employed to examine the independent effects of noun labels and visual cues on social categorization. Experiment 1 demonstrated that in the absence of a visual cue, a noun label supported social categorization among 4-year-olds and 7-year-olds. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that children and adults fail to differentiate between intrinsic and nonintrinsic visual cues to category membership, suggesting that this distinction is not central to the acquisition of social category concepts. Experiments 2 and 3 also showed that in the absence of a shared noun label, visual cues were not sufficient for younger children to form social categories. Experiment 4 ruled out a potential demand characteristic in the previous experiments. Together, these results reveal the primacy of verbal labels over visual cues for social categorization in young children and suggest a developmental change between ages 4 and 7 in the ability to construct new representations of social category concepts.     

The 2007 Birmingham Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education: a new direction for statutory religious education in England and Wales

The aim of this article is to introduce and summarise the main feature of the new Birmingham City Council Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education (2007 Birmingham City Council (BCC). 2007. Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education, Birmingham: City Council.  [Google Scholar]), consider the relevance of its commitments and conclusions to ongoing debates within British religious education, and, finally, offer some kind of provisional assessment of its strengths and worth. By way of introduction, attention is given both to the mounting controversy that currently attends British religious education, which has given rise to conflicting opinions and estimates of its achievements and value, and to the historical role and legal status of agreed syllabuses within English and Welsh education.     

Thinking Levels of Questions in Christian Reading Textbooks

If Christian schools desire students to achieve higher-level thinking, then the textbooks that teachers use should reflect such thinking. Using Risner's (1987 Risner, G. P. (1987). Cognitive levels of questioning demonstrated by test items that accompany selected fifth-grade science textbooks (Doctoral dissertation). Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. [Google Scholar]) methodology, raters classified questions from two Christian publishers’ fifth grade reading textbooks based on the revised Bloom's taxonomy (Anderson et al., 2001 Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D. R., Airasian, P. W., Cruikshank, K. A., Mayer, R. E., Pintrick, P. R., … Wittrock, M. C. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. New York, NY: Addison Wesley Longman. [Google Scholar]). The questions in the A Beka Book textbook contained 57.6% lower-level and 42.4% higher-level thinking; the questions in the Bob Jones University Press textbook contained 45.8% lower-level and 54.2% higher-level thinking. Analysis revealed a statistically significant difference between the percentages of thinking in the two publishers (p < .05).     

The Gendered Expressions of Self-Control: Manifestations of Noncriminal Deviance Among Females

The present study explores the relationships between Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990 Gottfredson , Michael R. and Hirschi , Travis . 1990 . A General Theory of Crime . Stanford , CA : Stanford University Press . [Google Scholar]) concept of low self-control and two forms of deviance more common among females than males, borderline personality characteristics and eating disorders. Ordinary least squares regression models revealed that self-control was significantly associated with both borderline personality characteristics and eating disorder symptoms among a sample of 161 female undergraduates. The findings of the present study highlight the potential utility in expanding our focus of the effects of low self-control beyond traditional analogous behaviors, especially when attempting to understand female behavior.     

Spiritual Suffering from Medieval German Mysticism to Mother Teresa: A Psycholinguistic Analysis

Two computer programs, SSWC (Sundararajan-Schubert Word Count) and LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count), were used in combination to analyze the texts of 3 religious writers—one true mystic (Johannes Tauler), one false mystic (Thomas Müntzer) from medieval German Christianity, and one modern “saint,” Mother Teresa (Warren, 2010 Warren , R. ( 2010 , Aug. 31 ). Introduction . In D. Van Biema & R. Lacayo (Eds.), Mother Teresa at 100/The life and works of a modern saint (pp. 6 – 7 ). New York , NY : TIME Books .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 7). Results suggest that reflections on spiritual suffering that loom large in both medieval German mysticism and Mother Teresa constitute an adaptive approach to negative emotions, so far unexplored. Implications for research on negative religious coping, and adaptive versus maladaptive reflections on negative emotions will be discussed.     

The Night the Raving Died: The Social Construction of a Local Drug Panic

Scholars have recently reformulated the moral panic framework (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994 Goode , Erich and Nachman Ben-Yehuda . 1994 . Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance . Oxford : Blackwell Publishing Ltd . [Google Scholar], 2009 ——— . 2009 . Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance , 2nd ed . Oxford : Blackwell Publishing Ltd . [Google Scholar]). We employ this new framework in an evaluation of Gainesville, Florida's adoption of the anti-rave law. Our findings suggest that both individuals and groups were vital in the construction of an interest group model moral panic that led to the adoption of this law. Although researchers have utilized the moral panic framework in analyzing many social and legal changes over the past 40 years, it has also garnered much criticism. In an effort to further advance the framework, we provide several modifications to Goode and Ben-Yehuda's (2009 ——— . 2009 . Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance , 2nd ed . Oxford : Blackwell Publishing Ltd . [Google Scholar]) most recent reconceptualization and recommendations for future moral panic research.     

Contemporary Neuroscience Humanizes: A Look at Cortical Bilateral Asymmetry and How It Got That Way

Exciting research that has surfaced from a host of neuroscience laboratories is presented, and the assumption that they have little to offer human science considered. This includes the sensory substitution work of Bach-y-Rita (1967 Bach-y-Rita , P. ( 1967 ). Sensory plasticity: Applications to a vision substitution system . Acta Neurologica Scandinavia , 43 , 417 – 426 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), as well as the phantom pain hypothesis of Ramachandran (2011 Ramachandran ( 2011 ). The tell-tale brain . New York , NY : Norton . [Google Scholar]). These studies are considered atop the theoretical and meta-analytical work in the field of neuropsychiatry by McGilchrist (2009 McGilchrist , I. ( 2009 ). The master and his emissary . New Haven , CT : Yale University Press . [Google Scholar]). McGilchrist's inquiry into split-brain patients has resuscitated the once-dubious debate regarding hemispheric differences in the brain. By considering the latter in light of the evidence of neuroplasticity, global differences in right- or left-brain preference may be understood as analogous and reciprocally influential to patterns of thinking. This dynamic relationship between experience and the brain requires a reconsideration of the status of neuroscience as an exclusively reductive enterprise. Indeed, the laboratories seem to be producing results that have become increasingly difficult to reconcile with their biologically reductive commitments. While the neuroscientists are busy sorting out their results, those who do not share said commitments are free to enjoy the implications these results suggest.     

Patterns of Religious Coping among Bereaved College Students

Contemporary research has suggested that bereavement is a paramount issue in college populations, a group which has historically been underrepresented in grief research (Balk. in Death studies 25:67–84, 2001; Balk et al. in Death Studies 34:459–468, 2010). Indeed, there has been a call to generate new research on grief with specific populations and age groups (Center for the Advancement of Health. in Death Studies 28:568–575, 2004). Religion is often described as a primary way that individuals cope with bereavement in particular (Frantz et al. in Pastor Psychol 44(3):151–163, 1996) and has been shown to effect college student reactions to stress in general (Merrill et al. in Mental Health, Religion & Culture 12(5):501–511, 2009). The RCOPE (Pargament et al. in J Clin Psychol 56(4):519–543, 2000, J Health Psychol 9:713–730, 2004) is a frequently used measure of religious coping, but has not been evaluated with a bereaved undergraduate population. Given that emerging adulthood is a critical developmental phase of religious identity (Fowler. in New Directions for Child Development 3(52):27–45, 1991), the current study examined the factor structure of the RCOPE within a sample of bereaved college students. An exploratory factor analysis was performed, which approximated the factor structure proposed by Pargament et al. (J Clin Psychol 56(4):519–543, 2000). However, a high correlation between the positive and negative religious coping subscales (r = 0.71) detracted from the predictive utility of Pargament et al.′s (2000) two overarching subscales. Therefore, an exploratory factor analysis with an orthogonal rotation was used to identify two uncorrelated subscales (adaptive religious coping and maladaptive religious coping). This new two-factor, 39-item version of the RCOPE was found to demonstrate good internal consistency (α > 0.8) as well as convergent and discriminant validity. The interaction between religious coping strategies and core beliefs about the predictability of the world is explored, and directions for future research and clinical practice are suggested.