Therapists' Integration of Religion and Spirituality in Counseling: A Meta‐Analysis

The authors conducted a 26‐study meta‐analysis of 5,759 therapists and their integration of religion and spirituality in counseling. Most therapists consider spirituality relevant to their lives but rarely engage in spiritual practices or participate in organized religion. Marriage and family therapists consider spirituality more relevant and participate In organized religion to a greater degree than therapists from other professions. Across professions, most therapists surveyed (over 80%) rarely discuss spiritual or religious issues in training. In mixed samples of religious and secular therapists, therapists' religious faith was associated with using religious and spiritual techniques in counseling frequently, willingness to discuss religion in therapy, and theoretical orientation.     

Religious conversion among high security hospital patients: a qualitative analysis of patients’ accounts and experiences on changing faith

Research has shown the importance of religion in recovery from mental illness. Previous studies have investigated why individuals change faith during custody in prison, but there has been no research to date on religious conversion in forensic-psychiatric hospitals. The aim of this study was to understand the experience of religious conversion among patients detained in a UK secure hospital. Thirteen patients who had converted their religion were interviewed and the resultant data were analysed using thematic analysis. Three superordinate themes (“reasons for changing faith”, “benefits of having a new faith” and “difficulties with practising a faith”), incorporating eight subordinate themes, emerged. Understanding patients’ reasons for religious conversion is important for the treatment and support not merely of these individuals, but more broadly with patients in forensic-psychiatric care.     

Teaching the Devout Student: Faith and Scholarship in the Classroom

Increasing numbers of college students enrolling in religion courses in recent years are looking to develop their religious faith or spirituality, while professors of religion want students to use and appreciate scholarly tools to study religion from an academic perspective. Some scholars argue that it is not possible to satisfy both goals in the classroom, while authors in this journal have given suggestions on how to bridge the gap between faith and scholarship. I argue that such authors are correct and that, in my experience, historical‐critical methods can help devout students understand the original texts in their own religion better, comprehend why changes in interpretation have occurred over time, and appreciate the values in religions other than their own. Not all devout students are comfortable with an academic study of religion, but many can attain a more mature faith by such an approach.     

The Passion to Heal: A Theological Pastoral Approach to HIV/AIDS

Abstract. The global pandemic of HIV/AIDS is the most significant challenge of our time. The ongoing conversation between religion and science comes to a critical juncture in this pandemic. The global community has not yet found a vaccine or cure for this virulent virus, which will likely claim five million more lives in the coming year. The global statistics challenge even the most sophisticated imagination, with projections in the tens of millions of people dead, orphaned children, and many more living in various stages of incapacitation or diminished lives. There is a common prophetic religious imperative among Western faith communities that urgently requires both science and religion to respond. Both disciplines define their scope and purpose as universal, and the global pandemic provides a significant challenge to that universal claim. Regardless of the many differences among the nations and peoples challenged by this pandemic, there is a common moral foundation to which the Western religious and scientific traditions must respond. Religion and science cannot deny their respective social responsibilities by claiming the role of neutral bystander. There are several critical ethical choices to be made in response to the pandemic, and the disciplines of religion and science are critical in formulating those choices.     

Religious Life Under Theocracy: The Case of Iran

The occurrence of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, followed by a large‐scale “Islamization” of society, resulted in some unique developments with regard to religious life in this country. Over the past two decades, there has been a lively debate among social scientists about the nature of such developments, and over their implications for other Middle Eastern and Islamic societies. Most of the contributions to this debate so far have been limited to the examination of different theoretical possibilities, without strong references to empirical evidence. In the present study, we attempt to address this shortcoming in the existing literature on religious developments in Iran by relying on a rich set of empirical data recently gathered through a large‐scale national survey of values and attitudes in Iran. Through a composite index of religious sentiments, we explored the magnitude and the nature of religious sentiments among groups of different age and gender. Also, we examined changes with regard to religiosity in the period between 1975 and 2001. The outstanding finding is that the establishment of a theocratic regime in Iran has led to the transformation of the nature of faith, marked by a noticeable shift from “organized” to a more “personalized” religion, in which the emphasis is placed on beliefs rather than on practices. Also, among both beliefs and practices, more emphasis is placed on those with a purely individual nature, or with a social nature but organized through civic and nongovernmental bodies, as opposed to those commanded by the government. The article ends with a brief discussion of the implications of such developments for the existing debate among sociologists of religion on secularization and “de‐secularization.” Our findings indicate that any linear perspective on the demise or survival of religion in society will unreasonably brush aside the fact that religion is not merely a social institution, but also a “cultural resource” that individuals may draw upon, depending on their surrounding sociopolitical circumstances and their reading of those circumstances.     

British Muslim lesbians: reclaiming Islam and reconfiguring religious identity

Religiously infused ideology and doctrine on maleness/femaleness, procreation, family and the condemnatory attitude towards homosexuality has been significantly damaging for lesbians. Lesbians from a Muslim background, in particular, are forced to confront religious dogma, which advocates the punishment of non-heterosexuals leading them to repress and deny their sexuality. Despite this, an investment and belief in religion continues and remains important. In the present study the powerful appeal of religion and its influence on 5 Muslim women who identify as lesbian is explored. The study seeks to understand the way in which the women reconfigure their religious identity to address the difficulties they experience in incorporating discordant identities (faith and sexuality). The data gained indicates that rather than disconnect or reject their association with their faith they contest the condemnation of homosexuality within Islam, which in turn allows them to reclaim their Muslim identity. The alienation and ostracism the women experience from the Muslim ‘community’ has not led to their disaffection from Islam. Rather they resolutely pledge the importance of faith, practice and leading a life according to Islamic moral standards and principles. The women manage and integrate complex and layered aspects of their identity, through their commitment to Islam but also a determination to recognise an intrinsic aspect of the self that they no longer refuse to deny or suppress.     

FAITH,BELIEF, AND THE COMPATIBILITY OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Recent attacks on the compatibility of science and religion by the “militant modern atheists” (Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens) have posed serious challenges for anyone who supports the human importance of religious faith (particularly their identification of “faith” with “believing without evidence”). This article offers a critical analysis of their claims compared with those who do not equate faith with belief. I conclude that (i) the militant modern atheist interpretation of faith undervalues transformative religious experiences, (ii) that more people of faith hold it for this reason than their opponents acknowledge, and (iii) that meaningful dialogue between religion and science is both possible and desirable.     

Religious Ambivalence,Liminality, and the Increase of No Religious Preference in the United States, 2006–2014

Americans identified less and less with organized religion over the past two decades. Yet apparently, many people who no longer identify with a religion are not consistently nonreligious. Reinterviews reveal that many people who express no religious preference in one survey name a religion when asked the same question in a subsequent interview. Past research called this phenomenon a “liminal” status. This article improves estimates of liminality by using three interviews and a better statistical model. About 20 percent of Americans were liminal in recent years, 10 percent were consistently nonreligious, and 70 percent were consistently religious. Falling religious identification in cross‐sectional data over the last three decades reflects slow change in religious identity, but some of the rise of the nones is due to more liminals saying they have no religion. Liminals appear equally among people raised conservative Protestant, mainline Protestant, or Catholic.     

Religion and Decisions About Marriage,Residence, Occupation,and Children

Using data from the first wave of the Portraits of American Life Study (PALS), we consider the extent to which people report that religious factors influence their decisions about career choice, marriage, residency, and number of children. We find significant positive relationships between the importance of religion or religious faith and the perceived influence of religious factors on one's choice of occupation, decision about whether or whom to marry, decision about where to live, and decision about how many children to have. We also observe significant interactions between the importance of religion or religious faith and religious tradition, but we find no consistent patterns across our decision‐making outcomes. Our preliminary conclusions raise significant questions about the broader relationship between religion, perception, and decision making.     

Awash in a Sea of Faith and Firearms: Rediscovering the Connection Between Religion and Gun Ownership in America

The United States is awash in a sea of both faith and firearms. Although sociologists and criminologists have been trying to understand the predictors of gun ownership in the United States since the 1970s, it has been over two decades since social scientists of religion have been part of this important conversation. Consequently, religion is nothing more than a control variable in most studies of gun ownership. Even then, scholars have rarely gone beyond a basic measure of religious affiliation in which Protestant = 1 (else = 0). This article therefore seeks to bring social scientists studying religion back into the conversation about gun ownership in America and to move the discussion forward incrementally. It does so in three ways. First, it employs a more sophisticated measure of religious affiliation than has been used to study gun ownership in the past. Second, it measures religiosity beyond simply religious affiliation. Third, it recognizes and seeks to specify some of the various ways in which the relationship between religion and gun ownership may be mediated by other religiously influenced sociopolitical orientations. Using data from the 2006–2014 General Social Survey, hierarchical binary logistic regression models show significant effects of evangelical Protestant affiliation, theological conservatism, and religious involvement on personal handgun ownership.     

Becoming a ‘real’ Catholic: Polish migrants and lived religiosity in the UK and Ireland

The effect of migration on religiosity is a well-documented theme in the sociology of religion. Despite the rapid growth in the number of Polish Catholics in the UK and Ireland, little has been written on the spiritual and religious aspects of their journeys. This article is based on the authors’ ethnographic fieldwork with Polish migrants in the UK and Ireland. Drawing on qualitative interviews and participant observation with Polish migrants of various ages and class backgrounds, we identify three possible outcomes for individuals of Catholic faith being transplanted to a secular context: firstly, Catholic Poles continue to practise in the same way as they did in their home country; secondly, they begin to question their faith and leave the church altogether; thirdly, they take the opportunity to explore their faith in a flexible and relatively independent manner. We argue that the third possibility leads to the privatisation and intellectualisation of their Catholicism. Thus, the experience of migration gives some Polish Catholics the freedom and courage to question their beliefs, but it does not necessarily make them irreligious. In their own words, they ‘believe in the way they have always wanted to but did not dare’. In conclusion, this article highlights the secondary benefits of migration for the personal experience of religious faith.     

Whose Authority? Perceptions of Science Education in Black and Latino Churches

Recent scholarship argues that beliefs in biblical literalism might keep conservative Protestants out of STEM. Two of the groups that are most underrepresented in STEM, black Americans and Latinos, are also two of the most religious populations in the United States, and specifically overrepresented in theologically conservative Christian traditions. Yet, prior work also suggests that churches help promote positive educational outcomes. To interrogate the potential relationship between STEM educational aspirations and religious faith, we explore how black and Latino Christians perceive the potential impact of science education on religious faith. Analysis of 40 interviews reveals that both black Americans and Latinos have concerns about science teachers being biased. Yet, the groups differ in their assessment of the danger of anti-religious bias. Black Americans put confidence in the Christian community to incubate children from harm to their faith; therefore, they believe the effect of science education on religious faith is either neutral or positive. Latinos, however, raise concerns about the authority of science educators, rather than science curriculum. Overall, the results shift the conversation on conservative religion and science education from solely discussing content to exploring issues of bias and authority.     

Missional Discipleship

Most communities of the world, and particularly in the continent of Africa, are multi‐faith and multicultural. Christianity is a major religion in the continent that has succeeded in persuading adherents of African traditional religions to switch off from their indigenous belief and switch on to Christian belief. 1 Christianity is not the only religious faith in Africa. It has other sibling monotheistic religions and other religious expressions. Christianity, being a mission‐oriented religious faith, has a mandate to bring about transformation as reflected in its sacred text, the Bible. This article will explore how the transformation is stimulated and sustained. Meanwhile, it is necessary to state that African people were religious people even before the advent of Christianity and Islam. As a result, religion plays a critical role in their public engagements. Nevertheless, what may be investigated further would be whether religion, and Christian faith in particular, influences the people to be good citizens/disciples as they engage in the socio‐political and economic life of the society. The article seeks to use the notion of missional discipleship as a compelling stimulus for inclusive transformation in African societies.     

A History of Psychology of Religion in the West: Implications for Theory and Method

The study of religion in Western psychology has an interesting history that provides many lessons for future attempts to understand the spiritual aspects of human experience. In the past, psychologists have typically operated from one of three paradigms in their study of religion: (1) hermeneutic–phenomenological, (2) positivistic naturalism, and (3) religious integration. Each of these paradigms has a number of important theoretical assumptions and a preferred set of methodologies that offer significant advantages and disadvantages. The paradigm of positivistic naturalism, with its emphasis on quantitative questionnaire methodology, has been the most influential but also the least helpful in generating new ideas for the psychological understanding of religion, particularly as it is practiced in non-Western contexts. A historical survey of the other competing paradigms offers many insights and practical suggestions about how research in the psychology of religion might proceed in the twenty-first century.     

Secular Religion: A Discourse–historical Approach to Religion in Contemporary Western Europe

In many countries in Western Europe today, religion is an important factor in public debates. Contrary to most expectations, religion has not vanished or even become subordinate under the influence of secularism. While this phenomenon has put the general theory of secularization under pressure, an alternative model for explaining the place of religion in Western Europe is only slowly taking shape. The present article is a contribution to this discussion. Making use of discourse analysis as it has been developed in the sociology of knowledge and in historiography, the article problematizes and transcends the secular–religious divide. It is argued that the entanglement of religious and secular discourses has produced new meanings and new realities since the rise of secularism in the eighteenth century. Four perspectives on the reconfiguration of the religious fields of discourse are introduced that have shaped contemporary religious landscapes in Western Europe. These perspectives are discussed with special attention to the situation in the Netherlands.     

Religious Heterogamy and the Intergenerational Transmission of Religion in China

In Western societies, religious heterogamy and its effects on religious socialization outcomes have been interpreted through the lens of secularization. How about China, where religion has been resurging in recent decades? Using data from the 2007 Spiritual Life Survey of Chinese Residents, this study shows that despite China's atheist education system and strict religion policies, having at least one religiously affiliated parent is associated with increased religiosity compared to having two nonreligious parents. Whereas religious heterogamy in the West has a secularizing effect on the next generation, religious heterogamy in secular nations, such as China, has a religionizing effect and contributes to religion's rise.     

Reconsidering religion and fandom: Christian fan works in My Little Pony fandom

Studies of religion and fandom have tended to explore the extent to which fan cultures might be seen as forms of surrogate religion. This article suggests that a more detailed examination of the way in which believers use their faith within their individual fandoms would offer more interesting insights into both contemporary religious practice and fandom. Conducting a case study of ‘Brony’ fandom (adult fandom of cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic), this article explores the ways in which Christian fans use fan fiction and art to promote religious literacy, explore theological issues and engage in evangelism and exegesis. Fan knowledge is used as a way to quickly impart and explore complex religious concepts in a manner which utilises the shared culture of fandom. This should not be seen as a symptom of ‘mediatisation’ but as part of a complex synthesis of faith and popular culture.     

Baring Their Souls in Online Profiles or Not? Religious Self‐Disclosure in Social Media

This study measured the prevalence of religious self‐disclosure in public MySpace profiles that belonged to a subsample of National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) wave 3 respondents (N = 560). Personal attributes associated with religious identification as well as the overall quantity of religious self‐disclosures are examined. A majority (62 percent) of profile owners identified their religious affiliations online, although relatively few profile owners (30 percent) said anything about religion outside the religion‐designated field. Most affiliation reports (80 percent) were consistent with the profile owner's reported affiliation on the survey. Religious profile owners disclosed more about religion when they also believed that religion is a public matter or if they evaluated organized religion positively. Evangelical Protestants said more about religion than other respondents. Religiosity, believing that religion is a public matter, and the religiosity of profile owners’ friendship group were all positively associated with religious identification and self‐disclosure.     

A Preliminary Investigation of the Role of Religion for Family Members of Lesbian,Gay Male,or Bisexual Male and Female Individuals

Religious faith is an important aspect of many people's lives, but the doctrinal teachings of many faiths are that homosexuality is a sin. Little is known about the impact of these teachings on the family members of lesbian, gay male, or bisexual male and female (LGB) individuals. Eighty‐eight family members of LGB individuals were surveyed regarding the role of religion in acceptance of their family member and how they reconciled any conflicts between religious beliefs and family member's sexual orientation. The most commonly identified theme was believing that the unconditional love associated with God extended to their LGB family member. Implications for counselors are discussed.