THE PHYSICALIZED MIND AND THE GUT‐BRAIN AXIS: TAKING MENTAL HEALTH OUT OF OUR HEADS

As it becomes increasingly plausible that the mind–brain is explicable in naturalistic terms, science‐and‐religion scholars have the opportunity to engage creatively and proactively with facets of brain‐related research that better inform our understanding of human well‐being. That is, once mental health is recognized as being a whole‐body phenomenon, exciting theological conversations can take place. One fascinating area of research involves the “gut–brain axis,” or the interactive relationship between the microbiome in the gastrointestinal tract (i.e., gut bacteria), the central nervous system, and mental health. A growing body of literature explores the immensely significant interactions between the gut microbiome and mental health issues involving depression, anxiety, gene expression, and stress responses. One's mental health does not occur in a disembodied state, but in a complex physical environment that is strongly influenced by environmental factors, many of which we can control. This article argues that science‐and‐religion can welcome scientific research in this area, creatively incorporating such insights into a theology of mental health and physical well‐being.     

SCIENTISM AND TECHNOLOGY AS RELIGIONS

Abstract. Jacques Ellul, by far the most significant author in the serious discussions on the interface between religion and technology, is apparently not known to the science‐and‐religion field. The reason is the imprecise use of the terminology. In scientific formulation the relationship can be summarized as technology /religion:: science/theology. The first pair are robust three‐dimensional templates of most human experience; the second pair are linear, abstract concerns of a minority of citizens. In the parallel community—now well developed throughout academia—of science, technology, and society, where the technology/religion matters have been discussed more than the science/religion pair, John Caiazza's point that “techno‐secularism is the real problem” has been front and center for some decades. Among the theologians most aware of this, Raimundo Panikkar, Langdon Gilkey, and Huston Smith, Smith is the one who has taken the case much further than Caiazza, recognizing the danger of the real theological challenge from the religion of scientism and actively working against it. I write from a unique background among those involved in this debate—that of being deeply embedded simultaneously both in the modern science and technology establishment and in the reform of the religious enterprise for fifty years. I make the case that matters are worse than even Smith posits. He shows that scientism as a fundamentalist modern secularism serves the exact function of the theology behind the practiced religion of America and the West, that is, technology. An unexpected ray of hope has appeared in the sudden emergence of whole‐person healing (also known as complementary and alternative medicine), which is used regularly by well over half the population. This reintroduction of the spiritual dimension into this key technology of health will certainly be a major turning point.     

Unusual but sound minds: Mental health indicators in spiritual individuals

Previous research has linked certain types of modern spirituality, including New Age and Pagan, with either benign schizotypy or insecure attachment. While the first view emphasizes a positive aspect of spiritual believers’ mental health (benign schizotypy), the second view emphasizes a negative aspect, namely the unhealthy emotional compensation associated with an insecure attachment style. This study addresses these two conflicting views by comparing a sample of modern spiritual individuals (N = 114) with a contrast group of traditional religious believers (N = 86). Measures of schizotypy and attachment style were combined with mental health scales of anxiety and depression. We further assessed death anxiety to determine whether modern spiritual beliefs fulfilled a similar function as traditional religious beliefs in the reduction of existential threat. Our results support a psychological contiguity between traditional and modern spiritual believers and reinforce the need to de‐stigmatize spiritual ideas and experiences. Using hierarchical regression, we showed that unusual experiences and ideas are the major predictor of engagement in modern spiritual practices. Anxiety, depression variables, and insecure attachment were not significant predictors of spirituality or correlated with them; on the other hand, the results show that spiritual believers report high social support satisfaction and this variable predicts involvement in modern spirituality. Further, spiritual practices were negatively correlated with and negatively predicted by death anxiety scores. Overall, the results strengthen the association between modern spirituality, good mental health, and general well‐being.     

MENTAL WELL‐BEING,NEUROSCIENCE, AND RELIGION: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE SCIENCE AND RELIGION FORUM

The Science and Religion Forum (SRF) seeks to be the premier organization promoting the discussion between science and religion in the United Kingdom. Each year, the SRF holds a conference tackling a topical issue, and in 2017 focused on mental well‐being, neuroscience, and religion. This article introduces the thematic section which is made up of five papers from that conference. As a new field within the science and religion academy, these articles are both wide‐ranging and detailed. This introductory article locates this section within the academy and argues that its place is not only valid but vital, given the increase of mental health problems and the need for medicine, church, and society to answer this problem and present ways to help.     

MENTAL HEALTH AND THE GOSPEL: A RESPONSE TO CHRISTOPHER COOK

It is sometimes assumed that when the gospels talk about demon possession they are just using different terminology for what would now be called psychosis or epilepsy. However, these terms come from different discourses that need to be distinguished, but do not need to be kept completely separate. The nature of the relationship between religion and mental health is complex. There is usually a positive correlation, but it is more difficult to be confident about the nature of the causal connection. Poor mental health can become intertwined with religion in a way that drags both down. It is a consistent feature of Jesus' interactions that he encourages people to believe that more is possible than might have been imagined. His impact on the mental health of those around him seems to have been largely a matter of what might now be called positive psychology.     

Christian Identification and Self‐Reported Depression: Evidence from China

The nexus between religion and mental health in the East has been understudied, where the coexistence of multiple religions calls for scholarly attention to religious identification. This article investigates the impact on self‐reported depression of an individual's identification with Christianity in a non‐Judeo‐Christian and religion‐regulating social setting. Taking advantage of the Chinese General Social Survey 2010, our empirical analyses suggest that people who explicitly identify with Christianity report a significantly higher level of depression compared with both religious nones and self‐claimed Buddhists. In contrast, there is no significant difference in self‐reported depression between religious nones and self‐identified Buddhists. This study supplements current literature on the connection between religious affiliation and mental health with a particular interest in East Asia, suggesting that the consequence on mental health of religious identification is contingent on a religion's social status, and a religion's marginal position may turn religious identification into a detrimental psychological burden.     

Religion as Cultural Models: Developing an Emic Measure of Religiosity

Despite a century's worth of work, lacunae remain in our understanding of the religion‐health relationship. Scholars in this field have called for increasingly sophisticated conceptualizations of religiosity that refine its connection to well‐being, accounting for both positive and negative associations, while being sensitive to the cultural variations in the experience of religion. This article argues that cognitive anthropological methods provide a novel approach to these issues by conceptualizing aspects of religion as culturally shared “styles of life.” Specifically, the combined approaches of cultural consensus and cultural consonance provide an emically valid measure of religiosity that is then linked to health through the psychosocial stress paradigm. Utilizing research among Brazilian Pentecostals within the state of São Paulo, this intrareligious study evaluates the predictive power of religious cultural consonance relative to widely used and established religiosity scales. Religious consonance is found to have a stronger correlation with psychological well‐being than comparable measures, suggesting that existing standardized measures miss important dimensions of the religion‐health relationship. As such, this article outlines an important area of collaboration between anthropologists and other religion‐health researchers.     

GOD, DISEASE, AND SPIRITUAL DILEMMAS: READING THE LIVES OF WOMEN WITH BREAST CANCER

To write about the disease of breast cancer from both scientific and spiritual perspectives is to reflect upon our genetic and spiritual ancestry. We examine the issues involved in breast cancer at the intersections of spirituality, technology, and science, using the fundamental thing we know about being human: our bodies. Our goal in this essay is to offer close readings of women's spiritual and bodily journeys through the disease of breast cancer. We have discovered that both illness and health come within the stories of particular people and particular disciplines. And to learn more about breast cancer, both scientific and spiritual aspects, one must be attentive to such particularities. Medicine and religion are bodily experiences, and being a body-self is what it means to be human.     

Effects of perceived social support and family demands on college students' mental well‐being: A cross‐cultural investigation

The effects of perceived social support and family demands on college students' mental well‐being (perceived stress and depression) were assessed in 2 samples of Jordanian and Turkish college students. Statistically significant negative correlations were found between perceived support and mental well‐being. Multiple regression analyses showed that perceived family support was a better predictor of mental well‐being for Jordanian students, while perceived support from friends was a better predictor of mental well‐being for Turkish students. Perceived family demands were stronger predictors of mental well‐being for participants from both ethnic groups. Jordanian and Turkish participants who perceived their families to be too demanding were more likely to report higher depression and stress levels. None of the interactions between social support or family demands and either of the 2 demographic variables were statistically significant. These findings provide a more nuanced view of the relationship between social support and mental health among college students, and point to the relevance of some cultural and situational factors. They also draw further attention to the detrimental effects of unrealistic family demands and pressures on the mental health of college youths.     

Self-concept: Psychosis and attraction of new religious movements

Self-concept is both a social product and a social force, and can be defined as the sum total of an individual's thoughts and beliefs regarding themselves, as well as perceptions by others. Such a view is essential for the well being of individuals and allows a person to function well within parameters of the society. When this self-concept starts to change then the individual looks for other pointers to gain a degree of self control back. Such an approach can explain some of the reasons why some individuals with mental illness turn towards new religious movements that may well be extreme. With data from two studies showing that patients with first onset psychosis are likely to change their religion, it is proposed that clinicians and researchers alike be aware of some of these factors.     

UNTANGLING FALSE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING ATHEISM AND HEALTH

Abstract In the past decade, the cognitive science of religion has worked to find an evolutionary explanation for supernatural belief. The explanations are convincing, but have created the stereotype that atheism is unnatural. In a similar way studies linking religious belief and health have vilified atheism as unhealthy. But belief is too complex, health is too nuanced, and the data are too varied to draw such a generalization. Catherine Caldwell‐Harris has developed a psychological profile to understand nonbelief as an expected outcome of individual difference and therefore natural. In a similar manner I argue that we should study the relationship between belief and health through the lens of individual differences. This approach is especially promising given recent research which indicates personality fully accounts for the relationship with well‐being previously attributed to belief. This approach has the added benefit of neutralizing the conversation by understanding atheism as the healthy expression of a natural personality.     

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy

This article presents acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) as a spiritually integrated therapeutic modality. ACT is a value‐driven therapy that involves facilitating transcendence of physical, mental, and emotional experience to alleviate human suffering; as such, ACT shares common ground with the domain of spirituality. Approached as a spiritually integrated therapy, ACT can help clients to access spiritual resources and create life meaning as well as aid in the resolution or transformation of spiritual struggles. Given that spiritual struggles, in particular, can have a significant impact on mental health and well‐being, this article provides guidance in how ACT can address such struggles.     

BETWEEN PHYSICALISM AND MENTALISM: PHILIP CLAYTON ON MIND AND EMERGENCE

Abstract. Philip Clayton's work on emergence is a valuable contribution to the fields of religion, science, and philosophy. I focus on three narrow but extremely important areas of Clayton's work. First, Clayton deems that Terrence Deacon's emergence theory is difficult to accept because it is constructed from thermodynamics, thereby rendering it unable to address phenomenological issues. I examine Deacon's theory and show that development from a physics base is warranted. Furthermore, Clayton does not convincingly demonstrate that such a constructive approach is necessarily incapable of attending to mental phenomena or offer an alternative that explains the causal power of a physically nonconstructible mental realm. Second, I argue that Clayton's notion of emergentist supervenience for comprehending the mental/physical relation is unnecessarily redundant and problematic in relation to causal power. Third, I explore Clayton's alternative use of agent causation to make sense of mental properties having causal power in the world. His effort to resolve emergence difficulties by appealing to phenomenology receives primary attention. Clayton's use of emergence theory is an important contribution to the religion‐and‐science community, and I encourage further dialogue on the exchange that Clayton commences.     

Understanding the genetic and environmental specificity and overlap between well‐being and internalizing symptoms in adolescence

Moderate inverse correlations are typically found between well‐being and mental illness. We aimed to investigate the role of genes and environments in explaining the relationships between two aspects of well‐being and two measures of internalizing symptoms. Altogether, 4700 pairs of 16‐year‐old twins contributed data on subjective happiness and life satisfaction, as well as symptoms of depression and emotional problems. Well‐being was moderately correlated with internalizing symptoms (range = ?0.45, ?0.58). Multivariate twin model‐fitting indicated both genetic and environmental overlap. Life satisfaction and happiness demonstrated different patterns of overlap, with stronger genetic links between life satisfaction and depression. Non‐shared environmental influences were largely specific to each trait. This study supports the theory of mental health and illness being partly (but not entirely) correlated dimensions. There are also significant genetic and environmental factors to identify for well‐being that go beyond the absence of mental illness. It is therefore possible that different interventions are needed for treating mental illness and promoting mental health.     

FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION AND THE PROBLEM OF EPISTEMIC PRIVILEGE

There have been a number of developments within religious epistemology in recent years. Currently, the dominant view within mainstream philosophy of religion is, arguably, reformed epistemology. What is less well known is that feminist epistemologists have also been active recently within the philosophy of religion, advancing new perspectives from which to view the link between knowledge and religious experience. In this article I examine the claim by certain feminist religious epistemologists that women are both epistemically oppressed and epistemically privileged, and I consider whether or not this justifies the specific re‐conceptualisations of religious terms that such epistemologists have proposed.     

What Do the Spiritual and Religious Traditions Offer the Practicing Psychologist?

There has been a remarkable amount of interest in the relationship among spirituality, religion, psychology, and health of late. Contemporary interest in spirituality and religion is hot among not only the general population but among professionals in the mental and physical health disciplines. While most people believe in God and consider themselves to be spiritual, religious, or both, most mental health professionals have little if any training in this area. Psychologists can use spiritual and religious principles and tools to better serve their clients even if they do not share the same religious interests. The purpose of this article is to offer thirteen spiritual and religious tools common among all of the major religious traditions that can be used by contemporary professional psychologists in clinical practice to enhance the already high quality professional services that they provide. Examples of spiritually and religiously integrated treatment along with several ethical precautions are noted as well. This article is based on book project by Plante currently in press.     

Is This Relevant? Physician Perceptions,Clinical Relevance,and Religious Content in Clinical Interactions

Despite wide support among physicians for practicing patient‐centered care, clinical interactions are primarily driven by physicians’ perception of relevance. While some will perceive a connection between religion and patient health, this relevance will be less apparent for others. I argue that physician responses when religious/spiritual topics come up during clinical interactions will depend on their own religious/spiritual background. The more central religion is for the physician, the greater his or her perception of religion's impact on health outcomes and his or her inclusion of religion/spirituality within clinical interactions. Using a nationally representative sample of physicians in the United States and mediated path models, I estimate models for five different physician actions to evaluate these relationships. I find that a physician's religious background is strongly associated with whether or not he or she thinks religion impacts health outcomes, which is strongly predictive of inclusion. I also find that not all of the association between inclusion and physicians’ religious background is mediated by thinking religion impacts health outcomes. Issues of religion's relevance for medicine are important to the degree that religious beliefs are an important dimension of patients’ lives.     

Spirituality and the Successful Aging of Older Latinos

Using face‐to‐face interviews and a self‐report questionnaire, the authors investigated the contributions of spirituality and religiosity to the well‐being and levels of depression of 60 Latino adults ages 50 to 84 after controlling for age, health, education, and economic strain. Religiosity and spirituality predicted well‐being; however, increases in well‐being were associated with lower levels of externalizing religiosity and higher levels of spirituality. Economic strain overshadowed all other variables in predicting depression. Thus, 2 factors predicted the psychological health of Latino elders: Economic strain predicted depression, and spiritual health predicted well‐being. Several suggestions for implementing the findings are presented.     

Can the Effects of Religion and Spirituality on Both Physical and Mental Health be Scientifically Measured? An Overview of the Key Sources,with Particular Reference to the Teachings of Said Nursi

Within Western secular societies, everything has to be substantiated by empirical evidence; this means it has to be quantifiable and measurable. Research, particularly quantitative research, then, is the criterion by which everything, including religion, is either accepted or rejected. The separation of religion from science began with the Renaissance, the Reformation and the advent of the Enlightenment. It was perceived that religion did not match the language of science and that there was no logical proof or empirical evidence for the existence of God. Religion therefore, due to its inability to be measured and quantified, has since been largely marginalised. In recent times, in order to integrate ‘religion’ into everyday life, attempts have been made to argue and bring in scientific proof for the effectiveness of religion for improved health and well-being. The psychiatrist Harold Koenig has been one of the key people whose collation of research evidence has shown that religion has a positive effect on both physical and mental health. By looking firstly at the definitions of religion and spirituality and then discussing various opinions from both secular and religious perspectives, including those of Said Nursi, this paper aimed to determine whether religion and spirituality can indeed be measured.