The seamy side of current religious beliefs

In this search for criteria to discern neurotic religion, the author notes the attraction and continuing psychological power of religion as well as the conflict and contention among many of its adherents. Neurotic religion is characterized as involving a sacrifice of intellect, wishful compromises, authoritarianism, and an inability to tolerate freedom. Neurotic attempts to cope with stress may manifest themselves in and through certain religious beliefs and practices in prevalent forms of religious pathology. Ten criteria of neurotic religion are contrasted with the enlarged freedom that marks the presence of healthy religion.His article was presented as a Cole Lecture at Vanderbilt Divinity School on March 9,1977, and is reprinted with permission from theBulletin of the Menninger Clinic, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 329–348, copyright 1977 by The Menninger Foundation.