Aktuelles aus Theologie und Religionsforschung

Recently Published: More Spiritual than Religious: Concurrent and Longitudinal Relations with Personality Traits, Mystical Experiences, and Other Individual Characteristics

Aktuelles aus Theologie und Religionsforschung — Wed, 4 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Chen, Z., Cowden, R. G., & Streib, H. (2023). More spiritual than religious: Concurrent and longitudinal relations with personality traits, mystical experiences, and other individual characteristics Frontiers in Psychology, 13, Article 1025938

People who self-identify as predominantly spiritual constitute a considerable and well-established part of the religious landscape in North America and Europe. Thus, further research is needed to document predictors, correlates, and outcomes associated with self-identifying primarily as a spiritual person. In the following set of studies, we contribute to some of these areas using data from German and United States adults. Study 1 (n = 3,491) used cross-sectional data to compare four religious/spiritual (R/S) self-identity groups—more religious than spiritual (MRTS), more spiritual than religious (MSTR), equally religious and spiritual (ERAS), and neither religious nor spiritual (NRNS)—on sociodemographic characteristics and a range of criterion variables (i.e., Big Five personality traits, psychological well-being, generativity, mystical experiences, religious schemata). In Study 2 (n = 751), we applied the analytic template for outcome-wide longitudinal designs to examine associations of the four R/S self-identifications with a range of subsequent outcomes (assessed approximately 3 years later) that were largely comparable to the criterion variables assessed in Study 1. The cross-sectional and longitudinal findings from these complementary studies provide further evidence of differences between these four categories of R/S self-identification, including strong evidence in both studies of an association between the MSTR self-identity and mysticism.

Baltimore: Research Teams from Bielefeld University, UTC, and UNCC at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Aktuelles aus Theologie und Religionsforschung — Sun, 13 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0100

Während des jährlichen Treffens der Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR) in Baltimore, MD, USA im November 2022 konnte sich das internationale Team erstmal wieder in persona zusammenfinden! Von links nach rechts: Matthew Durham (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC)), Dr. Barbara Keller (Universität Bielefeld), Prof. Dr. Heinz Streib (Universität Bielefeld), Dr. Ramona Bullik (Universität Bielefeld), William Andrews (UTC), Prof. Dr. Ralph W. Hood (UTC), Dr. Christopher Silver (University of the South, Sewanee), und Dr. Zhuo Job Chen (University of North Carolina at Charlotte).

Now in Open Access: 2009 Deconversion Book

Aktuelles aus Theologie und Religionsforschung — Sat, 1 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0200

Streib, H., Hood, R. W., Keller, B., Csöff, R.-M., & Silver, C. (2009). Deconversion. Qualitative and quantitative results from cross-cultural research in Germany and the United States of America. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

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This book presents case studies and empirical data of a phenomenon which increasingly gains popularity in Western societies: deconversion. There is, the authors argue, no better word than deconversion to describe processes of disengagement from religious orientations, because these have much in common with conversion; Termination of membership may eventually be the final step of deconversion, but it involves biographical and psychological dynamics which can and need to be reconstructed by qualitative approaches and analyzed by quantitative instruments. In the Bielefeld-based Cross-Cultural Study on Deconversion, disengagement processes from a variety of religious orientations in the U.S.A. and in Germany were examined, ranging from well-established religious organizations to new religious and fundamentalist groups. Nearly 1,200 persons participated in the study and were interviewed from 2002 to 2005. In the focus of the study are 100 deconverts from the U.S.A. and from Germany who were examined with narrative interviews, faith development interviews and an extensive questionnaire. For case study elaboration, the study followed a research design with an innovative triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data. Four chapters, corresponding to four types of deconversion, present 21 case studies. The highlights of the research project are new data on spirituality - the deconverts in particular appear to prefer a "more spiritual than religious" self-identification - and in-depth analyses of a variety of deconversion narratives with special focus on personality factors, motivation, attitudes, religious development, psychological well-being and growth, religious fundamentalism and right-wing authoritarianism. The results of this project which was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft are of special relevance for counselling and pastoral care, for religious education and for people concerned with administration and management of religious groups and churches, but also for a wider audience interested in contemporary changes in the religious fields in the U.S.A. and Germany.

Article: A Faithful Journey: Following a Married Couple’s Religious Trajectory over the Adult Lifespan

Aktuelles aus Theologie und Religionsforschung — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0200

Bullik, R. (2022). A Faithful Journey: Following a Married Couple’s Religious Trajectory over the Adult Lifespan. Religions, 13(8), 673. MDPI AG.

Abstract: This article addresses the question of how religious narrative identity and subjective religiosity change over the course of 15 years. The cases portrayed are deconverts who have changed their religious affiliations multiple times. It was carved out what led to their deconversion and what remains as a core of their faith after they have turned away from organized religion for good. Interviews were conducted at three time points and were analyzed using content analysis. It became clear that the needs and expectations of the two individuals differ highly, as well as the reasons for turning away from a religious community; yet, what could be identified as a common core in this joint faithful journey is their need to live their religiosity, now in a private setting.

New grants for faith development research

Aktuelles aus Theologie und Religionsforschung — Thu, 9 Dec 2021 16:41:19 +0100

New grants from the John Templeton Foundation (JTF) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) enable the research teams at Bielefeld University, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte to continue with our longitudinal investigation of faith development in the years 2022 to 2024. Here is an Executive Summary:

The questions that this project will have the potential to answer is, whether, how, why, and when in their lifetime individuals are changing their religion and worldview. We interpret such changes as migrations between developmentally ordered religious styles and religious types. While in our current project we could demonstrate that there is faith development and initially identify predictors and outcomes, this project has a focus on two particularly interesting outcomes of faith development: (a) changes in people’s images of God and, in more general and inclusive terms, their symbolization of transcendence, and (b) their changes in prejudice and, with reference to the philosophy of the Alien, their responses to the Strange. We assume that faith development results in a narrative identity that affords a wise and humble response to the Strange we call xenosophia. This research is a contribution to answer these and other key questions using longitudinal data from Germany and the U.S.A. that were gathered in previous and current multi-method projects, which were based on faith development interviews (FDI) and questionnaire data (which include measures for personality, well-being, religious schema, mysticism, etc.).

This new project phase continues this research into a fourth wave of field work and will add another n = 460 (50% US and 50% German) longitudinal re-interviews with the FDI. This will furnish longitudinal analyses with sufficient statistical power. In addition, we survey general population samples of n = 1,250 in both U.S.A. and Germany using our questionnaire, which now includes scales for intellectual humility, God images, and questions for xenophobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and other prejudice. Thus, we may be able to relate our questions of religious change to a larger population context, and demonstrate the contribution of faith development research to psychological investigation in domains such as wisdom, God images, and prejudice.

New Book: Deconversion Revisited

Aktuelles aus Theologie und Religionsforschung — Wed, 8 Dec 2021 20:47:17 +0100

Streib, H., Keller, B., Bullik, R., Steppacher, A., Silver, C. F., Durham, M., Barker, S. B., & Hood Jr., R. W. (2022). Deconversion Revisited. Biographical Studies and Psychometric Analyses Ten Years Later. Brill Germany/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. https://doi.org/10.13109/9783666568688

This book is Open Access and available here.

Abstract. Deconversion Revisited is the follow-up book to Deconversion (2009), which examined disengagement processes from a variety of religious backgrounds in the USA and in Germany. After more than ten years, 45 participants were reinterviewed with the Faith Development Interview (FDI).

With this new book we are revisiting the question of religious change after more than a decade since our original study on Deconversion (Streib, Hood, Keller, Csöff, & Silver, 2009). Back then, we were able to analyze the survey data of twelve hundred participants from the USA and Germany as well as conducting personal interviews with 272 of them. This previous study brought surprising findings to light such as the importance of ‘spirituality’ as self-description of deconverts, their considerably higher stages/styles in faith development, and the great variety of paths they took when migrating within the religious field. A variety we captured in a typology of four types in terms of how their searches were narrated: pursuit of autonomy, life-long quests and late revisions, barred from paradise, and finding a new frame of reference.

In this new book, we document how a selection of these stories continued. What has changed since the first interview? Are the deconverts still “more spiritual than religious”? How did their faith development continue? Does the typology of four types still fit? After more than ten years, we reinterviewed 45 participants from the original deconversion study with the Faith Development Interview (FDI). During the FDI the participants have shared their subjective retrospectives on their faith development and their lives for the second time now. This enables us to investigate changes in structures of faith development, as well as content and narratives. We explore the narrative identities of our participants by taking an in-depth perspective: We studied the development of ten selected longitudinal case studies that present the lifespan from early adulthood to old age. Thus the study published in this book is one of only a few longitudinal studies on deconversion in the past ten years. It demonstrates that deconversion is a dynamic biographical process that eventually has long-term, slowly changing causes and consequences.

Article: Faith development as change in religious types.

Aktuelles aus Theologie und Religionsforschung — Sat, 14 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0200

Streib, H., Chen, Z. J., & Hood, R. W. (2021). Faith development as change in religious types: Results from three-wave longitudinal data with faith development interviews. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, online-first, 1-10.

(Link to post-print)

Faith, as a way of how people understand God and the world and make or discover meaning in their life, is characterized by individual differences and changes over the lifetime. Our research investigates these changes over the lifespan in terms of hierarchically ordered types that are the elements in our developmental model, which is a critical advancement and modification of Fowler’s theory of faith development. This study is the first to investigate whether there is development in faith over the adult lifespan and to identify predictors of developmental change. Our mixed-method design used three-wave longitudinal data (mean lag time 10.47 years from Wave 1 to Wave 3). A sample of N = 75 participants were interviewed with the faith development interview three times and each time answered comprehensive questionnaires. Results evidenced faith development over the lifespan: a majority in our data moved to a higher type, while change to a lower type did occur. Openness to experience and the religious schema truth of text and teachings were potential antecedents for faith development.

A Review by Herbert Will for Barbara Keller's Toward a binocular vision of religion: Psychoanalytic and psychometric perspectives

Aktuelles aus Theologie und Religionsforschung — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:10:53 +0200

This is a decidedly inventive and innovative study. The author does a threefold crossover: between psychoanalysis and academic psychology, between nomothetic and idiothetic research, and between North American and European cultures of knowledge. This interdisciplinary approach in the psychology of religion works out well, which does not go without saying. The complexity of the topic of religion, which becomes evident, could easily lead to an unapprehended clutter of concepts and to arbitrary setting of thematic priorities.

After an introduction which gives orientation and clarification of concepts Keller discusses aspects of religious development, of religion and personality, and of handling religious issues in psychotherapy. In all chapters exemplary quantitative and qualitative approaches and case studies are presented. This offers vistas, which broaden the view of the reader and remove method-related blinkers. Barbara Keller can do this, because she has demonstrated profound knowledge of theory and practice as empirical researcher as well as practicing psychoanalyst.

Regarding my own field of expertise, the psychoanalytic psychology of religion, I find Barbara Keller´s work markedly well informed and well-oriented. She uses the psychoanalytic perspective in ways that develop it further and that lead to innovative results. Her readers will enjoy that her writing is clear and easy without compromising scientific differentiation.

Herbert Will

Dr. med., Mag. theol., Psychiater und Psychoanalytiker (M.A. in theology, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst)

Joint Editor PSYCHE, Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse und ihre Anwendungen (Psyche – Journal for psychoanalysis and its applications)

Anika Steppacher Received Award for Outstanding Theses from the German Sociological Association (DGS)

Aktuelles aus Theologie und Religionsforschung — Mon, 5 Oct 2020 10:01:53 +0200

Anika Steppacher, graduate assistant in Prof. Streib’s research project on Longitudinal Study of Religious Development in Germany and U.S.A., has received the DGS award for outstanding theses 2020 for her Master thesis entitled “Von allen Wahrheiten die Beste” (The best of all Truths). In her thesis, she studied esotericism in its subjective functions as an all-encompassing worldview. She wrote her thesis with data from this research project. Anika Steppacher has been invited to publish the results of her study in the DGS journal SOZIOLOGIE.

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Article: “Categorizing People by Their Preference for Religious Styles”

Aktuelles aus Theologie und Religionsforschung — Tue, 8 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0200

Streib, H., Chen, Z. J., & Hood, R. W. (2020). Categorizing people by their preference for religious styles: Four types derived from evaluation of faith development interviews. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 30(2), 112-127.

This article presents a typology that categorizes people according to their profile of religious styles which concerns, among other things, the sources where they derive validity and stability, when confronted with religious and existential questions or inter-religious challenges. The modeling of this typology is an empirical complement to Streib’s model of religious styles which, in turn, is a critical advancement of Fowler’s faith development theory. Data are religious style assignments to the answers on the 25 questions in the Faith Development Interview (FDI), which has been administered to 677 participants in the United States and Germany. We present results based on a theory-driven approach to determine a person’s religious type by incorporating frequencies of religious style assignments from the evaluation of their FDI. We also explored convergent validity with latent class analysis and a machine-learning algorithm. Results based on three samples converged on four religious types: Substantially Ethnocentric, Predominantly Conventional, Predominantly Individuative-Reflective, and Emerging Dialogical-Xenosophic types. We reported the profiles of the four types with reference to group differences on religious schemata and openness to experience.

New Book: Xenosophia and Religion

Aktuelles aus Theologie und Religionsforschung — Sat, 4 Aug 2018 08:19:56 +0200

Available as e-book and printed book https://www.springer.com/de/book/9783319745633

This book presents results from a research project at Bielefeld University. See more on our website for this project.