Showing papers in "Religion in 2010"

The Duke University Religion Index (DUREL): A Five-Item Measure for Use in Epidemological Studies

Abstract: There is need for a brief measure of religiosity that can be included in epidemiological surveys to examine relationships between religion and health outcomes. The Duke University Religion Index (DUREL) is a five-item measure of religious involvement, and was developed for use in large cross-sectional and longitudinal observational studies. The instrument assesses the three major dimensions of religiosity that were identified during a consensus meeting sponsored by the National Institute on Aging. Those three dimensions are organizational religious activity, non-organizational religious activity, and intrinsic religiosity (or subjective religiosity). The DUREL measures each of these dimensions by a separate “subscale”, and correlations with health outcomes should be analyzed by subscale in separate models. The overall scale has high test-retest reliability (intra-class correlation = 0.91), high internal consistence (Cronbach’s alpha’s = 0.78–0.91), high convergent validity with other measures of religiosity (r’s = 0.71–0.86), and the factor structure of the DUREL has now been demonstrated and confirmed in separate samples by other independent investigative teams. The DUREL has been used in over 100 published studies conducted throughout the world and is available in 10 languages.

Religions, natural hazards, and disasters: An introduction

Abstract: This editorial serves as an introduction to the special issue of Religion on Religions, Natural Hazards, and Disasters. It sets out some conceptual background and briefly reviews the existing literature on religion, natural hazards, and disasters. It also provides a brief assessment of the role of religious and groups in reducing the risk of disasters

Spiritual Needs of Patients with Chronic Diseases

Abstract: For many patients confronted with chronic diseases, spirituality/religiosity is an important resource for coping. Patients often report unmet spiritual and existential needs, and spiritual support is also associated with better quality of life. Caring for spiritual, existential and psychosocial needs is not only relevant to patients at the end of their life but also to those suffering from long-term chronic illnesses. Spiritual needs may not always be associated with life satisfaction, but sometimes with anxiety, and can be interpreted as the patients’ longing for spiritual well-being. The needs for peace, health and social support are universal human needs and are of special importance to patients with long lasting courses of disease. The factor, Actively Giving, may be of particular importance because it can be interpreted as patients’ intention to leave the role of a `passive sufferer´ to become an active, self-actualizing, giving individual. One can identify four core dimensions of spiritual needs, i.e., Connection, Peace, Meaning/Purpose, and Transcendence, which can be attributed to underlying psychosocial, emotional, existential, and religious needs. The proposed model can provide a conceptual framework for further research and clinical practice. In fact, health care that addresses patients’ physical, emotional, social, existential and spiritual needs (referring to a bio-psychosocial-spiritual model of health care) will contribute to patients’ improvement and recovery. Nevertheless, there are several barriers in the health care system that makes it difficult to adequately address these needs.

Development and Application of a Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire Called SHALOM

Abstract: The Four Domains Model of Spiritual Health and Well-Being was used as the theoretical base for the development of several spiritual well-being questionnaires, with progressive fine-tuning leading to the Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM). SHALOM comprises 20 items with five items reflecting the quality of relationships of each person with themselves, other people, the environment and/or God, in the Personal, Communal, Environmental and Transcendental domains of spiritual well-being. SHALOM has undergone rigorous statistical testing in several languages. SHALOM has been used with school and university students, teachers, nurses, medical doctors, church-attenders, in industry and business settings, with abused women, troubled youth and alcoholics. SHALOM provides a unique way of assessing spiritual well-being as it compares each person’s ideals with their lived experiences, providing a measure of spiritual harmony or dissonance in each of the four domains.

Medicine for the Spirit: Religious Coping in Individuals with Medical Conditions

Abstract: Religious coping now represents a key variable of interest in research on health outcomes, not only because many individuals turn to their faith in times of illness, but also because studies have frequently found that religious coping is associated with desirable health outcomes. The purpose of this article is to familiarize readers with recent investigations of religious coping in samples with medical conditions. The present article will begin by describing a conceptual model of religious coping. The article will then provide data on the prevalence of religious coping in a range of samples. After presenting findings that illustrate the general relationship between religious coping and health outcomes, the article will review more specific pathways through which religious coping is thought to impact health. These pathways include shaping individuals’ active coping with health problems, influencing patients’ emotional responses to illness, fostering social support, and facilitating meaning making. This article will also address the darker side of religious coping, describing forms of coping that are linked to negative outcomes. Examples of religious coping interventions will also be reviewed. Finally, we will close with suggestions for future work in this important field of research.

The origin and mission of Material Religion

Abstract: Beginning its sixth year of publication, Material Religion is an interdisciplinary journal that seeks to gather the best work from around the world engaged in materializing the study of religions. The editors welcome original scholarship on any religion and from any period in human history that treats material objects and practices as primary evidence and engages in critical reflection on the cultural construction of materiality. In this article the editors reflect on the formation and format of the journal, the force and direction of its articles and other features, the question of what constitutes the material culture of religion, and finally the role of materiality in the current study of religions. Along the way, the editors consider new theories and concerns that have been taken up in the journal's pages and address the range of disciplines and interests that are represented in the different departments of the journal

Anthropology of religion: Disasters and the representations of tradition and modernity

Abstract: Based on ethnographic research, this article explores local explanations for and interpretations of the earthquake which occurred on the island of Java, Indonesia in May 2006, costing 6000 lives and leaving about 1 million people homeless. Although everybody knows that the disaster was the result of tectonic activity, this knowledge co‐exists with religious beliefs in manifold ways. The most widespread accounts of the earthquake referred to local myths connected to the landscape. The spirits are said to have sent the disaster in order to remind the Javanese ‐ and most importantly the Sultan and other people in power ‐ of their traditions. Several rituals were invented to prevent more misery, and certain experts thereby gained considerable importance. The various ways in which people shaped, interpreted and negotiated the meaning of the disaster are interconnected with their understanding of tradition and modernity. This article argues that ‐ whereas Javanese culturewas based on an image of the re...

Spirituality as a Resource to Rely on in Chronic Illness: The SpREUK Questionnaire

Abstract: The SpREUK questionnaire (SpREUK is an acronym of the German translation of "Spiritual and Religious Attitudes in Dealing with Illness") was developed to investigate how patients with chronic diseases living in secular societies view the impact of spirituality in their dealing with illness (in terms of reactive coping). The aim was to operationalize and quantify patients’ search for a transcendent source of support; their reliance on such a source of help; and whether they regard their illness as a chance for reflection and subsequent change of life and behavior. The contextual 15-item SpREUK has very good internal consistency estimates (ranging from 0.86 to 0.91), and differentiates three factors, i.e., Search (for Support/Access), Trust (in Higher Guidance/Source), and Reflection (Positive Interpretation of Disease). It avoids exclusive religious terminology and appears to be a good choice for assessing patients’ interest in spiritual/religious concerns, which is not biased for or against a particular religious commitment. This reliable and valid instrument is suited for patients in secular and also in religious societies.

Untapped potential of the world's religious communities for disaster reduction in an age of accelerated climate change: An epilogue & prologue

Abstract: 0048-721X/$ – see front matter 2009 Published by doi:10.1016/j.religion.2009.12.006 The papers in this theme issue point toward three sets of questions one can ask about faith, faith communities, and disaster. These questions indicate possible directions activism and practice may take in order to reduce the human, economic, and environmental cost of natural hazard impacts. The foci of these questions are sociology, politics, and theology. The first of these concerns the role that faith communities have had or could have in responding to disaster, preparing locally to resist them, in recovery, and in preventing them or reducing potential losses. The second, politics, addresses the role of faith leaders as spokespeople and lobbyists for community safety and policies that are required at national and international levels to bring about risk reduction. The third interrogates the way the natural hazards and disasters are understood by theologians and lay people across the diversity of the world’s faiths and wisdom traditions. This brief final contribution to the special issue of Religion discusses these three sets of questions in the context of growing clarity about the role of climate change in future patterns of disaster risk and growing self organization and activism by civil society in efforts to manage risk at the local scale. Contributions to the theme issue do not directly address the sociological and political (or policy) aspects of disaster risk as I have defined them. They are confined to detailed accounts of mytho-poetic and theological accounts of specific events. However, to someone outside the discipline of religious studies invited to comment from the point of view of policy and the practice of risk management, these two potentials leap out.

Responding to disasters within the Christian tradition, with reference to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes

Abstract: Particularly within Christianity and Judaism, theodicy is defined as any attempt to reconcile notions of a loving and just God with the reality of human suffering. The paper begins with a review of the ways in which the Hebrew and Christian scriptures (i.e. the Old and New Testaments) have interpreted disasters, particularly those caused by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Theological analysis of disasters did not end at the close of the biblical era, but has continued throughout Christian history and a number of so called Leibnizian philosophical models of theodicy have been developed. These are critically introduced. In the past few decades there has been a sea-change in both Christian attitudes towards disasters and in the ways in which losses are viewed by hazard researchers. From the perspective of the latter, an approach that envisions disasters as being primarily caused by extreme physical events has been largely replaced by one in which disasters are studied as social constructs, with a greater emphasis being placed on human vulnerability. Academic scholarship on the Leibnizian philosophical models continues, but greater prominence is now given to viewing disasters as events that represent human sinfulness which is manifested in national and international disparities in wealth, poverty, hazard preparedness and disaster losses. Finally, it is proposed that these new hazard analytical and theological perspectives are synergetic: allowing on the one hand churches, their members as well as their leaders, more fully to engage in disaster relief; whilst, on the other, enabling civil defence planners more effectively to use the often considerable human and financial resources of Christian communities and their charitable agencies.

Body pedagogics and the religious habitus: A new direction for the sociological study of religion

Abstract: Sociological theory has been central to the modern study of religion. In the face of the global resurgence of religious phenomena, however, and the challenge this has presented for the assumptions that characterised much twentieth century sociology, there is a need for new theoretical models to make sense of religion today. This paper contributes to this task by building upon Durkheim's suggestion that religious social facts become fully efficacious only when internalised, and Luhmann's interest in sociological manifestations of ‘transcendence’ and ‘immanence’, in order to analyse religion as a thoroughly embodied phenomenon that can be understood through the study of religious body pedagogics. Having outlined the key steps involved in the analysis of body pedagogics, we illustrate the utility of this realist framework through an ideal-typical representation of Christianity and Islam and reflect, via a consideration of several objections that could be directed towards it, upon how this approach can deal with the complexities and contingencies of contemporary religion. In conclusion, it is suggested that this systematic body pedagogic focus on embodied commonalities and differences across diverse religious contexts offers a valuable basis upon which to engage critically with religion today.

Religion is natural, atheism is not: On why everybody is both right and wrong

Abstract: After discussing evidence of irreligion and the rise of the so called “New Atheism”, the authors refute the claim that this poses a problem for the cognitive science of religion and its hypothesis that religion is natural. The “naturalness hypothesis” is not deterministic but probabilistic and thus leaves room for atheism. This, the authors maintain, is true of both the by‐product and adaptationist stances within the cognitive science of religion. In this context the authors also discuss the memetic or “unnaturalness” hypothesis, i.e. that religion is a “virus of the mind”. The authors criticize accounts of atheism offered by cognitive scientists of religion as being based on unfounded assumptions about the psychology of atheists, and object to the notion that the natural aspects of religion by corollary make atheism unnatural. By considering human cognition in a semiotic framework and emphasizing its natural ability to take part in semiotic systems of signs, atheism emerges as a natural, cogniti...

The Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire: Assessing Faith Engagement in a Brief and Nondenominational Manner

Abstract: The Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire is a brief (10-item, or five-item short form version), reliable and valid self report measure assessing strength of religious faith and engagement suitable for use with multiple religious traditions, denominations, and perspectives. It has been used in medical, student, psychiatric, substance abuse, and among general populations nationally and internationally and among multiple cultures and languages. Brief non denominational self report measures of religious and faith engagement that have demonstrated reliability and validity are not common but can have potential for general utility in both clinical and research settings. This article provides an overview of the scale and current research findings regarding its use in both research and clinical practice.

Pain, Spirituality, and Meaning Making: What Can We Learn from the Literature?

Abstract: Religion and spirituality are two methods of meaning making that impact a person's ability to cope, tolerate, and accept disease and pain. The biopsychosocial- spiritual model includes the human spirit's drive toward meaning-making along with personality, mental health, age, sex, social relationships, and reactions to stress. In this review, studies focusing on religion's and spirituality's effect upon pain in relationship to physical and mental health, spiritual practices, and the placebo response are examined. The findings suggest that people who are self efficacious and more religiously and spiritually open to seeking a connection to a meaningful spiritual practice and/or the transcendent are more able to tolerate pain.

Recovery and Buddhist practices in the aftermath of the Tsunami in Southern Thailand

Abstract: For most Thai people, Buddhism serves as a base for explanations about life and death. This article focuses on Buddhist practices and the importance of ceremonies in the recovery process after the 2004 tsunami in Southern Thailand. The tsunami had devastating consequences for most people in the coastal regions. First, through the loss of life, and second, through the damage to and loss of houses, fishing boats and means of livelihood. This article analyses informants' experiences, narratives, interpretations and actions in terms of their Buddhist beliefs. The key findings of this article are that collective ceremonies form an important part of the recovery process. One finding revealed that, in cases of ambiguous loss, a Buddhist ceremony that was unknown to most people before the tsunami became an important element of the search for missing persons. Another finding is that the common Buddhist practice of communicating across the boundary between the living and dead became the most important ritu...

Atheism is only skin deep: Geertz and Markússon rely mistakenly on sociodemographic data as meaningful indicators of underlying cognition

Abstract: Cognitive scientists of religion and evolutionary theorists alike have been increasingly arguing in recent years that religion is “natural” in the sense of being motivated by core, evolved psychological intuitions. Atheism, and irreligion more generally, appear to pose problems for the naturalness hypothesis, especially considering the significant proportion of people in contemporary societies who reject supernatural beliefs. Although Geertz and Markusson clarify why the naturalness hypothesis does not imply religious determinism, they fail to weigh adequately the more conservative prediction, that of religious probabilism. Furthermore, unlike cognitive scientific accounts favoring the naturalness hypothesis, the authors base their arguments for the cultural scaffolding of atheistic cognition on sociodemographic data aloneda—source that is unlikely to be a meaningful reflection of “natural” underlying cognitive processes

Context-bound Islamic theodicies: The tsunami as supernatural retribution vs. natural catastrophe in Southern Thailand

Abstract: After the tsunami of 26 December 2004, local discourses in the prevalently Muslim Satun province in Southern Thailand were characterized by religious interpretations of the disaster. The range of Islamic interpretations varied, and was far from homogeneous. Statements are framed in plural theodicies and ultimately impute disasters to human responsibility, in apparent contrast to both scientific explanations and other Islamic tenets. The aim of this article is to present the range of theodicies associated with the event and to analyze their use in relation to the specific socio-historical and ethno-political context, in the words of people belonging to the Islamic and Buddhist religious elites. In these examples religious discourses leave behind the theological universalistic explanations of the existence of suffering and evil to become context-bound commentaries on the state of morality of local communities, with the aim of defining social boundaries.

The relative unnaturalness of atheism: On why Geertz and Markússon are both right and wrong

Abstract: Commonly scholars in the cognitive science of religion (CSR) have advanced the naturalness of religion thesis. That is, ordinary cognitive resources operating in ordinary human environments typically lead to some kind of belief in supernatural agency and perhaps other religious ideas. Special cultural scaffolding is unnecessary. Supernaturalism falls near a natural anchor point. In contrast, widespread conscious rejection of the supernatural as in atheism appears to require either special cultural conditions that upset ordinary function, cognitive effort, or a good degree of cultural scaffolding to move people away from their maturationally natural anchor-points. Geertz and Markusson (2009) identify ways to strengthen cognitive approaches to the study of religion and culture, including atheism, but fail to demonstrate that atheism is as natural in a comparable respect as theism.

The making of a sacred mountain. Meanings of nature and sacredness in Sápmi and northern Norway

Abstract: A case study of sacred landscapes in the contemporary era, the article deals with a particular mountain and its rise to sacredness. Fuelled by plans of ski‐slope development, the fate of Tromsdalstind caused a lively debate in local newspapers, as well as a report issued by the Sami Parliament. The report connected sacredness to Sami traditions in the past and to current laws on the protection of Sami cultural memories. This, then, was a case of sacredness constructed outside the context of organized religions and ongoing religious traditions, as well as a case of using secular laws as the primary basis for definitions of sacredness. Through this process, love for the mountain appears to have grown deeper and more religious, both for the Sami as well as for other northern Norwegians. Neither more nor less authentic than those of the past, these concepts of sacredness belong to the late modern world of law culture, nature romanticism, and to pan‐indigenous spirituality as a ‘‘religion’’ in the making.

The panoptic gaze in a non‐western setting: Self‐surveillance on Merapi volcano, Central Java

Abstract: Jeremy Bentham's late eighteenth century concept of the ‘panopticon’, popularized by Foucault two centuries later, has become a ubiquitous model for thinking about not merely surveillance but selfsurveillance in the modern state. Foucault's analysis of the panopticon, and indeed perhaps the panopticon itself, is tied to a particular time and place of state development. What are the implications for this scholarship of different, non‐western traditions of state surveillance? An effort is made to answer this questions drawing on a body of beliefs about volcanic hazard from the Sultanate of Yogyakarta in Central Java. It is believed that there is a spirit world inside the crater of Merapi volcano that mirrors the world of humans. By monitoring the volcano, it is thought that insight can be gained into what is happening in the everyday world. These beliefs thus represent a model for monitoring, for surveillance, for self‐surveillance. The ways that this both resembles and differs from Bentham's and F...

Charting the map metaphor in theories of religion

Abstract: The idea that scholars of religion produce ‘maps’ that represent the ‘territories’ of religion(s) is common and influential. This paper first discusses the role of the metaphor, with special reference to the work of J.Z. Smith, and some of the problems raised by the map metaphor (above all, its implicit reliance on a naive correspondence view of truth). It then draws two important distinctions: between different levels of representation; and between the representing and guiding function of maps (truth and use). It ends by comparing issues in the philosophy of science and the theory of religion in order to highlight some promising directions for more defensible semantic and epistemological groundwork in theory of religion.