BACKGROUND Despite expansive medical literature regarding spirituality and medicine, little is known about physician beliefs regarding the influence of religion on health. METHODS Semistructured interviews with 21 physicians regarding the intersection of religion, spirituality, and medicine. Interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed for emergent themes through an iterative process of q...

After more than a century of research, the nature of the relationship between religion and mental health still is not fully understood. Some studies find that religion is associated with better mental health. Other studies find that religion is associated with worse mental health. Many prior studies have conceptualized religion either as individual religiosity or as religious group participatio...

The study of religion is severely handicapped by a lack of adequate cross-national data. Despite the prominence of religion in international events and recent theoretical models pointing to the consequences of regulating religion, cross-national research on religion has been lacking. We strive to fill this void by developing measurement models and indexes for government regulation, government f...

Introduction [1] There is an ongoing debate in the field of religion and film studies about whether or not film makes a unique contribution to our understanding of religion. Since most religion and film scholars are concerned about the representation of religion on the silver screen, only a few scholars who are interested in something more than how religion is portrayed in the movies carry out ...

This article argues that Russell McCutcheon’s notion of the religion scholar as a critic is crucial for envisioning a distinct relevance to the academic study of religion in multidisciplinary conversations concerning questions of religion and conflict. However, McCutcheon’s critical approach is insufficient for thinking about transforming conflicts and underlying structures of injustice. To act...

Religion engenders conflict and cooperation. Defining religion is a prerequisite for pondering this paradox. Scholars define religion in several ways (Roberts 2004). Functional definitions focus on what religion does for adherents, such as providing a perspective from which to interpret the world, helping cope with life's trials, and addressing concerns about the purpose of life and eventuality...

The overall aim of this paper is to highlight a transcendental usage of the Religion of Islamin the Qur’an. I will show that the notion of Islamas a unitary Religion is used in the Qur’an as a genus for religions (adyan) which have appeared throughout human history. This usage will show that there is a sense of Religion which guarantees the essential unity of all religions and...

After a brief introduction to psychology of religion as a scientific discipline, this article reviews psychological theories that propose explanations of religion as an individual and social reality, and provides information from recent empirical literature that, at least partially, confirms these theories. The theoretical and empirical evidence presented here encompasses a variety of psycholog...

OBJECTIVES Common facets of religion are those aspects of religion that can be shared by people from any racial group. In contrast, unique facets of religion are available only to people in specific racial groups. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the interface among common facets of religion, unique facets of religion, and life satisfaction in a nationwide sample of older Black people. ...