Although religion deals with humankind’s ultimate concerns, such as universal compassion or the quest for divine peace and perfection, to some people the psychological study of religion and spirituality may seem only marginally relevant to positive psychology. In part, this could be because of the negative stances that many theorists have taken toward religion. For instance, Freud (1927/1953) c...

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...

The notion that religion and modemity ate mutuaUy exclusive has been a leading theme oŸ the sociology of religion in France and has been amply confirmed by empirical studies of religious practice, clerical vocations, and parish culture. But recent work on popular religion, post-1968 ideological communities, and new religious movements has caUed the presumption of secularization into question. I...

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 aim of this paper is to adduce the meaning of Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy and existential analysis—the spirit of logotherapy—in the two-fold sense of its core teachings, as well as its emphasis on the spiritual dimension of the human person. Firstly, I situate Frankl’s tri-dimensional ontology—his philosophical anthropology—within a Platonic perspective, asserting that it was Plato who firs...

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...

Few seem to have difficulty in distinguishing between religious and secular institutions, yet there is widespread disagreement regarding what “religion” actually means. Indeed, some go so far as to question whether there is anything at all distinctive about religions. Hence, formulating a definition of “religion” that can command wide assent has proven to be an extremely difficult task. In this...

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...

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 ...