Christopher Silver | Sewanee: The University of the South (original) (raw)

Books by Christopher Silver

This book presents case studies and empirical data of a phenomenon which increasingly gains popul... more 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 wellestablished 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" selfidentification - 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.

This book presents case studies and empirical data of a phenomenon which increasingly gains popul... more 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 wellestablished
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” selfidentification – 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.

Papers by Christopher Silver

International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 2015

This paper shows how corpus methods can be usefully employed in the field of psychology of religi... more This paper shows how corpus methods can be usefully employed in the field of psychology of religion in triangulation with other empirical instruments. Current international surveys mirror an on-going transformation in subjective meanings in religious discourse cumulating in the question: what do people actually mean when they describe themselves as spiritual, religious or neither? The paper presents results of a cross-cultural study with 1,886 participants in the US and Germany. The thematic goal is to explore subjective understandings by examining personal definitions ofreligionandspirituality. Methodologically, the study shows how the key word procedure can be used to compare the semantic profile of subjective concepts between different languages and cultures by contrasting them to standard language and by using socio-biographical context variables to build contrasting sub-corpora. To control the in-equivalence of existing reference corpora in terms of size and design a so-called ...

Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 2014

Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 2013

International Journal of Children's Spirituality, 2012

International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 2015

Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, Dec 16, 2019

Research suggests trait absorption, individual differences in Theory of Mind (ToM), and orthoprax... more Research suggests trait absorption, individual differences in Theory of Mind (ToM), and orthopraxical training are important for explaining a variety of extraordinary experiences typically associated with religion. However, no studies exist quantifying ToM ability or testing its relationship with trait absorption in the prediction of what is arguably the most ubiquitous type of extraordinary experience—the mystical experience. To address this, two exploratory studies were conducted using a sample of meditators (N = 269) and undergraduate students (N = 123). In study one, regression analyses revealed weekly religious/spiritual practice, absorption, and mentalizing predict increased mystical experiences. Moreover, moderation analysis indicated the absorption-mysticism relationship is stronger among individuals with lower mentalizing ability. Study two only replicated the relationship of absorption and weekly practice with mysticism. These studies highlight the robust contribution of absorption in mystical experiences and suggest a more dynamic role for mentalizing than is accounted for in the current literature.

Semantics and Psychology of Spirituality, 2015

Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 2013

Culturally different connotations of basic concepts challenge the comparative study of religion. ... more Culturally different connotations of basic concepts challenge the comparative study of religion. Do persons in Germany or in the United States refer to the same concepts when talking about 'spirituality' and 'religion'? Does it make a difference how they identify themselves? The Bielefeld-Chattanooga Cross-Cultural Study on 'Spirituality' includes a semantic differential approach for the comparison of self-identified "neither religious nor spiritual", "religious", and "spiritual" persons regarding semantic attributes attached to the concepts 'religion' and 'spirituality' in each research context. Results show that 'spirituality' is used as a broader concept than 'religion'. Regarding religion, semantics attributed by self-identified religious persons differ significantly from those of the spiritual persons. The 'spiritual' and the 'religious' groups agree on semantics attributed to spirituality but differ from the 'neither spiritual nor religious' group. Qualifications of differences and agreements become visible from the comparison between the United States and Germany. It is argued for the semantically sensitive study of culturally situated 'spiritualities'.

Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 2014

ABSTRACT Extensive research has been conducted in exploration of the American religious landscape... more ABSTRACT Extensive research has been conducted in exploration of the American religious landscape; however, only recently has social science research started to explore nonbelief in any detail. Research on nonbelief has been limited as most research focuses on the popularity of the religious “nones” or the complexities of alternative faith expressions such as spirituality. Through two studies, one qualitative and one quantitative, this research explored how nonbelievers’ self-identify. Study 1 (the qualitative study) discovered that individuals have shared definitional agreement but use different words to describe different types of nonbelief. Through thematic coding, a typology of six different types of nonbelief was observed. Those are Academic Atheists, Activist Atheist/Agnostics, Seeker Agnostics, Antitheists, Non-Theists, and the Ritual Atheists. Study 2 explored the empirical aspects of these types related to the Big Five Domain, Ryff Psychological Well-Being, Narcissistic Personality Inventory, Multidimensional Anger Inventory, Rokeach Dogmatism Scale, and intersections related to religious and spiritual ontology.

Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism, 2014

Much of the reigning research on non-religion and non-belief focuses on demographics and personal... more Much of the reigning research on non-religion and non-belief focuses on demographics and personality characteristics. While this is a necessary foundation on which future research may be built upon, such data does not necessarily produce theory. In many ways the dominant cultural milieu of religions along with the benign intent of some researchers force a person who holds no belief in a God to assume an oppositional identity in relation to religion. This oppositional identity tautologically sets researchers up to continually define its object by the absence of something. This something cannot always function as a normative point of reference in which to tell researchers what to look for. This article provides one such normative trajectory, termed “horizontal transcendence.”

Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 2012

ABSTRACT Building on previous studies on Canadian Anglicans and Catholics, this study examines an... more ABSTRACT Building on previous studies on Canadian Anglicans and Catholics, this study examines and discusses the psychological type profile of 31 adherents to New Kadampa Buddhism. Like Anglicans and Catholics, Buddhists preferred introversion (I). Like Anglicans who preferred intuition (N) and unlike Catholics who preferred sensing (S), Buddhists displayed a preference for intuition (N). Unlike Anglicans and Catholics who both preferred feeling (F), Buddhists displayed a balance between feeling (F) and thinking (T). Like Anglicans and unlike Catholics, Buddhists preferred the Apollonian temperament (NF) over the Epimethean temperament (SJ). These data are discussed to interpret the psychological appeal of New Kadampa Buddhism.

This book presents case studies and empirical data of a phenomenon which increasingly gains popul... more 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 wellestablished
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” selfidentification – 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.

International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 2015

Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 2014

Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 2013

International Journal of Children's Spirituality, 2012

International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 2015

Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, Dec 16, 2019

Semantics and Psychology of Spirituality, 2015

Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 2013

Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 2014

Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism, 2014

Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 2012

Journal for the Social Scientific Study of Religion , 2015

The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR) has benefited significantly due to the ki... more The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR) has benefited significantly due to the kindness and generosity of John Douglas “Jack” Shand. Shand left a significant endowment to SSSR upon his passing and yet his kindness has gone unacknowledged. This article is the product of a plenary talk given at the 2014 meeting of SSSR based on research into Jack Shand both as a scholar and a person. The article observes that he was a private man with an appreciation for the multidisciplinary approach to research. Furthermore, much of his research addressed longitudinal and cross-cultural approaches looking at individual change. The article concludes by suggesting that archiving is one of the best ways to ensure a lasting legacy for scholars.

Mental Health, Religion & Culture , Dec 13, 2014

Extensive research has been conducted in exploration of the American religious landscape; however... more Extensive research has been conducted in exploration of the American religious landscape; however, only recently has social science research started to explore nonbelief in any detail. Research on nonbelief has been limited as most research focuses on the popularity of the religious “nones” or the complexities of alternative faith expressions such as spirituality. Through two studies, one qualitative and one quantitative, this research explored how nonbelievers’ self-identify. Study 1 (the qualitative study) discovered that individuals have shared definitional agreement but use different words to describe different types of nonbelief. Through thematic coding, a typology of six different types of nonbelief was observed. Those are Academic Atheists, Activist Atheist/Agnostics, Seeker Agnostics, Antitheists, Non-Theists, and the Ritual Atheists. Study 2 explored the empirical aspects of these types related to the Big Five Domain, Ryff Psychological Well-Being, Narcissistic Personality Inventory, Multidimensional Anger Inventory, Rokeach Dogmatism Scale, and intersections related to religious and spiritual ontology.

The Semantics and Psychology of Spirituality

In this chapter we explain how we construct case studies, including analyses of narrative and con... more In this chapter we explain how we construct case studies, including analyses of narrative and content of the FDI. We take as point of departure the lo- cation of the case under study in the chart of openness to experience / mysticism. Then we proceed in direction of increasing depth of interpretation and compare the case under study with the respective focus group: First we present the results of central scales from our questionnaire, covering measures of personality, adult development and, of course, religiosity, second we turn to semantics and, in some case studies, inspect the individual semantic differentials with those of the respec- tive focus group. Next, we present the “classic” FDI evaluation, ratings according to the Manual (Fowler, Streib & Keller 2004) along with exploratory evaluations of proxies for current concepts we consider to include. Then we turn to the FDI for a deeper analysis of content and narrative. Finally, we draw results from the dif- ferent research methods together, thus achieving triangulation on the level of the single case. Now we first discuss the analysis of narrative and content and, in the second part of the chapter, we show how these are included in a case study.

The Semantics and Psychology of Spirituality

27-year-old Isabella grew up with her parents on the Eastern Coast of the United Sates. She descr... more 27-year-old Isabella grew up with her parents on the Eastern Coast of the United Sates. She describes her life as “pretty boring” and “normal”. However ‘boring’ and ‘normal’ her life may have appeared to her, it is the worldview that Isabella takes – and has always had by her count - that draws great interest. Typically, many individuals who currently identify as an ‘atheist’ also used to identify as ‘religious’ in their youth (Silver, 2013). Isabella stands out in this regard, she has never believed in a god or gods. What Coleman, Silver, and Holcombe (2013) have termed as “religio-spiritual frameworks” played no part in Isabella’s worldview. As this chapter shall demonstrate, Isabella was able to ask questions about life, make sense of her environment, and find meaning and purpose not in the confines of a religious or spiritual worldview, but, in a worldview that retained a similar sense of awe, wonder and meaning in the absence of any spiritual or religious structure – a worldview we term as ‘horizontal transcendence’. This chapter will situate the role of the Faith Development Interview in the context of the ‘faithless’ while drawing attention to the role of narrative in horizontal transcendence.

Semantics and Psychology of "Spirituality". A Cross-cultural Analysis, Jan 2016

The Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study of “Spirituality” aims at an in-depth understanding of w... more The Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study of “Spirituality” aims at an in-depth understanding of what people call “spirituality.” For this aim, a multi-method design has been applied. Self-report instruments such as psychometric scales were used with a large sample in Germany and the USA. Our sampling procedure, aiming at capturing the varieties of being “spiritual,” resulted in a sample of 1113 participants in the USA and 773 in Germany. This chapter introduces the instruments which were compiled for our questionnaire, the Faith Development Interview , and the Implicit Association Task which we used with a selected smaller sample. The chapter also describes the construction of “focus groups ,” groups defined according to participants’ self-identification as “spiritual,” as “religious” or as “atheist /non-theist.” These focus groups have been used to structure the sample with respect to positions in the religious field . They were also used for the selection of participants for personal interviews, the Faith Development Interview (FDI), and an experiment, the Implicit Association Test (IAT ). The characterization of the focus groups concludes the chapter.

Semantics and Psychology of "Spirituality". A Cross-cultural Analysis, Jan 2016

While people might distinguish strictly between “spirituality” and “religion” on the explicit lev... more While people might distinguish strictly between “spirituality” and “religion” on the explicit level of cognition, it is possible that such differences disappear on the implicit level. Implicit Association Tests (IAT s) provide a reliable and valid indirect procedure to measure implicit cognition. However, IAT s comparing “spirituality” and “religion” have not been used often in research yet. Earlier studies have tried to contrast both concepts either directly in one IAT or have used both concepts as a single category. Thus, in their operationalization they did not take the broadness, vagueness, and partial overlap of both terms into account satisfyingly. For a more valid comparison, in the Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study on “Spirituality,” both “spirituality” and “religion” have been assessed by using the same stimuli and have been contrasted with “atheism ” as a third concept. The results based on a subsample of 104 participants (USA: n = 67, Germany: n = 37) show that the task difficulties were reasonable and that both IAT s proved to be reliable. The general IAT effect s were .33 (USA) and .36 (Germany) for “spirituality” and .26 (USA) and .22 (Germany) for “religion,” indicating a preference for both “spirituality” and “religion” when contrasted with “atheism .” The effect sizes differ in parts significantly between four groups of explicit “spiritual/religious” self-identification in both countries. Explicit “spiritual”/“religious” self-ratings correlate highly significant with the IAT effect s for “spirituality” and “religion.” Although, in general, the IAT scores are also very highly correlated, comparison between the four subgroups revealed that explicit self-rating and implicit attitude towards “spirituality” differ significantly among those who distinguish between their “spirituality” and “religion” on the explicit level.

Semantics and Psychology of "Spirituality". A Cross-cultural Analysis, Jan 2016

This chapter deals with the association between “spirituality” and indicators of positive adult d... more This chapter deals with the association between “spirituality” and indicators of positive adult development. While possible links of “spirituality” to mental health, well-being , and psychological growth have been the subject of extensive research, this broad interest in salutary effects of “spirituality” has gone along with an inflationary usage of the term “spirituality,” vague concepts and invalid measures. This is particularly true when “spirituality” itself is implicitly understood in terms of mental health and well-being (e.g. as meaning, self-efficacy, or inner peace). Such an overlap of concepts results in illusionary associations because the same phenomenon is measured twice. Therefore it is important to distinguish between the conceptualizations of “spirituality” and their possible associations with dimensions of mental health and well-being. In the Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study of “Spirituality,” mystical experiences have been measured using Hood’s M-Scale; and SEM analyses (see Chap. 11) have evidenced that the M-Scale is an excellent predictor of self-rated “spirituality.” Thus, the M-Scale can be used as a measure for what many people today call “spirituality.” An advantage of the M-Scale in comparison to more recently developed measures of “spirituality” within health research is that the M-Scale is unsuspicious to be a hidden measure of well-being. But—and this is the focus of this chapter—a set of SEMs illustrates that the subscales of the M-Scale predict psychological well-being as measured with the Psychological Well-Being and Growth Scale, generativity as measured with the Loyola Generativity Scale, and neuroticism/emotional stability as measured with the NEO-FFI . It can be concluded from these findings that “spiritual” experiences are indeed associated with positive adult development in terms of well-being, generativity, and emotional stability.

Semantics and Psychology of "Spirituality". A Cross-cultural Analysis, Jan 2016

This chapter explores the relationship between the self-rating as “spiritual” and mysticism as me... more This chapter explores the relationship between the self-rating as “spiritual” and mysticism as measured by Hood’s Mysticism Scale. The introduction provides an overview of recent attempts to measure “spirituality” psychometrically, of the theoretical and empirical approaches to mysticism and already empirically observed relations between mysticism and “spirituality.” Many scales trying to operationalize “spirituality” lack a solid conceptual background and convincing empirical validity. Citing the work of Stace and James , Hood constructed a scale that provides detailed and measurable descriptions of mystical experiences , the Mysticism Scale. Since the Mysticism Scale measures varieties of personal experiences of unity with some kind of transcendence, it proves to be an excellent measure for what many people today call “spirituality.” This can be shown empirically by utilizing the three factor solution of the M-Scale , identified as introvertive, extrovertive, and interpretive mysticism, in structural equation models exploring the relationships between mysticism and self-rated “spirituality” as well as self-rated “religion.” This chapter concludes by arguing that “spirituality” may be the product of experiences that can be described in terms of mysticism.