A Field in Crisis: Is It Time for the Psychology of Religion to Start Over? (original) (raw)

2003, One Hundred Years of Psychology of Religion: Issues and Trends in a Century Long Quest, edited by P. H. M. P. Roelofsma, J. M. T. Corveleyn, & J. W. Van Saane. Amsterdam: VU University Press.

Abstract

In certain respects, developments in the psychology of religion have paralleled those in other subfields of psychology. But the field is distinguished fiom them by the uniqueness of its object, religion. It shares this object with other scholarly disciplines, especially the religious studies, whose proponents, more intimately acquainted with religion, are inclined to view psychological interpretations as reductionistic. Moreover, religion is seldom a topic that psychologists approach with a disinterested attitude; thus apologetics is also a danger. The earliest psychologists of religion were liberally disposed, interested in developing new understandings of religion appropriate to the twentieth century. But nfter a period of sharp decline, those drawn to the field tended to be relatively conservative and sought, rather, to defend traditional religion. The broad agendas put forward by William James and Theodore Floumoy were narrowed to looking for religion's fruits, mainly physical and mental health. A comparison of early and more recent definitions of rcligion makes evident this conservative turn in the psychology of religion. "Spirituality," too, hm become assimilated to traditional theistic piety, and Templeton-sponsored research on mainly Christian virtues is reshaping the landscape of the psychology of religion still further. A fresh start, beginning with James and Flournoy and canied out in the light of contemporary hermeneutical understandings, is recomnlended.

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