Abstract
Very generally formulated, the aim of this book is to plea for an approach to “religion” from a cultural psychological perspective. However, even though refraining from any jargon, this formulation may easily evoke all kinds of problems in understanding. For what is meant by “religion” (the word is not without reason written between quotation marks! Such usually indicates a problem of some kind …)? What is to be understood by an approach to “religion”? And what is a cultural psychological perspective? The easiest answer to such questions would be: Just read this book! Having done so, you should know what was meant. Admittedly, this doesn’t sound too satisfactory, and it may even suggest the author is too lazy to answer appropriate questions. It seems more adequate, therefore, to explain at least some general terms and to preclude misunderstandings, even before the book really commences. Let us then circumscribe the aim of this volume once more, but a little differently, in a way that will hopefully help to situate it. As this is going to be a book in the field of cultural psychology as much as in that of psychology of religion, it aims to contribute to an integration of cultural psychology into the psychology of religion. This perhaps sounds more familiar to some people than others, who may not know what to think of when hearing the additional term “psychology of religion.” Let us start then by saying something about this discipline, its possibilities and its problems, and work our way up to its relationship with cultural psychology, in order to explain what kind of book this is going to be (and not going to be!) and what can be expected from its main corpus.
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- 1.
The term “religious psychology” is misleading though not necessarily wrong, if understood as analogous to terms like “social psychology,” “clinical psychology” and so on. Evidently, social psychology is not social in itself: it is the psychology about the social dimension of human life and its impact on psychic functioning; clinical psychology is not clinical itself: it is about mental dysfunctions, that may be in need of clinical treatment, and so on. Likewise, religious psychology can be understood to refer to branches of psychology dealing with religion or religious life. As the term may nevertheless raise misunderstandings, however, I shall, in accordance with what has become customary today, speak of “psychology of religion” and restrict the use of “religious psychology” to refer to types of psychology that are, in one way or another, religious in themselves. Trying to introduce a neologism like “psychology on religion”, though a correct one perhaps, would not contribute much clarity.
- 2.
I strongly prefer the term “sciences of religion” (Religionswissenschaften) to the term “religious studies.” The former I understand to be the conglomerate of all scientific approaches to “religion” (however understood), practiced from the perspective of the different disciplines that might be relevant to investigating any “religious” phenomenon or state of affairs (but ideally pursued from an interdisciplinary perspective); and they are usually situated at a department for the advancement of that specific discipline. “Religious studies” is usually an indication of a department or a style that derivates from a (formerly) theological department or discourse, even though it sometimes claims to be rooted in a scholarly discipline like the history of religion. History of religion, however, is very often a kind of interpretative enterprise, not engaging in any empirical historical work, but mainly commenting on research done previously by others. Needless to say, such interpretive work can be brilliant, whereas most empirical work can be very boring.… For a related view, see Segal (2006). Needless to say too, that psychology of religion is, by definition, one of the “sciences of religion.”
- 3.
This is not to say that these kinds of knowledge would be of less value than scientific knowledge! On the contrary, as should become clear, I am well aware of the very limited value of scientific knowledge, especially in the human sciences like psychology; for the moment, I want merely to distinguish the different types of knowledge.
- 4.
I admit that the picture painted here is too simple, perhaps too optimistic: most psychologists of religion do have some private reasons for being involved in this work, reasons that may be partly religious too; yet, as in all sciences of religion, psychology of religion should observe an epistemological episteme in the Husserlian sense: it should refrain from passing judgment on axiological pronunciations and on claims to ontological truth of the religions it studies. This position is difficult to master and requires considerable training to even begin to understand it. However, the attempt to do justice to religions other than one’s own and to be critical toward one’s own religion as well, are essential elements for any scientific study of religion. In Chapter 6 I will deal with this issue in some detail.
- 5.
To complicate things, but more importantly, to make this account more truthful to the actual situation: although psychology of religion is usually practiced by psychologists, this is not necessarily so. Classic studies have been published by psychiatrists like Meissner (1992) and Rizzuto (1979), both working from a psychoanalytic perspective. Also people coming from and employed at a theological or religious studies department sometimes contribute genuine psychological studies of a religious phenomenon. (Though usually restricting themselves to working with psychoanalytic theories, they often choose very interesting topics, like the person of Jesus of Nazareth (Capps 2000; Watts 2007), the Bible (Ellens and Rollins 2004; Rollins 1999), religious violence (Ellens 2004; Jones 2008) and many others more). And on the other hand, psychologists also sometimes add to the “psychology and religion” literature, as, e.g. Johnson and Jones 2000; Olson 2002; Roberts and Talbot 1997. The distinctions made in this chapter do not aim to present categories with strict boundaries, they have heuristic value only.
- 6.
One finds excellent reviews of theories in the field, especially of the older ones, in Wulff (1997) and an up-to-date overview of contemporary empirical research in Hood et al. (2009).
- 7.
Although it may seem niggling to some, I like to continue to distinguish between a theory and what the theory is about. Psychology consists of theories, and what is part of such theories is correctly called “psychological”, belonging to the science (logos) of the psyche; what psychological theories are about, however, should correctly be referred to as “psychic”. So, with “psychic” I do not mean clairvoyant or telepathic but the aspects of empirical reality dealt with in psychologies.
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Belzen, J.A. (2010). Building Bridges. In: Towards Cultural Psychology of Religion. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3491-5_1
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