Clergy Burnout: Two Different Measures
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A History of Psychology of Religion in the West: Implications for Theory and Method James M. Nelson
Published online: 2 December 2011 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract The study of religion in Western psychology has an interesting history that provides many lessons for future attempts to understand the spiritual aspects of human experience. In the past, psychologists have typically operated from one of three paradigms in their study of religion: (1) hermeneutic–phenomenological, (2) positivistic naturalism, and (3) religious integration. Each of these paradigms has a number of important theoretical assumptions and a preferred set of methodologies that offer significant advantages and disadvantages. The paradigm of positivistic naturalism, with its emphasis on quantitative questionnaire methodology, has been the most influential but also the least helpful in generating new ideas for the psychological understanding of religion, particularly as it is practiced in non-Western contexts. A historical survey of the other competing paradigms offers many insights and practical suggestions about how research in the psychology of religion might proceed in the twenty-first century. Keywords Philosophy of science . Phenomenology . Hermeneutics . Naturalism
Introduction The psychological study of religion has a rich tradition of inquiry stretching back over a century. This history contains many successes and failures that have vital lessons for the current practice of the discipline. There are several ways of constructing a history of the psychology of religion as it has been practiced in the West. A naive historical approach might simply provide a chronological account of various theories and studies that have inhabited the field. Some excellent histories of this type exist (e.g., Wulff 1997), but they tend to lack the conceptual tools necessary to truly evaluate the field, pinpointing its failings and suggesting new directions. An alternative method of historical analysis would be a philosophical or theoretical approach, using the tools of the philosophy of science to understand the J. M. Nelson (*) Department of Psychology, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN 46383, USA e-mail: [email protected]
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Pastoral Psychol (2012) 61:685–710
psychology of religion as a scientific discipline. The great advantage of this method is that it provides us with a conceptual framework for understanding what psychologists of religion do and how their work might be improved. This is the approach taken in the following review of the topic. The conceptualizations in this paper follow previous work by Brent Slife and myself (e.g., Nelson 2009; Nelson and Slife in press). The paper begins with an examination of the nature of science, using tools from the history and philosophy of science. I then consider three ways that scientific inquiry has been undertaken in the psychology of religion and the practical implications of these decisions for scientific practice. For the purposes of this paper, the term psychology of reli
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