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Psychological type and reported religious experience : an empirical enquiry among Anglican clergy and laity

This study employs psychological type theory and tests the hypothesis that some psychological types are more likely to experience and to report religious experience than others. A total of 4,421 practising Anglican clergy and laity (2,586 men and 1,835 women) responded to the question, “Have you ever had something you would describe as a ‘religious experience’?” on a four-point scale, and completed the Francis Psychological Type Scales that distinguish between two orientations (introversion and extraversion), two perceiving functions (sensing and intuition), two judging functions (thinking and feeling), and two attitudes toward the outer world (judging and perceiving). The data confirmed that the perceiving process is fundamental to individual differences in openness to religious experiences. Among practising Anglican clergy and laity intuitive types were more likely than sensing types to report religious experiences

Psychological type and the pulpit: An empirical enquiry concerning preachers and the SIFT method of biblical hermeneutics

A sample of 389 experienced preachers completed a measure of psychological type. They then read Mark 1:29–39 and recorded their evaluations of the four refl ections on this passage proposedby Francis (1997) and which were derived from the SIFT method of biblical hermeneutics and liturgical preaching. Three main conclusions are drawn from these data. First, compared with the United Kingdom population norms, preachers within this sample were signifi cantly more likely to prefer introversion, intuition, feeling and judging. Second, preachers were four times more likely to prefer a sensing interpretation of the text rather than a thinking interpretation, emphasising the richness of the narrative rather than facing the theological questions posed by it. Third, there was little evidence to suggest that preachers were less likely to appreciate interpretations consonant with their less preferred or inferior function than those consonant with their most preferred or dominant function. In this sense, the richness of the SIFT method should be accessible to preachers of all psychological types

Predictors of spiritual wellbeing in The Episcopal Church during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic seems to have caused both declines in psychological wellbeing and increases in spirituality and religious coping. This paper explores the relationships of spiritual and psychological wellbeing in a sample of 3,403 Anglicans from the Episcopal Church (USA) who completed an online survey in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Spiritual wellbeing improved more among women than among men, among older than younger people, among Black or African Americans than among other ethnicities, among those who lived alone, and among clergy than among lay people. Positive change in spiritual wellbeing was also associated with psychological type preferences for extraversion, intuition, and feeling. Emotional volatility was associated with more negative changes in spiritual wellbeing. Multiple regression suggested that spiritual wellbeing was more closely associated with positive, rather than negative, psychological affect

Assessing the engagement of participants at a pre-Christmas son et lumiere in Liverpool Cathedral: A study in the individual differences tradition

Recent studies have drawn attention to the variety of events, installations, and activities within Anglican cathedrals that hold the capacity to attract wider publics into these iconic buildings where common ground and sacred space collide. In order to assess the engagement of participants at a pre-Christmas installation in Liverpool Cathedral, this project designed seven measures of engagement (styled as Christmas engagement, Cathedral engagement, Spiritual/religious engagement, Personal engagement, Imaginative engagement, Positive engagement, and Negative engagement). Data provided by 562 participants explored the effect of personal, educational, psychological, and religious factors on predicting levels of engagement across these seven measures. Two core findings were that the Luxmuralis installation, The light before Christmas: The angels are coming exerted its greatest impact on younger people and on those who did not attend church services. In this way, not only was the Cathedral extending its reach, but delivering an experience that enticed them to want to return

Does religion make a difference? : assessing the effects of Christian affiliation and practice on marital solidarity and divorce in Britain, 1985-2005

Marital breakdown rates were examined among 15,714 adults from the British Social Attitudes dataset for 1985-2005. Separation and divorce peaked at around 50 years of age, and increased significantly over the period of study. Ratios of separation or divorce were compared between respondents who had no religious affiliation and (a) Christian affiliates who attended church at least once a month, (b) Christian affiliates who attended church, but less than once a month, and (c) Christian affiliates who never attended church. The results showed that active Christians were 1.5 times less likely to suffer marital breakdown than non-affiliates, but there was no difference between affiliates who never attended church and those of no religion. Christians who attended infrequently were 1.3 times less likely to suffer marital breakdown compared to non-affiliates, suggesting that even infrequent attendance at church may have some significance for predicting the persistence of martial solidarity

Churches and faith : attitude towards church buildings during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown among churchgoers in England

Attitude toward church buildings was assessed among a sample of 6,476 churchgoers in England during the first covid-19 pandemic lockdown in 2020. The six-item Scale of Attitude toward Church Buildings (sacb) assessed a range of aspects of attitude that included the importance of buildings for Christian faith generally, and buildings as central to the expression of Christian faith. Anglo-Catholics and Roman Catholics showed similar positive attitude towards buildings, Anglican Evangelicals showed a less positive attitude on average that was similar to those from Free-Churches, while Broad-Church Anglican attitude lay between these two extremes. Younger people had a more positive attitude than older people, especially among Catholics. On average, men had more a positive attitude than women, and lay people a more positive attitude than clergy. These findings suggest that the significance of buildings varies among traditions in ways that may still reflect historical issues of the Reformation

Knowing their people and being known by them: A changing Episcopal role within Accompanied Ministry Development in the Diocese of Truro

Using a range of qualitative data, this article presents a case study of changing episcopal roles in the Diocese of Truro, necessitated by its bishops’ involvement in the innovative Accompanied Ministry Development Programme (AMD). This style of engagement foregrounds the activity specified in the ordinal of ‘getting to know the people and being known by them’. Findings raise questions such as whether roles currently undertaken by the bishops could be shared among senior staff and, if not, how the role of bishops could be adjusted to cope with an ongoing commitment to engage with incumbents and parishes across the Diocese on a regular basis. These are questions upon which any diocese may wish to reflect when initiating change that requires direct episcopal support