Religious coping in adolescents: new evidence and relevance

Adolescence is frequently seen as a troubled age. In many Western societies this is also a time of sharp religious decline. The question arises as to what extent religious faith and practice could help teenagers cope with their distress, especially when religion fades away in secularized environments and stops being a common coping resource. A study was conducted in South-East Spain (N = 531) to assess coping styles—religious and secular—and how they are related to other variables. The outcomes suggest that religious coping has become a minor choice. It correlates positively with age and is mixed with secular coping strategies. Secularization implies a confidence lost in religious means and the search for alternative coping strategies. This study reveals that religious coping works best when linked to religious communities and in combination with other non-religious strategies.

Revisiting Secularism in Western Christendom: A Theological and Sociological Approach

The objective of this article is to revisit the process of secularization in the decline of Christian religion in the West through a theological and societal discussion on a theoretical level. By arguing a societal perspective alone is insufficient to provides a specific explanation to religious decline, a theological perspective would provides a prior explanation to further clarify how the process of secularization operates in relation to the internal dynamic of the Christian religion. The expositions of such arguments would argue that the process of secularization can be differentiates into several parts: The objectivation of Christian beliefs for capitalism in European industrialization, the de-attachment of individual to spiritual faith, and the process of individualization and consumerism that deconstructs religion in postmodernity. This article will posit the theological Kierkegaardian view of Christendom in dialogue with sociological arguments on modernity and postmodernity, and also to relate such findings into the Indonesian context to provides conceptual anticipation for postmodern social changes.KEYWORDS: secularism, christendom, Kierkegaard, modernity, liquid modernity, community.

“Wonderful”, “Hot”, “Good” Priests: Clergy on Contemporary British TV and the New Visibility of Religion Thesis

This article examines the “new visibility of religion” thesis through a case study of recent depictions of priests and ministers in British television drama and comedy. It focuses on four award-winning shows produced between 2009 and 2019 with clergy as central characters: Broadchurch, Broken, Fleabag and Rev. Clergy on these shows are depicted positively, in ways that contrast with portrayals in the 1990s and earlier 2000s. The shows demonstrate an active sympathy for, and engagement with, theological themes, and awareness of the important social role that clergy play in inner-city parishes. While some elements of these depictions support the idea of a “new visibility”, at the same time, they reiterate narratives of continuing religious decline in Britain. Rather than unproblematically celebrating faith, the shows use religion to critique neoliberal welfare policy and sacralise notions of community. This “new visibility” is also shown to contribute to the continued invisibility of some religious viewpoints in the media. This article concludes that despite these limitations, recent portrayals of clergy offer new opportunities for religious debate and conversation, particularly within media and fan commentary.

Religious coping in adolescents: New evidence and relevance

Adolescence is frequently seen as a troubled age and, in many societies, as a time of sharp religious decline. The question arises to what extent religious faith and practice could still help teenagers to cope with their distress, especially when religion fades away in secularized environments and stops being a common coping resource. A new survey has been conducted in South-East Spain (N=531) to assess coping styles – religious and secular – and how they are related to other variables. The outcomes confirm that religious coping becomes a minority choice; it is related to age – for those older in the sample – and is mixed with secular coping strategies. Secularization implies a confidence lost in religious means to tackle distress and life crisis and the search for alternative coping strategies. The study explores the practical implications of those outcomes.

Christian Radicalism and the Hope of Transcending ‘Religion’

This chapter outlines the radical Anglican contribution to the ‘secularization’ metanarrative, which suddenly achieved cultural dominance in British discussion in the early 1960s. During the early Cold War, it had been widely assumed that ‘religious decline’ was a regressive phenomenon, fatally detrimental to human freedom, as apparently exemplified by the Soviet Union. From the late 1950s, however, Anglican radicals drew on Christian eschatology to propagate a radically alternative vision, which interpreted recent declines in ‘religion’ as evidence of humanity’s permanent transition into an unprecedented new ‘secular age’. Once this interpretation had achieved wide circulation in the British media, it broke free from its theological origins, entering both British conventional wisdom and conventional sociology. From the early 1960s, the secularization narrative was increasingly widely enacted in British culture, as more and more people imagined themselves and their society as being unprecedentedly and permanently non-religious.

The Genealogy and Theology of Isaiah 11:1

Isaiah 11:1 traces the genealogy of ideal king back to Jesse and not a Davidic king in order to portray him as a new, or second, David. This depiction was motivated by the religious decline of the Davidides, and it allowed for a sense of disjuncture, or distance, from the Davidic line in order to claim royal legitimacy on theological grounds.

Sekularisme dan Deprivatisasi Agama di Era Kontemporer

Tulisan ini hendak mengeksplorasi pemikiran Jose Casanova tentang sekulerisme dan deprivatisasi Agama. Casanova menegaskan bahwa sekularisasi pada masyarakat modern tidak menyebabkan agama mengalami kemunduran (secularization as religious decline) atau mengalami privatisasi (secularization as privation). selain itu, menurut Casanova agama mesti dipisahkan dari kehidupan ruang publik sebagai negara. Sekularisasi sebagai diferensiasi menegaskan pembedaan suatu ruang sosial yang menyebabkan agama tidak lagi mendefenisikan “semua realitas” yang mencakup di dalamnya ranah sekular. kemunduran agama lebih merupakan opsi sejarah, dari pada suatu kepastian. Agama akan mengalami kemunduran apabila ia menolak proses diferensiasi modernitas. Kemudian, Apa yang membedakan Protestan di Amerika dan Eropa Barat, menurut Casanova, adalah bahwa di Amerika “tidak pernah ada negara absolut dan kekuasaan gerejawi yang bergabung (caesaropapist state church).