Psychology Of Religious Conversion
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Psychology Of Religious Conversion
The modern academic study of the psychology of religious conversion can be tracked back to 1881 when a series of lectures was delivered by early psychologist G. Stanley Hall.Scobie, G. E. W. (1973). Types of religious conversion. ''Journal of Behavioral Science, 1,'' 265–271. In its early stages the psychology of religious conversion mainly addressed Christianity and to this day is dominated by studies of North American Protestant Christianity,Gorsuch, R. L. (1988). Psychology of religion. ''Annual Review of Psychology, 39'', 201–221. although other varieties of religion are addressed in the field of psychology of religion. Theories of conversion Rambo's Integrative Model RamboRambo, L. R. (1993). ''Understanding religious conversion.'' New Haven: CT: Yale University Press. provides a model for conversion that classifies it as a highly complex process that is hard to define. He views it as a process of religious change that is affected by an interaction of numerous event ...
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Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories, and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament in Christianity) and chronicled in the New Testament. Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the 1st century Hellenistic Judaism in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the South Caucasus, Ancient Carthage, Egypt, and Ethiopia, despite significant initial persecution. It soon attracted gentile God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, a ...
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Identity (psychology)
Identity is the qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, and/or expressions that characterize a person or group.Compare ''Collins Dictionary of Sociology'', quoted in In sociology, emphasis is placed on collective identity, in which an individual's identity is strongly associated with role-behavior or the collection of group memberships that define them. According to Peter Burke, "Identities tell us who we are and they announce to others who we are." Identities subsequently guide behavior, leading "fathers" to behave like "fathers" and "nurses" to act like "nurses." In psychology, the term "identity" is most commonly used to describe personal identity, or the distinctive qualities or traits that make an individual unique. Identities are strongly associated with self-concept, self-image (one's mental model of oneself), self-esteem, and individuality. Individuals' identities are situated, but also contextual, situationally adaptive and changing. Despite their fluid c ...
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Religious Denomination
A religious denomination is a subgroup within a religion that operates under a common name and tradition among other activities. The term refers to the various Christian denominations (for example, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and the many varieties of Protestantism). It is also used to describe the five major branches of Judaism (Karaite Judaism, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist). Within Islam, it can refer to the branches or sects (such as Sunni, Shia), as well as their various subdivisions such as sub-sects, schools of jurisprudence, schools of theology and religious movements. The world's largest religious denominations are Sunni Islam and Catholic Church. Christianity A Christian denomination is a generic term for a distinct religious body identified by traits such as a common name, structure, leadership and doctrine. Individual bodies, however, may use alternative terms to describe themselves, such as church or fellowship. Divisions between ...
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Born Again (Christianity)
Born again, or to experience the new birth, is a phrase, particularly in evangelicalism, that refers to a "spiritual rebirth", or a regeneration of the human spirit. In contrast to one's physical birth, being "born again" is distinctly and separately caused by baptism in the Holy Spirit, it is not caused by baptism in water. It is a core doctrine of the denominations of the Anabaptist, Moravian, Methodist, Quaker, Baptist, Plymouth Brethren and Pentecostal Churches along with all other evangelical Christian denominations. All of these Churches strongly believe Jesus's words in the Gospels: "You must be born again before you can see, or enter, the Kingdom of Heaven." Their doctrines also mandate that to be both "born again" and "saved", one must have a personal and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. The term ''born again'' has its origin in the New Testament. In his first epistle, Apostle Peter describes the new birth as taking place from the seed which is the Word of G ...
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Nonreligious
Irreligion or nonreligion is the absence or rejection of religion, or indifference to it. Irreligion takes many forms, ranging from the casual and unaware to full-fledged philosophies such as atheism and agnosticism, secular humanism and antitheism. Social scientists tend to define irreligion as a purely naturalist worldview that excludes a belief in anything supernatural. The broadest and loosest definition, serving as an upper limit, is the lack of religious identification, though many non-identifiers express metaphysical and even religious beliefs. The narrowest and strictest is subscribing to positive atheism. According to the Pew Research Center's 2012 global study of 230 countries and territories, 16% of the world's population does not identify with any religion. The population of the religiously unaffiliated, sometimes referred to as "nones", has grown significantly in recent years. Measurement of irreligiosity requires great cultural sensitivity, especially outside ...
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Apostasy
Apostasy (; grc-gre, ἀποστασία , 'a defection or revolt') is the formal disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion that is contrary to one's previous religious beliefs. One who undertakes apostasy is known as an apostate. Undertaking apostasy is called apostatizing (or apostasizing – also spelled apostacizing). The term ''apostasy'' is used by sociologists to mean the renunciation ''and'' criticism of, or opposition to, a person's former religion, in a technical sense, with no pejorative connotation. Occasionally, the term is also used metaphorically to refer to the renunciation of a non-religious belief or cause, such as a political party, social movement, or sports team. Apostasy is generally not a self-definition: few former believers call themselves apostates due to the term's negative connotation. Many religious groups and some states punish apostat ...
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Church Service
A church service (or a service of worship) is a formalized period of Christian communal worship, often held in a church building. It often but not exclusively occurs on Sunday, or Saturday in the case of those churches practicing seventh-day Sabbatarianism. The church service is the gathering together of Christians to be taught the "Word of God" (the Christian Bible) and encouraged in their faith. Technically, the "church" in "church service" refers to the gathering of the faithful rather than to the building in which it takes place. In most Christian traditions, services are presided over by clergy wherever possible. Styles of service vary greatly, from the Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and Lutheran traditions of liturgical worship to the evangelical Protestant style, that often combines worship with teaching for the believers, which may also have an evangelistic component appealing to the non-Christians or skeptics in the congre ...
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Apostate
Apostasy (; grc-gre, ἀποστασία , 'a defection or revolt') is the formal disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion that is contrary to one's previous religious beliefs. One who undertakes apostasy is known as an apostate. Undertaking apostasy is called apostatizing (or apostasizing – also spelled apostacizing). The term ''apostasy'' is used by sociologists to mean the renunciation ''and'' criticism of, or opposition to, a person's former religion, in a technical sense, with no pejorative connotation. Occasionally, the term is also used metaphorically to refer to the renunciation of a non-religious belief or cause, such as a political party, social movement, or sports team. Apostasy is generally not a self-definition: few former believers call themselves apostates due to the term's negative connotation. Many religious groups and some states punish apost ...
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Interpersonal Relationship
The concept of interpersonal relationship involves social associations, connections, or affiliations between two or more people. Interpersonal relationships vary in their degree of intimacy or self-disclosure, but also in their duration, in their reciprocity and in their power distribution, to name only a few dimensions. The context can vary from family or kinship relations, friendship, marriage, relations with associates, work, clubs, neighborhoods, and places of worship. Relationships may be regulated by law, custom, or mutual agreement, and form the basis of social groups and of society as a whole. Interpersonal relationships are created by people's interactions with one another in social situations. This association of interpersonal relations being based on social situation has inference since in some degree love, solidarity, support, regular business interactions, or some other type of social connection or commitment. Interpersonal relationships thrive through equita ...
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New Religious Movement
A new religious movement (NRM), also known as alternative spirituality or a new religion, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin or they can be part of a wider religion, in which case they are distinct from pre-existing denominations. Some NRMs deal with the challenges which the modernizing world poses to them by embracing individualism, while other NRMs deal with them by embracing tightly knit collective means. Scholars have estimated that NRMs number in the tens of thousands worldwide, with most of their members living in Asia and Africa. Most NRMs only have a few members, some of them have thousands of members, and a few of them have more than a million members.Eileen Barker, 1999, "New Religious Movements: their incidence and significance", ''New Religious Movements: challenge and response'', Bryan Wilson and Jamie Cresswell editors, Routledge There is no single, a ...
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Guilt (emotion)
Guilt is a moral emotion that occurs when a person believes or realizes—accurately or not—that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated universal moral standards and bear significant responsibility for that violation. Guilt is closely related to the concept of remorse, regret, as well as shame. Guilt is an important factor in perpetuating obsessive–compulsive disorder symptoms. Etymology The etymology of the word is obscure, and developed its modern spelling from the O.E. form ''gylt'' "crime, sin, fault, fine, debt", which is possibly derived from O.E. ''gieldan'' "to pay for, debt". Because it was used in the Lord's Prayer as the translation for the Latin ''debitum'' and also in Matthew xviii. 27, and ''gyltiȝ'' is used to render ''debet'' in Matthew xxiii. 18, it has been inferred to have had the primary sense of ‘debt’, though there is no real evidence for this. Its development into a "sense of guilt" is first recorded in ...
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Protestant Christianity
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to be growing Criticism of the Catholic Church, errors, abuses, and discrepancies within it. Protestantism emphasizes the Christian believer's justification by God in faith alone (') rather than by a combination of faith with good works as in Catholicism; the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by Grace in Christianity, divine grace or "unmerited favor" only ('); the Universal priesthood, priesthood of all faithful believers in the Church; and the ''sola scriptura'' ("scripture alone") that posits the Bible as the sole infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice. Most Protestants, with the exception of Anglo-Papalism, reject the Catholic doctrine of papal supremacy, ...
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