PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Hundred years after William James' famous book, the question of the variety of religious orientations deserves new reflection. The rapid changes in the religious landscape in our Western societies require a methodological response in psychology of religion research. A challenging example is the new type of religious socialization which I have called 'accumulative heretic' and for which some research results report a generational accumulation. We expect results from research on new religious fundamentalist deconverts to speak to this question also. Has religion become a question of style, of life-style? It appears that our perspectives for understanding and our instruments in empirical research need an adjustment. Based upon James Fowler's faith development theory, but with reference to recent proposals in structural-developmental and life-span developmental psychology, I propose a model of religious styles which, in the first place, is the attempt to better account for the complexity of religious development, including its psychodynamic, interpersonal, life-history and life-world related dimensions. In this way, not only research in faith development could venture more out of its niche and contribute its gift for investigating the variety of religious orientations in religious communities and milieus, but more specifically, new developments in the religious landscape can be taken into account.