Taking Community Seriously: A Theory and Method for a Community-Oriented Psychology of Religion

摘要

In contemporary scholarship, the psychology of religion involves the scientific study of religious life. Traditionally, psychologists have pursued a strikingly individualistic approach to their study of the topic, which seems at odds with the emphasis on groups or society in most definitions of religion. What would happen if we took this relational aspect of religion seriously? The paper investigates the question by asking (1) how might the underlying philosophy of science for the field differ if we took a more relational approach to the topic, and (2) how might our altered assumptions affect the scientific study of religion in psychology. The result is a modest proposal for a community-oriented psychology of religion that embraces a greater diversity of methods and a sharper emphasis on goals that will be directly beneficial to the people we study.