Religious Faith and Meaning-Making

This volume brings together contributions on faith and meaning-making from across various disciplines into one place. Adherents of the Abrahamic faiths tend to hold that faith is an integral part of their lives. Moreover, it is often considered a life-changing event when a person comes to have religious faith. Alternatively, existential despair and dread are sometimes reported by the person who loses their religious faith. Not only is either type of event a significant moment in a person's life, but how a person's faith (or lack thereof) is lived out throughout the course of their life is also importantly connected to meaning.

This volume contains original essays on faith and meaning-making from the perspectives of philosophy, social science, and mental health, and as such constitutes a unique multidisciplinary resource. Religious Faith and Meaning-Making is essential reading for all scholars of religion and especially those focusing on the philosophy, psychology and sociology of religion.

Explores how religious faith is connected to the question of meaning in life Brings together contributions on faith and meaning-making from across various disciplines Includes philosophical, psychological and sociological perspectives

Autorentext

Kirk Lougheed is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and the Director for the Center for Research on Faith and Human Flourishing at LCC International University. He is also a Research Associate at the University of Pretoria.

Travis Myers is Associate Professor of Humanities and Chair of the Department of Theology at LCC International University.

Inhalt

Chapter One: Introduction: Tracing the Narrative.- Part I: Social Science Perspectives.- Chapter Two: Narrative Identity, Meaning, and Religious Community.- Chapter Three: The Over-Medicalization of Mental Disorder, Suffering, & Meaning-Making.- Chapter Four: Once More, with Feeling: The Ubiquity of Religious Ritual in Meaning-making.- Chapter Five: The Shield of Faith? Understanding Religiosity and Suicidality.- Chapter Six: Traps of Meaning: Need for Closure and Finding Meaning.- Part II: Philosophical Perspectives .- Chapter Seven: Would God be the Ultimate Attachment Figure? Some Hellish Implications.- Chapter Eight: Faith in Meaning, and Why it Fails.- Chapter Nine: The Shadow Side of Faith: Meaning Vs. Meaninglessness.- Chapter Ten: Metaphor, Meaning, and Religious Discourse: A Linguistic and Theological Archeology of the 'Liquidation of the Human Spirit'.- Chapter Eleven: On Making a Difference.- Chapter Twelve: Religious Meaning Without Religion: Adapting Herman Dooyeweerd's Pistic Aspect for a Non-Religious Context.