980 research outputs found
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Accessing visitor evaluation of an immersive cathedral experience: applying the Jungian lenses of feeling and thinking and Bailey’s theory of implicit religion
No full textThe SIFT hermeneutical approach, rooted in Jungian psychological type theory, distinguishes between two core cognitive processes: perceiving concerned with gathering information and judging concerned with evaluating information. The present study applies this approach to eliciting and interpreting visitor evaluation of an immersive cathedral installation (a pre-Christmas son et lumiere) by focusing on the evaluative lenses of feeling and thinking. Drawing on data from 545 visitors, analysis of qualitative responses to the feeling prompt, ‘What touched your heart during the installation or connected with your values?’ identified ten main themes. Analysis of qualitative responses to the thinking prompt, ‘What big questions were raised in your mind during the installation or connected with your interests?’ identified seven main themes. These two prompts generated quite different responses, suggesting a complementary and richer evaluation of the total experience could be accessed by engaging both the feeling function and the thinking function
Making the spoons last longer: Parents’ views on flexischooling with their child with SEN
No full textFlexischooling – the sharing of a child’s education between home and school through formal agreement – is one of a range of ‘alternative’ education approaches that may adapt education to meet a child’s Special Educational Needs (SEN). This study considers qualitative data from an online survey conducted during November and December 2023 regarding parents’ reasons for undertaking flexischooling with their child, and the activities they describe their children undertaking during school hours. Findings suggest that parents are concerned about the challenges that they feel their child faces in full-time school, but that they also perceive advantages, both social and academic, to the ‘not-school’ element of the educational approach they are undertaking. Consideration of the potential for flexischooling to support parents as they learn about their child’s ever-changing needs is discussed
Assessing visitor responses to Luke Jerram’s Gaia installation in Lincoln Cathedral: prayers and well wishes for the world
No full textFor six days during the period that Lincoln Cathedral hosted Luke Jerram’s installation, Gaia, visitors were invited to reflect on the world and to write on postcards prayers and well wishes for the world. Analysis of the content of 112 postcards demonstrated that the installation stirred people to reflect on things that really mattered to them. Seven main themes were identified, four concerning vulnerability and three concerning faith and values. The world is vulnerable to conflict and war, vulnerable to degradation, vulnerable to loss of biodiversity, and vulnerable to unhappiness. Faith and values were reflected in awareness of the ephemeral nature of human life, a reminder of God’s presence, and a call for respectful living
Psychological Temperament and Augustinian Prayer and Spirituality: A Replication Study
No full textDrawing on data provided by 1476 newly ordained Anglican clergy from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales who completed the Keirsey Temperament Sorter and an 80-item battery of type-related prayer preference items, this study tested the thesis advanced by Michael and Norrisey that the Apollonian (NF) temperament is associated with a distinctive emphasis in prayer and spirituality. The analysis identified seventeen prayer preference items that were rated significantly more highly by NF participants. These items produced a revised Scale of Apollonian Prayer Preferences with an alpha of .79 (offering internal consistency reliability), recorded significantly higher scores among NF participants (offering construct validity), and resonated with characteristics of Augustinian prayer and spirituality (offering content validity). These data replicate previously reported findings in support of a link between the NF temperament and Augustinian prayer preferences. Our findings have implications for NF clergy both in their own prayers and in their ministry with others
The Fragile Rural Church Hypothesis Post-Pandemic
No full textTaking two marks of the fragile church as financial anxiety over maintaining the building and human resource anxiety over replacing key lay leaders, two surveys conducted during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 confirmed higher anxiety among lay people and clergy in rural areas compared with those in other areas. New data from the Church 2024 survey demonstrated that this difference still pertained. In 2024 25% of rural clergy and 17% of rural lay people concluded that their church building is no longer financially viable. In 2024 87% of rural clergy and 58% of rural lay people concluded that key lay people are proving difficult to replace. The vision for a rejuvenating lay-led future needs to be read against this statistical background
Too woke or not woke enough? Racial awareness in the Church of England
No full textThe Church of England has recently engaged again with issues of racism by setting up the Anti-Racism Taskforce in 2020 followed by the Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice in 2021. Both groups stressed the lack of progress in tackling racism in the Church and the need to raise awareness of racial injustice at all levels. This paper reports on the measurement of racial awareness among 3,167 clergy and lay people who took part in the Church 2024 survey. Eight items in the survey were used to create the Racial Awareness Scale (RAS). Results suggested a mixed picture with majority awareness that racial inequality is an important issue that needs to be addressed, majority rejection of the idea that there may be local or institutionally embedded racism, and enthusiasm for diversifying leadership but not for taking specific actions relating to historic slavery. Multiple regression analysis showed racial awareness was shaped by a complex mixture of individual, contextual and religious factors
Assessing pathways and challenges to growth in discipleship: a study among members of the Student Christian Movement in the UK
No full textDrawing on data provided by 197 members of the Student Christian Movement under the age of thirty, this study examines the effect on two measures of growth in discipleship (depth of discipleship and strength of vocation) of four discipleship pathways (group activities, individual experience, church worship, and public engagement) and two contextual factors (church support and challenges to faith) after controlling for sex, age, and psychological type. The data highlighted the importance of the discipleship pathway styled individual experience in enhancing both depth of discipleship and strength of vocation. Personal experience focuses on ways of nurturing discipleship within the ecclesia domestica, involving personal prayer, bible study, quiet time, and reflection on life. Congregational activity alone is not adequate to nurture discipleship for this group of young people
Human Rights as Implicit Religion: Exploring the psychological correlates of belief in human rights and human rights activism among 15- to 18-year-old adolescents in England and Wales
No full textBailey’s notion of implicit religion suggests that in contemporary societies the functions served by formal or explicit religions may be assumed by other systems of beliefs. The present paper tests this thesis in respect of the apparently growing significance of concern with human rights, drawing on a sample of 1,001 adolescents in England and Wales between the ages of 15 and 18 years. Just as the study of explicit religion distinguishes between religious belief and religious practice, so the conceptualisation of concern with human rights as implicit religion may distinguish between belief (in the sense of acceptance of the claims made within the human rights legislation) and practice (in the sense of activism to assert the causes of human rights). Previously published research has shown that, after controlling for personal and psychological factors, explicit religion has a positive effect on explaining individual differences in empathy. Data from the present study demonstrate that both belief in human rights and human rights activism, conceptualised as implicit religion, also have a positive effect on explaining individual differences in empathy. These new data provide some support for Bailey’s conceptualisation of implicit religion by indicating that belief in human rights and human rights activism are functioning in relation to empathy in the same way as explicit religion
Introducing the Short Index of Emotional Intelligence (SIEI): Reliability and validity among Anglican clergy, Presbyterian ministers, and Salvation Army officers
No full textIn light of growing interest in employing measures of emotional intelligence in studies of clergy, the present study proposes a Short Index of Emotional Intelligence, drawing four sets of three items from the 33-item Schutte measure to map onto the domains of self-emotion appraisal, others emotion appraisal, use of emotion, and regulation of emotion. These 12 items were tested on data from three studies that employed the Schutte measure among 364 Anglican clergy, 505 Presbyterian ministers, and 431 Salvation Army officers. The data demonstrate good internal consistency reliability, concurrent validity against the parent measure, and construct validity within the context of psychological type theory