<p>Boij, A. 2002: Jorden är mörk och svart. Vad som rör pastorer i Svenska Missionsförbundet när de ska predika om samhället. (The world is black and dark. What concerns pastors in the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden when they preach about society). Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. <i>Psychologia et Sociologia Religionum</i> 16. 239 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 91-554-5488-7.</p><p>The dissertation reflects a study of what pastors in the Mission Covenant Church in Sweden say in their sermons about society and social responsibility and represents an attempt at finding factors such as gender, education, age, values, and faith behind what has been said in the sermons.</p><p>The results show that in general pastors have a negative picture of society irrespective of which of its aspects they are addressing. The pastors’ view of Christian responsibility for society is that it is primarily something for the individual to take, not for the congregation. Above all, Christian responsibility for society is about individual Christians' taking responsibility for her fellow human beings.</p><p>For theoretical clarification the findings are discussed within the framework of the concept of secularisation, following Casanova (1994) sub-divided into differentiation, decline of religion and privatisation. In the study differentiation is identified when pastors do not relate theological reflection to their description and analysis of society. Thus they do not provide an integrated system of meaning for everyday life. As for privatisation, even when pastors are mainly speaking about public events, they are unable to place those events in a religiously interpreted context. According to the pastors social problems are to be met with private and individual solutions through Christians' actions to the benefit of their fellow men. </p><p>The MCC is a part of what in Swedish can be called <i>a popular movement</i>, a kind of "social movement" or "voluntary organisation." The analysis shows that its pastors in their sermons do not embrace some of the central parts of the ideology that generally pertain to <i>popular movements</i>, namely concern with reforming society. </p>

<p>The aim of the thesis was to examine the applicability of attachment theory to adult and adolescent religiosity. Attachment theory is an empirically oriented research paradigm that takes evolutionary theory as the starting point in the study of child-parent relations and their socioemotional correlates in development. The work consisted of two interrelated tasks. First, limitations in theory and research in the psychology of religion, particularly the traditional psychodynamic perspectives, were highlighted, and attachment theory was proposed as an integrative framework to remedy some of those limitations. Second, four empirical studies (I-IV), based on attachment theoretical predictions, were conducted to investigate relations between individual differences in attachment and religiosity. </p><p>The combined results from the studies suggest the existence of two religiosity profiles in relation to attachment. Both profiles resemble influential descriptions of individual religiosity differences in the psychology of religion literature. The religiosity of individuals in the first profile is similar to their parents' religiosity and is likely to be stable over time. If religious changes have been experienced, these are likely to be gradual, to occur early in life, and in a context pointing to the importance of relationships with religious significant others. Such individuals' God image is likely to be loving, and not distant. It was hypothesized that these religiosity characteristics stern from experiences with sensitive attachment figures in childhood, and that such experiences have promoted partial adoption of the attachment figures' religious standards. The mental representations of attachment resulting from the favorable experiences were suggested to be responsible for a corresponding image of a loving God. </p><p>The religiosity of individuals in the second profile is independent of parental religiosity, and is likely to fluctuate (increase and decrease) over time. Their religious changes are more sudden and intense, occur relatively later in life, and in a context pointing to an emotionally supportive function for religion. Such individuals' God image is more distant, and less loving. These religiosity characteristics were hypothesized to stem from experiences with insensitive attachment figures in childhood. It was suggested that they reflect an affect regulation strategy to obtain/maintain a sense of felt security, and that God is utilized as a compensatory attachment-like figure in this regard. </p><p>Findings pertaining to the profiles generally emerged regardless of whether the design was cross-sectional (I-IV) or longitudinal (III); whether participants were adults (I, II, and IV) or adolescents (Study III); and whether attachment was assessed with self-report questionnaires (I-IV) or independent ratings based on a semi-structured interview (IV).</p>

The aim of the thesis was to examine the applicability of attachment theory to adult and adolescent religiosity. Attachment theory is an empirically oriented research paradigm that takes evolutionary theory as the starting point in the study of child-parent relations and their socioemotional correlates in development. The work consisted of two interrelated tasks. First, limitations in theory and research in the psychology of religion, particularly the traditional psychodynamic perspectives, were highlighted, and attachment theory was proposed as an integrative framework to remedy some of those limitations. Second, four empirical studies (I-IV), based on attachment theoretical predictions, were conducted to investigate relations between individual differences in attachment and religiosity. The combined results from the studies suggest the existence of two religiosity profiles in relation to attachment. Both profiles resemble influential descriptions of individual religiosity differences in the psychology of religion literature. The religiosity of individuals in the first profile is similar to their parents' religiosity and is likely to be stable over time. If religious changes have been experienced, these are likely to be gradual, to occur early in life, and in a context pointing to the importance of relationships with religious significant others. Such individuals' God image is likely to be loving, and not distant. It was hypothesized that these religiosity characteristics stern from experiences with sensitive attachment figures in childhood, and that such experiences have promoted partial adoption of the attachment figures' religious standards. The mental representations of attachment resulting from the favorable experiences were suggested to be responsible for a corresponding image of a loving God. The religiosity of individuals in the second profile is independent of parental religiosity, and is likely to fluctuate (increase and decrease) over time. Their religious changes are more sudden and intense, occur relatively later in life, and in a context pointing to an emotionally supportive function for religion. Such individuals' God image is more distant, and less loving. These religiosity characteristics were hypothesized to stem from experiences with insensitive attachment figures in childhood. It was suggested that they reflect an affect regulation strategy to obtain/maintain a sense of felt security, and that God is utilized as a compensatory attachment-like figure in this regard. Findings pertaining to the profiles generally emerged regardless of whether the design was cross-sectional (I-IV) or longitudinal (III); whether participants were adults (I, II, and IV) or adolescents (Study III); and whether attachment was assessed with self-report questionnaires (I-IV) or independent ratings based on a semi-structured interview (IV).

Pastoral care, or persuasion? The influence of church leaders and their control of clergy and believers. Research of religiosity, communication strategies of priests and their image in letters in the late 19th and early 20th century. Tomáš W. Pavlíček SUMMARY The author of the Ph.D. thesis examines the religious culture in Bohemia in the late 19th century. Contrary to the concept of secularization and the prevalent opinion about an extraordinary decline of religiosity in the Czech society, he attempts to explain the interdependence of social and religious changes in the modern times. Within the sociological concept of secularization and disenchantment of the world, the author focuses on three phenomena: the vocation of a priest, religious practices and conversion, which he treats as religious concepts and at the same time applies them in historical research. The biggest part of the thesis is devoted to the first object of the research - the attitude of a priest towards his vocation, as the clergy is the agent of religious change. The thesis contributes to the current discussions about the relationship of the church and the state and the role of clergy in the society. The main questions are: What is the role of a priest in the religious changes? In what way or under what circumstances does a person get the...

Parish clergy and religious change in Prague's diocese from Council of Trent till the end of the 17th century The religious change that happens in Bohemia in the 17th century has no equivalent in the Europe at this time: the whole country, where Catholics were in a very minority, comes back to the roman Church. This evolution is here seen from a very prosaic point of view: how lay people live this change, and so how acts the parish clergy in this matter. Conversion's strategy, at the end of the Council of Trent, was to permit the use of the chalice to the laity. The consequence of this permission was a very hazy situation in the parishes, but Holy See did nothing before the battle of White Mountain, and after the battle, he suppressed chalice, mainly for pastoral reasons. During the Thirty years War, the kingdom is the place of a general reform, which has its origins in the catholic missionary movement of the beginning of the century and in the political theories of this time. Bohemia is strongly marked by the war that acts as a catalyst; at the same time political and religious authorities were lacking. The inhabitants, usually just formal Catholics at the beginning, convert themselves more and more deeply during the 17th century. The eldest, who remembered the non-Catholics services, died during the...