Religion is a social phenomenon. Society and, therefore, religion will continue to exist as long as human beings exist. This article explores this syllogism, by analysing two 19th-century social theories on the future of religion. Weber was not positive as to the future of religion and foresaw that religion would die out at the hands of rationality and modernisation. Durkheim predicted that rel...

INTRODUCTION A growing research literature associates various religious factors with positive mental and physical health, and even suggests that aspects of religious involvement may reduce mortality risk (for reviews, see Ellison, 1994; Koenig, 1994; Levin, 1994). Although there is wealth of evidence that religious institutions continue to play important social and political roles in the Africa...

Social scientific research assumes that religious involvement is primarily, if not exclusively, the product of socialenvironmental influences. There is growing evidence, however, that genetic or other biological factors also play a role. Analyzing twin sibling data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS), this study addresses this issue by showing that indiv...

Recent research suggests that a youth development framework emphasizing youth assets may be a promising intervention strategy for preventing adolescent risk behaviors. Understanding how neighborhood and community resources relate to youth assets may aid in identifying environmental strategies to complement individually oriented asset-building interventions. In this study, 1,350 randomly selecte...

This study measured the prevalence of religious self-disclosure in public MySpace profiles that belonged to a subsample of National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) wave 3 respondents (N=560). Personal attributes associated with religious identification as well as the overall quantity of religious self-disclosures are examined. A majority (62 percent) of profile owners identified their religi...

Satanism is a destructive religion that promises power, dominance, and gratification to its practitioners. Unfortunately, some adolescents are seduced by these promises, often because they feel alienated, alone, angry, and desperate. This article explores the psychosocial needs of adolescents that are often met by participation in Satanic worship. Gratification of these needs, when met, may mak...

Religion creates a complex part of Kenya as country. In Kenya, almost all aspects life; social, political, and commercial life are punctuated with religious lexes rituals. Whereas Africa whole immersed in religiosity, poverty, ethnic politics, tribalism, bribery prevalent African countries the list cannot be complete without mentioning them. The inquiry thus arises to whether religiosity gives ...

Contrary to some predictions, it appears religion is coming back. We are constantly being reminded that religion is becoming more important again in late modernity. Despite this, religion is still “banished to the sidelines in the contemporary field of theoretical struggle” (Beckford 2003: 12). Moreover, when religion is studied, it is often a concept of ‘religion’ so reified and generalised as...

OBJECTIVE This study compared the ways in which psychiatrists and nonpsychiatrists interpret the relationship between religion/spirituality and health and address religion/spirituality issues in the clinical encounter. METHOD The authors mailed a survey to a stratified random sample of 2,000 practicing U.S. physicians, with an oversampling of psychiatrists. The authors asked the physicians ab...