scholarly journals Taking Responsibility for Multiple Churches: A Study in Burnout among Anglican Clergywomen in England

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mandy Robbins ◽  
Leslie J. Francis
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Health ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Psychological Factors ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Inverse Association ◽  
Personal Factors ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Major Consequence ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Tradition

A major consequence of changing cultures for Anglican clergy serving in the established Church of England (reflected in declining congregations, stretched financial resources, and falling vocations to the priesthood) is seen in the process of pastoral reorganisation that now requires individual clergy to have oversight of a growing number of churches. This is especially the case in rural areas where individual clergy may now be responsible for seven or more churches. Drawing on data provided by 867 clergywomen serving in stipendiary ministry in the Church of England, the present study examines the association between the number of churches and levels of burnout reported among the clergy, after taking into account personal factors (like age), psychological factors (like personality), theological factors (like church tradition) and other contextual factors (like rurality). Employing the balanced affect model of work-related psychological health operationalised through the Francis Burnout Inventory, the data demonstrated a small significant inverse association between the number of churches and positive affect (satisfaction in ministry), but no association with negative affect (emotional exhaustion). Overall, however, the variance accounted for by the number of churches was trivial in comparison with the variance accounted for by psychological factors.

Religious Coping Among Rural Clergy: Measuring Ways in Which Rural Clergy Draw on Coping Strategies Informed by Their Theological Beliefs

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-102
Author(s):  
Christine Brewster
Keyword(s):  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Religious Coping ◽  
Psychological Health ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Gain Control ◽  
Rural Churches ◽  
Images Of God ◽  
Work Related ◽  
The Church

Following the recent decline in stipendiary clergy numbers in the Church of England and the consequent amalgamation of numerous rural benefices, enormous demands have been placed on many rural clergy. Potential stressors include ‘overextension’ and ‘inadequate resources’, which can cause poor work-related psychological health. Folkman and Lazarus (1988), whose work is firmly rooted in the ‘secular’ psychological tradition, contend that in order to survive in times of stress, people need to employ coping practices whereby they can ‘manage’ the personal and/or environmental stressors which ‘tax’ or ‘exceed’ their personal resources. Pargament (1997), however, believes that religious beliefs and religious experience are also important, and he suggests that the psychology of religion and coping ‘bridges a deep psychological tradition of helping people take care of what they can in times of stress with a rich religious tradition of helping people accept their limitations and look beyond themselves for assistance in troubling times’ (p. 9). The present study examines the coping strategies of a sample of 722 Church of England rural clergy who are responsible for three or more rural churches, following their completion of the ‘RCOPE Measure of Religious Coping’ (Pargament, Koenig and Perez, 2000). The data produced suggest that the religious coping strategies most frequently used by rural clergy in multi-church benefices, are ‘benevolent religious reappraisal’ (to find ‘meaning’), ‘collaborative religious coping’ and ‘active religious surrender’ (to gain ‘control’), ‘religious purification/forgiveness’, ‘spiritual connection’ and ‘marking religious boundaries’ (to gain comfort and closeness to God) and ‘seeking support from clergy and church members’ and ‘religious helping’ (to gain ‘intimacy with others and closeness to God’). The data demonstrate that rural clergy certainly draw on images of God that may promote healthy responses to significant stressors, but that they also employ those that may be detrimental to effective coping, and it is suggested that the provision by the church, of educational programmes focusing on religious coping strategies, might lead to the enhancement of work-related psychological health among rural clergy.

scholarly journals What Does the Liberal-Conservative Scale Measure? A Study among Clergy and Laity in the Church of England

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Village
Keyword(s):  
Rating Scales ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Function Analysis ◽  
Empirical Measure ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scale Measure ◽  
The Church ◽  
Beliefs And Attitudes ◽  
Church Tradition

Abstract The Liberal-Conservative (LIBCON) scale is a seven-point semantic differential scale that has been widely used to measure identity within the Church of England. The history of the development of liberalism in the Church of England suggests that this scale should be associated with specific beliefs and attitudes related to doctrine, moral issues and church practices. This study tests this idea among a sample of 9339 lay and ordained readers of the Church Times (the main newspaper of the Church of England) using twelve summated rating scales measuring a range of beliefs and attitudes. Of these twelve variables, eleven were correlated with the LIBCON scale. Discriminant function analysis produced a linear function of these variables that correctly identified 35% of respondents on the scale, and 69% to within one scale score. The best predictors were scales related to either doctrine or moral issues, and these performed consistently across traditions (Anglo-catholic, Broad church or Evangelical) and between clergy and laity. Scales related to church practices suggested ‘conserving tradition’ was also involved in the liberal-conservative dimension, but this was less so for clergy and for Evangelicals. The scale is commended as an empirical measure of one dimension of Church of England identities, especially if used alongside a parallel scale measuring church tradition.

Keble, Froude, Newman, and Pusey

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheridan Gilley
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Premature Death ◽  
John Henry Newman ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Oxford Movement ◽  
High Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Tradition ◽  
The Way

The Oxford Movement, influenced by Romanticism, was rooted in the inheritance both of an older High Church tradition and of the Evangelical Revival. The Movement was characterized by an effort to recover the Catholic character of the Church of England. Its genius was John Henry Newman, who redefined Anglicanism as a via media between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. John Keble had earlier opened the way to a new Anglican sensibility through his poetry in The Christian Year. The Oxford Professor of Hebrew, Edward Bouverie Pusey, brought to the Tracts his massive scholarship. Newman’s dearest friend, Hurrell Froude, gave the Movement a radical edge, which continued despite his premature death in 1836.

The Mountain and the Flower: The Power and Potential of Nature in the World of Victorian Evangelicalism

2010 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 307-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Smith
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Oxford Movement ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
High Church ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Tradition

In the middle decades of the nineteenth century a new wind could be felt rustling in the branches of the Church of England. The transforming effect of the Oxford Movement on the High Church tradition is the most prominent example of this phenomenon but also well established in the literature are the transformations in contemporary Anglican Evangelicalism. David Bebbington in particular has stressed the impact of Romanticism as a cultural mood within the movement, tracing its effects in a heightened supernaturalism, a preoccupation with the Second Advent and with holiness which converged at Keswick, and also an emphasis on the discernment of spiritual significance in nature. But how did this emphasis play out in the lives of Evangelicals in the second half of the century and how might it have served their mission to society? This paper seeks to address the evangelical understanding of both the power and potential of nature through the example of one prominent Anglican clergyman, William Pennefather, and one little-known evangelical initiative, the Bible Flower Mission.

scholarly journals Liberalism and Conservatism in Relation to Psychological Type among Church of England Clergy

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 138-154
Author(s):  
Andrew Village
Keyword(s):  
Church Growth ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Psychological Type ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Church Congregations ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Tradition

Abstract Liberalism and conservatism have been important stances that have shaped doctrinal, moral and ecclesial beliefs and practices in Christianity. In the Church of England, Anglo-catholics are generally more liberal, and evangelicals more conservative, than those from broad-church congregations. This paper tests the idea that psychological preference may also partly explain liberalism or conservatism in the Church of England. Data from 1,389 clergy, collected as part of the 2013 Church Growth Research Programme, were used to categorise individuals by church tradition (Anglo-catholic, broad church or evangelical), whether or not they had an Epimethean psychological temperament, and whether or not they preferred thinking over feeling in their psychological judging process. Epimetheans and those who preferred thinking were more likely to rate themselves as conservative rather than liberal. Conservatism was associated with being Epimethean among those who were Anglo-catholic or broad-church, but with preference for thinking over feeling among evangelicals.

When Was Anti-Catholicism? The Case of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Wales

2005 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 308-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL O'LEARY
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Church

Anti-Catholicism was a pervasive influence on religious and political life in nineteenth-century Wales. Contrary to the views of Trystan Owain Hughes, it mirrored the chronology of anti-Catholic agitation in the rest of Great Britain. Welsh exceptionalism lies in the failure of militant Protestant organisations to recruit in Wales, and the assimilation of anti-Catholic rhetoric into the frictions between the Church of England and Nonconformity over the disestablishment of the Church. Furthermore, whereas the persistence of anti-Catholicism in twentieth-century Britain is primarily associated with cities like Liverpool and Glasgow, its continuing influence in Wales was largely confined to rural areas and small towns.

The Church of England and the Anglican Communion: a timely engagement with the national church tradition?

2004 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Lockwood O'Donovan
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
God's Word ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Theological Foundations ◽  
New Israel ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Tradition

The following is a critical appreciation of the Reformation theological foundations of English church establishment which seeks to demonstrate their importance not only for the Church of England in the current political and legal climate, but also for non-established Anglican churches and for the Anglican Communion. It identifies as their central structure the dialectic of church and nation, theologically articulated as the dialectic of proclamation and jurisdiction. The enduring achievement of this dialectic, the paper argues, is to hold in fruitful tension the two unifying authorities of sinful and redeemed human society: the authority of God's word of judgement and grace and the authority of the community of human judgement under God's word. The historical analysis traces the evolving ecclesiastical and civil poles of the dialectic through their Henrician, Edwardian and Elizabethan formulations, from William Tyndale and the early Cranmer to John Whitgift and Richard Hooker, clarifying the decisive late medieval and contemporary continental influences, and the key schematic contribution made by the humanist Thomas Starkey. A continuous concern of the exposition is with the paradigmatic place occupied by interpretations of monarchical Israel in the shifting constructions of both civil and ecclesiastical polity, with the attendant dangers from a relatively undialectical relation between the ‘old Israel’ and the ‘new Israel’. The concluding evaluation and application focuses on the contemporary need for a theological construction of the nation and the church that grasps the complexities of the dialectic of proclamation and jurisdiction, especially as they bear on the unity and discontinuity of ecclesiastical and secular law at the national and international levels.

Traditions within the Church of England and Psychological Type: A Study among the Clergy

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Village
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Type A ◽  
Psychological Type ◽  
Religious Expression ◽  
Moral Behaviour ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Tradition

Abstract This study examines the relationship of psychological type preferences to membership of three different traditions within the Church of England: Anglo-catholic, broad church and evangelical. A sample of 1047 clergy recently ordained in the Church of England completed the Francis Psychological Type Scales and self-assigned measures of church tradition, conservatism and charismaticism. The majority of clergy preferred introversion over extraversion, but this preference was more marked among Anglo-catholics than among evangelicals. Anglo-catholics showed preference for intuition over sensing, while the reverse was true for evangelicals. Clergy of both sexes showed an overall preference for feeling over thinking, but this was reversed among evangelical clergymen. The sensing-intuition difference between traditions persisted after controlling for conservatism and charismaticism, suggesting it was linked to preferences for different styles of religious expression in worship. Conservatism was related to preferences for sensing over intuition (which may promote preference for traditional worship and parochial practices) and thinking over feeling (which for evangelicals may promote adherence to traditional theological principles and moral behaviour). Charismaticism was associated with preferences for extraversion over introversion, intuition over sensing, and feeling over thinking. Reasons for these associations are discussed in the light of known patterns of belief and practice across the various traditions of the Church of England.

scholarly journals THE SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS OF YOUTH’S SUICIDAL BEHAVIOUR

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-19
Author(s):  
Yaroslav Riabchych ◽  
◽  
Mariia Kapkan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Health ◽  
Suicidal Behaviour ◽  
Psychological Factors ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Health Anxiety ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Current View ◽  
Personal Factors

The article highlights the current view on social and psychological determinants of youth’s suicidal behaviour. The modern science still does not have a unified point of view on suicidal behaviour. The corresponding terminology is amorphousness and its concept is uncertain. It is generally accepted that suicidal behaviour depends on many factors, has different motives and goals and exists in certain and extreme conditions. The authors present their own model of suicidal behaviour that includes the following main factors leading to suicidal behaviour: social and psychological maladaptation, deviant behaviour and unresolved intrapersonal conflicts. We have identified four groups of factors affecting young people’s social and psychological maladaptation: General psychological features of a suicider having non-pathological situational intentions, as well as people having borderline states; Personal factors; Family factors; Other life factors: a changed place of residence, study or work; negative influence of mass-media, modern literature, Internet sites with certain content, etc. A set of standardized and tested methods was selected to examine social-psychological factors of young people’s pre-suicidal and suicidal behaviour: 3 methods studying susceptibility to suicidal reactions, suicidal behaviour and the diagnosis of suicidal behaviour before its manifestation. The sample consisted of 120 young people (89 girls and 31 boys). Their families were also taken into account: 89 respondents had both parents, 31 had only one of parents. The sample was divided into three groups for comparative analysis of suicidal behaviour. The division criterion of was the suicide indicator from the Suicide Behaviour Questionnaire that was compared with the results of the Suicide Risk Test (SR-45, P.I. Yunatskevich) and the method determining propensity to suicidal behaviour (M.V. Gorskaya). The statistical methods were used to process the obtained data: Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to analyze relations between individual psychological characteristics with suicidal behaviour; a multiple regression analysis was performed for data grouping; statistical significance was checked by the F-Fisher test. The performed empirical study has revealed that suicidal behaviour can appear because of deteriorated personal psychological health - anxiety, frustration, aggression and changes in attitudes toward life and death under environmental influences or because of overestimated self-concept. The respondents having suicidal intentions were characterized by severe anxiety and high frustration as the consequences of personal disappointment, inability to overcome real or imagined obstacles preventing goal achievement. Aggression was almost the same for all three examined groups, thus this indicator showed rather increased psychological activity. The highest rigidity was observed at the respondents having suicidal intentions; such rigidity was associated with complications existing during implementation of significant activities.

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