scholarly journals “Mere” Christian Forgiveness: An Ecumenical Christian Conceptualization of Forgiveness through the Lens of Stress-And-Coping Theory

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Everett Worthington ◽  
Sandra Rueger ◽  
Edward Davis ◽  
Jennifer Wortham
Keyword(s):  
Stress And Coping ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Psychological Perspective ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Essential Components ◽  
Coping Theory ◽  
Self Forgiveness ◽  
Divine Forgiveness ◽  
And Coping

Forgiveness is a central theme within the Christian faith, yet Christian traditions sometimes vary in how they understand and approach the forgiveness process. Nevertheless, in this paper, we present an ecumenical model of Christian forgiveness that highlights the essential components that are shared across most Christian traditions. Importantly, rather than using a theological lens to develop and describe this model, we have primarily used a psychological lens. Specifically, we have adopted stress-and-coping theory as the psychological framework for understanding a Christian conceptualization of forgiveness. We identify four types of forgiveness (divine forgiveness, self-forgiveness, person-to-person forgiveness, and organizational–societal forgiveness) and describe a Christian conceptualization of each one, filtered through the psychological perspective of stress-and-coping theory.

Kierkegaard as Physician of the Soul: On Self-forgiveness and Despair

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 174-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon D. Podmore
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Psychological Perspective ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Pastoral Identity ◽  
Self Forgiveness ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Divine Forgiveness

Despair (sickness of the spirit) and divine forgiveness are decisive psychological and theological themes essential to both Søren Kierkegaard's relational vision of ‘the self before God’ and his own personal struggles with guilt and the consciousness of sin. Reading Kierkegaard as both a physician and a patient of this struggle, therefore, this article examines The Sickness unto Death (1849) as an attempt to resolve the sinful ‘self’ by integrating a psychological perspective on despair with a theology of the forgiveness of sins. It is suggested that by presenting this integrative notion of self-knowledge through the ‘higher’ Christian pseudonym of Anti-Climacus, Kierkegaard is indicting his own resistances to accepting divine forgiveness and thereby operating—via a ‘higher’ pastoral identity—as a physician to his own soul. By diagnosing the unconscious psychological and theological relationships between sin/forgiveness, offense, and human impossibility/divine possibility, Kierkegaard finally reveals faith—as a self-surrendering recognition of acceptance before the Holy Other—to be the key to unlocking the enigma of the self in despair.

Meaning-Making

2019 ◽  
pp. 78-93
Author(s):  
James W. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Psychology Of Religion ◽  
Stress And Coping ◽  
Psychological Perspective ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Popular Approach ◽  
Meaning Systems ◽  
Religious Meaning ◽  
And Coping

An increasingly popular approach to thinking about religion from a psychological perspective is to treat religions as “meaning systems.” A lot of research in the psychology of religion has been conducted within this “meaning systems” paradigm. Such research also demonstrates the positive role religious meaning-making can play in health and resilience, stress and coping, and pro-sociality. The research cited in this book suggests that our embodiment directly impacts our understanding of how meanings are arrived at. This, in turn, affects the ways in which we understand religious meaning-making and moves the concern with justifying the religiously lived life in a more pragmatic direction.

Stress and Coping Theory Across the Adult Lifespan

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agus Surachman ◽  
David M. Almeida
Keyword(s):  
Adult Development ◽  
Social Stress ◽  
Stress And Coping ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Adult Lifespan ◽  
Biological Stress ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Coping Theory ◽  
And Coping

Stress is a broad and complex phenomenon characterized by environmental demands, internal psychological processes, and physical outcomes. The study of stress is multifaceted and commonly divided into three theoretical perspectives: social, psychological, and biological. The social stress perspective emphasizes how stressful life experiences are embedded into social structures and hierarchies. The psychological stress perspective highlights internal processes that occur during stressful situations, such as individual appraisals of the threat and harm of the stressors and of the ways of coping with such stressors. Finally, the biological stress perspective focuses on the acute and long-term physiological changes that result from stressors and their associated psychological appraisals. Stress and coping are inherently intertwined with adult development.

On the Lived Experience of Sex Offenders’ Therapists: Their Perceptions of Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Consequences and Patterns of Coping

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 848-872 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haneen Elias ◽  
Muhammad M. Haj-Yahia
Keyword(s):  
Sex Offenders ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Stress And Coping ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Coping Theory ◽  
Interpersonal Consequences ◽  
Therapeutic Encounter ◽  
And Coping

In the last two decades, there has been a growing understanding that the therapeutic encounter with sex offenders takes a cost and has consequences on therapists. Despite the increasing research on the consequences of treating sex offenders, these studies in fact, have merely described the consequences, without providing an outlook for how therapists cope with them. The study presented in this article was part of a larger qualitative research project conducted among social workers, using in-depth semi-structured interviews. Emphasis is placed on therapists’ perceptions of the intrapersonal and interpersonal consequences they experience from treating sex offenders, as well as the strategies they use to cope with these consequences. The study’s central findings concern the therapists’ perception of the intrapersonal consequences, which included two levels: primary responses and cumulative responses, and their perception of the interpersonal consequences that included their parenting relationships, intimate relationships, their attitude toward others (strangers and acquaintances), loss of their quality of life, and further positive consequences. The findings indicated a sequence and integrated use of the strategies to cope with the consequences. The results are discussed in light of the theoretical framework of Lazarus and Folkman’s stress and coping theory. The limitations of the study as well as its implications for future research are discussed.

Self-Forgiveness and Health: A Stress-and-Coping Model

2017 ◽  
pp. 87-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loren L. Toussaint ◽  
Jon R. Webb ◽  
Jameson K. Hirsch
Keyword(s):  
Stress And Coping ◽  
Self Forgiveness ◽  
Coping Model ◽  
And Coping

Stress and Coping Theory in Geropsychology

2017 ◽  
pp. 2276-2285
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Proulx ◽  
Carolyn Aldwin
Keyword(s):  
Stress And Coping ◽  
Coping Theory ◽  
And Coping
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