Sources of weakened spiritual faith among Norwegian adults

Abstract

ABSTRACT Burgeoning research has documented important positive associations between religiousness/spirituality and physical and mental health. However, spiritual and religious beliefs can also be a locus of doubt and weakened faith in the form of spiritual struggles. Spiritual struggles are described as involving signs of spiritual disorientation, which involve conflict or distress grounded in religious or spiritual issues. The specific aim of this article is to describe sources of weakened faith in community residing adults who responded to a Norwegian population survey which also contained open–ended questions regarding experiences of weakened faith. Sixty participants described such sources in their own words. Our findings confirm that factors precipitating feelings of weakened faith are multifaceted and cover a wide array of sources. They are related to negative interactions concerning church life and church practice and specific relational conflicts with others. They also involve processes of doubt which contribute to changes in understanding and are grounded in observing injustice in the world, and include major life events including death and illness. Many of the struggles seem to involve an unsettling state of disillusionment and broken trust that arises from experiencing a gap between one’s assumptions and what occurred in reality.