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COVID-19 related health disparities are prevalent among higher risk populations like the Hispanic community. Vaccination is one readily available public health tool, yet vaccine uptake is lower among minority populations and hesitations and concerns are high. In the present study, interpersonal and media sources of information about COVID-19 were discussed in a series of six focus groups with Spanish-language dominant and bilingual English-Spanish respondents in a large metropolitan area in Texas. Participants reported using legacy media as a main source of information about COVID-19 vaccines and encountered conspiracy theories and misinformation on social media. Using the Health Belief Model as the theoretical lens, we found individuals' and family members' perceived susceptibility to COVID-19 played a part in participants wanting to find and get the vaccine. Provider recommendations may have served as cues to action. Ease of receiving the vaccines at church and pharmacies may have served to boost participants self-efficacy. Perceived barriers include vaccine specific reasons such as the fast pace of initial authorization, side effects, and long-term effects along with conspiracy theories. Prevailing information gaps regarding the COVID-19 vaccines and the resulting uncertainty are discussed. Understanding information sources and the trust Hispanic communities place in these sources is important in designing effective health messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assesses youth community risk and protective factors, five years after a Youth and Family Master Plan, using an integrated conceptual framework which combines community organizing theory and the risk and protective factors (RPF) approach. Results show overall improvements in RPF. Findings reveal positive trends in prosocial involvement through participation in clubs, organizations, activities, community service, and attendance at church or synagogues; reduced community disorganization, such as decreased unsafe feelings in the neighborhood and social disorganization; and lower community transitions and mobility through changes in homes and schools. There were negative trends in the physical environment such as disrepair, permissive substance use, and lower neighborhood attachment, which is the desire to leave the neighborhood. The findings show a convergence of patterns across all methods of analysis for each measure of community youth risk and protective factors, suggesting reliability and a likelihood that the interventions contributed to observed variations between baseline and follow-up. The data patterns in this study align with the assumptions and explanations offered in the two models that make up the integrated conceptual framework. The persistence of some risk factors after five years calls for transformative and sustained social and economic investments in the Pomona community. The patterns also suggest the need to reconsider community organizing models – specifically, the need to go beyond locality development and social planning models and toward social action approaches. This will address complex causes of risk factors, consistent with transformative collective impact initiatives and democracy-driven governance, which grows from the bottom up. A beginning point would be to build on the increased prosocial involvement among youths in Pomona by reconfiguring the Pomona Youth and Family Master Plan (PYFMP) with greater youth and ordinary community members involvement and leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I look at the widespread, and often much debated, abandonment and reuse of church buildings in the Netherlands. I focus on the striking case of the Roman Catholic Chassé Church that, after years of being left abandoned, was converted into the Chassé Dance Studios and Hotel. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at the site, I show that the transformation process of the Chassé Church took place within a field of contestation in which different groups involved, articulated distinct modes of understanding the site and attributing it with value. I argue that these registers of valuation all centre in important ways on notions of home. Consequentially, while the repurposing of the church building represents the loss of a home for some, it has been co-opted as an instrument of home-building by others. For the latter, the site has played an important role in their quests for local belonging, feeling at home in the neighbourhood and, to some extent, delineating a national culture. By tracing such emotions of not only attachment and belonging, but also loss and nostalgia, this paper calls attention to the everyday affective dimension of processes of religious heritage making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One understanding of Anglican cathedrals is that their ministry, like the ministry of the bishop whose cathedra they house, stretches beyond the city and embraces the whole diocese. The advent of digital and online technology has brought the ministry of cathedrals much closer to homes throughout the diocese. The present study examines the impact of the Exploring the Sunday Gospel programme developed by Liverpool Cathedral on the spiritual journey of one senior rural churchgoer who turned towards Liverpool Cathedral when her own rural church ceased to offer services during the pandemic. The data support the value of a programme designed to equip churchgoers to engage in depth with the Sunday Gospel before hearing the Gospel reading proclaimed during the Sunday Eucharist, whether in-person or online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to determine whether social support from extended family and church members moderate the association between chronic stress exposure and sleep quality in a nationally representative sample of African American adults. Data from African American respondents aged 18 and older were drawn from the National Survey of American Life-Reinterview. The analytic sample for this study included 1,372 African American adults who attended religious services at least a few times a year, as the church-based relationship measures were only assessed for these individuals. Self-reported sleep quality was assessed by sleep satisfaction, trouble falling asleep, and restless sleep. Chronic stress exposure was measured by a nine-item index. OLS and logistic regression were used to estimate the relationship between chronic stress exposure, extended family and church relationships, and sleep quality. The data indicated that chronic stress exposure was associated with decreased sleep satisfaction, increased likelihood of trouble falling asleep and restless sleep. Receiving emotional support from family and more frequent contact with church members were associated with decreased restless sleep. Emotional family support moderated the associations between chronic stress exposure and trouble falling asleep and restless sleep. The positive associations between chronic stress exposure and these two sleep quality measures were attenuated among respondents who received high levels of emotional support from their family. Together, these findings underscore the detriment of chronic stress exposure to African Americans' sleep quality and suggest that extended family members are effective stress coping resources and play an important role in this population's sleep quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The island of Seili, in the south-western archipelago of Finland, is famous for its history as a leprosy colony and mental asylum. The island formed a small, hierarchical community run by priests and hospital officials. In this article, we examine the history of the burial crypt in Seili church by comparing information from historical documents and observations made during archaeological fieldwork. The material gathered from these two sources is conflicting, suggesting an interesting history in the use of the burial crypt. It seems that women's coffins could easily be moved elsewhere from the crypt when new coffins belonging to males were interred. It is argued that identifying the buried individuals would be necessary for a taphonomic study of the mummification processes and ensuring that the information about the crypt is based on facts. However, the identification is difficult due to inconsistent historical records. This underlines the importance of Post-Medieval archaeology in studying sites connected to family histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article's objective is to analyse the birth and development of the People with Physical Disabilities Movement in late Francoist Spain and the democratic transition. To that end, this work is based on qualitative research, based on 12 in-depth interviews, carried out with people with innate or acquired physical disabilities, from different regions of Spain, and born between 1938 and 1960. The participants selected for this work have been especially involved in the People with Physical Disabilities Movement in Spain since the sixties and seventies until today, from a total of 26 informants sources. These testimonies, always used anonymously, will be completed with reference works on the issues discussed, as well as other primary sources. This article analyses the birth of the Movement of People with Physical Disabilities in Spain during the late Francoism and the transition to democracy, from the 1960s to the early 1980s. This article delves into the life stories of 26 individuals with physical disabilities born between 1938 and 1960. Together with other social movements, people with physical disabilities were able to coordinate themselves in the late Francoism in order to create a new social movement to improve their living conditions. By giving voice to its protagonists and their experiences, the research seeks to understand more profoundly the basis and the -development of the Movement of People with Physical Disabilities in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reproductive autonomy encompasses one's ability to make decisions around contraceptive use, pregnancy, and childbirth. An individual's geographic location affects access to a wide range of information and care related to reproductive choice. Individuals in rural areas face additional barriers to reproductive health and decision-making than those in urban areas. This phenomenological qualitative study examined the experiences with and perceptions of reproductive decision-making among women in rural Appalachian communities in the United States. Four themes emerged from the data: autonomy tied to choice, role of religion and church on autonomy and decision-making, navigating limited access to care, and shame. Women should be supported in making reproductive health decisions, and efforts are needed to increase autonomy within reproductive health care and decisions. Sexual health programming within school and other community settings should address shame that often occurs around reproductive health topics, particularly among religious communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An evaluation was conducted of a community trauma program based in a local church to guide improvement, expansion, and replication efforts. While conducting interviews an unexpected pattern of language emerged, and in the creation of the evaluation report a poetic representation was included as an offering to the interviewees who had shared their time, their stories, and their words. This article explores poetic representation as an option for sharing evaluation data, presents a model for evaluating poetic representation, and encourages evaluators to explore creative mechanisms for sharing with research and evaluation participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racially and ethnically diverse populations have recently contributed to the majority of rural and small-town growth. Consequently, the disproportionately high risk and prevalence of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) among rural and minoritized older residents will likely increase. To address this threat, we tested the hypotheses that (1) a faith-based, resident-led approach would increase basic ADRD knowledge and diagnosis, and (2) older age, female gender, lower educational levels, and more years lived rural would predict number of referrals, new dementia diagnoses, and treatment. An adaptation of Schoenberg's Faith Moves Mountains model, previously successful in detection and management of other chronic illnesses in rural settings, guided this community-based participatory research. Local faith community members were trained as research assistants to recruit, administer surveys, conduct brief memory assessments, teach brain health strategies, and follow-up with residents. Outreaches were offered virtually during the pandemic, then in-person monthly at rotating church sites, and repeated ∼1 year later. This rural sample was racially and ethnically diverse (74.5% non-White), with 28% reporting eight or less years of formal education. Findings included that referrals and years lived rural were significant and positive predictors of new ADRD treatments [(b = 3.74, χ2(1, n = 235) = 13.01, p < 0.001); (b = 0.02, χ2(1, n = 235 = 3.93, p = 0.048)], respectively, regardless of participant characteristics. Resident-led action research in rural, diverse, faith communities is a successful approach to increasing ADRD disease knowledge, detection, diagnosis, and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research studies university undergraduate students' perceptions of the causes of suicide and suicidality among the youths in Zimbabwe with reference to the case of Midlands State University. The research also examined the contribution of COVID-19 to suicide and suicidality and the role of the family and church in suicide and suicidality causation or prevention. A qualitative methodology was used to collect data through semi-structured interviews, key informant interviews and a focus group discussion using a sample of 31 participants. Thomas Joiner's Interpersonal theory of suicide is utilised and adapted to explain suicide ideation among Zimbabwean youths. Abusive, fractured family and romantic relationships, economic frustrations, stigmatisation, loneliness, drug abuse and the pressure to conform were some of the causes of suicide ideation. The research recommends increased regular mental health and suicide prevention awareness campaigns to inform the students on the available services. Supportive, stable and positive relationships and interactions within families and churches are necessary to build resilience against suicide ideation and suicidality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Members of Korean American communities have displayed an increasing interest in volunteering opportunities with individuals with severe disabilities that promote social interaction and community engagement among them. However, little is known about community volunteer experiences and how Korean American volunteers can be better supported. In this qualitative study, we documented the voices of Korean American volunteers who work with individuals with severe disabilities. Adopting a phenomenological approach, we interviewed and observed ten Korean American community volunteers to explore the meaning of their experiences and their perceptions of severe disability as well as the social inclusion of individuals with severe disabilities. Through the data analysis, three main themes were identified: changing views on individuals with severe disabilities, inclusion in multifaceted communities, and identified needs of the Korean American community and volunteering system. The results show that the volunteers' initial perceptions of disability evolved during their experiences with individuals with severe disabilities. The data provides practical information about the ethnic community and volunteering system, which foster social integration among the participants and community members regardless of their abilities, race/ethnicity, language, and immigrant status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a defining catastrophe for many communities across the world. This study focuses on a small, urban community in the United States at the regional epicenter of the pandemic with high rates of illness, death, financial hardships, and a halt to in-person school and services that lasted over a year. Drawing on institutional theory with a focus on environmental jolts and leadership sensemaking, we conducted a thematic analysis of 20 interviews with cross-sector community leaders, including city officials, school district administrators, directors of community-based organizations, and church leaders to evaluate how they made sense of COVID-19 disruptions and framed their responses to the environmental jolt caused by the pandemic in Spring, 2021. Findings illustrate how leaders framed the jolt as highlighting existing issues, maintained a focus on priorities and purpose pre-dating disruptions, and emphasized opportunities emerging from the crisis. We discuss how leaders engaged in sensemaking both as a form of stabilization, providing a rationale for maintaining pre-pandemic priorities, and as a way to motivate and leverage opportunity through an emphasis on the silver lining of the jolt. We close with implications of these findings for ongoing and future responses to environmental jolts and crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we make the case for the theoretical and practical usage of the concept of the “biographical trajectory” (Riemann & Schütze, 1991, p. 342; Schütze, 1999) in social work practice with people who have left “high-cost” religious groups. We illustrate this through our analysis of the life stories and biographical trajectories of three individuals who have disaffiliated from either the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We discuss how their biographical trajectory developed during the time they were members of their specific religious group, and how they are addressing it through their disaffiliation. Implications for social work practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of trauma on mental health has led to the increased development of trauma-informed organizations. Little is known, however, about the benefits of using a trauma-informed care perspective within a faith-based setting, particularly among Latino communities. This article reviews the literature and identifies gaps suggesting the problem of a lack of mental health and trauma-informed awareness among places of worship. The need for developing trauma-informed ministries within places of worship is recommended to assist in promoting the psychological, emotional, and spiritual well-being of congregants and community members within faith-based settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A hexagonal marble object from the Rockefeller Museum, Jerusalem, found during excavations of H. D. Colt in the 1930s, has been identified as a canopy of an ambo. It probably belonged to one of the churches in Byzantine Shivta and is published here for the first time. Dated most likely to the 6th–early 7th century, it constitutes rare evidence of this liturgical furnishing in the Negev, raising questions concerning its unique iconography and acoustic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the feasibility and acceptability of a volunteer-led balance programme for older adults. A feasibility cluster RCT with focus groups were conducted in faith-based institutions. Eligibility criteria were: participants were ≥65 years, able to do five times sit -to-stand, had no falls in the previous six months and had good mental capacity. The intervention included supervised group exercises and exercise booklets for six months, education and a fall poster. Assessments included, TUG, MCTSiB, FTST, FES, mABC, OPQoL and DGLS at baseline, 6 weeks, and 6 months. Feasibility measures included numbers of volunteers, sessions, and volunteers" time commitment, views of participants about sustainability of program using qualitative focus groups and volunteers' ability to deliver programme. Three churches participated with 31 participants in each group. Participants had a mean age of 77.3 years, were 100% British, and 79% female. The sample size estimate for a future trial using TUG, was 79 per group. Focus groups showed perceived social and physical improvements in participants, need to extend the programme to the wider community, and increased confidence, participation and socialisation. The community-based balance training in faith-based institutions, was feasible and acceptable in one geographical area and requires evaluation in cohesive diverse communities. If an institution or a community is united through faith, culture, national roots, or tradition, then these groups are ideal for such balance rehabilitation programmes, because of the familiarity of the location and people, cohesive culture or their ideology to help their communities. Participants and volunteers perceived improved participation, confidence and socialisation and were keen to continue programme. It is important to develop community-based falls prevention programmes that the National Health Service (NHS) can partially support using volunteers to reduce the burden of falls in the community and for the NHS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study builds on earlier research locating individual differences in religious affect within the three dimensional space proposed by Eysenck. The 18-item Junior Personality Scales in Three Dimensions (JPS3D) were designed to refine Eysenck's conceptualisation of the three dimensions of personality and to improve measurement of these dimensions among children by employing a five-point rating scale. Data provided by 1048 students in fourth class, by 1044 students in fifth class, and by 1079 students in sixth class within Church of Ireland (Anglican) primary schools in the Republic of Ireland confirmed the clear factor structure of the 18 items on a varimax rotated solution, demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency reliability for the three indices in terms of Cronbach's alpha, and supported construct validity. Positive religious affect was associated with lower toughmindedness scores and higher extraversion scores, but independent of anxiety scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to clarify the effects of Christian religious activities on depressive symptoms and life satisfaction among older adults by analysing longitudinal data. Causal relationships between the variables were assessed using autoregressive cross-lagged model analysis. First, autoregressive coefficients were examined for church participation, depressive symptoms, and life satisfaction. Second, the cross-lagged coefficients revealed that participation in church activities later had a significant effect on depressive symptoms. In addition, depressive symptoms had a significant effect on life satisfaction. Depressive symptoms had a significant effect on life satisfaction. Third, the results indicated that participation in church activities during the fifth period significantly affected life satisfaction during the seventh period through depressive symptoms during the sixth period. This pathway suggests that depressive symptoms mediates the relationship between older adults' church participation and life satisfaction longitudinally (i.e., older adults' church participation reduces their depressive symptoms, and reduced depressive symptoms increases their life satisfaction). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present the results of a scoping review in which we examined the scientific literature (2010–2021) on faith-based organizations (FBOs) working within the field of poverty alleviation, focusing on the way studies define and use the term FBO. Fifty-two relevant studies were identified and included. Our research shows that the term FBOs is primarily used in American studies. Moreover, there is no broad consensus on the exact definition or meaning of the term nor on its scope. Because of this lack of consensus and the inherent shortcomings of the term, we suggest to replace the term FBO by the term "religion-based solidarity initiatives" (RSIs), We define RSIs as: "Initiatives that, from a religious inspiration, aim at organizing collective action for and/or providing support or services to people in vulnerable positions." These initiatives can range from small scale ad hoc initiatives till large scale formal organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was undertaken to assess the feasibility and scalability of training volunteers in churches and faith-based nonprofit organisations to serve as mental health paraprofessionals. Feasibility was assessed using a post-training survey as well as participant feedback (n = 48). For the scalability phase, training was moved online and available on-demand. Participants who completed the training online were asked to complete an anonymous survey (n = 1024). Responses to post-training surveys during the feasibility phase were overwhelmingly positive as was participant written and verbal feedback. Responses to the online survey during the scalability phase showed that most mental health coaches were actively using the skills they acquired in the training to support individuals living with mental health concerns. Placing paraprofessionals in existing networks such as churches offers those in psychological distress an easily accessible form of support and may help to address the current mental health workforce gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new religion of Spiritualism emerged in the mid-19th century. Through mediumship, Spiritualists contacted the dead, believing them to have "passed over" to another plane of existence. It spread from America to Great Britain before arriving in Australia in the 1850s. This article charts the history of the world's oldest continuously running Spiritualist organisation, the Victorian Spiritualists' Union (VSU, est. 1870), exploring the unexpected survival of the movement in Australia. It challenges the common idea that Spiritualism enjoyed only a brief revival in the interwar period and has maintained a tenuous status ever since. Rather, I argue that Spiritualism has experienced several peaks and troughs since its emergence in Australia, including a widespread revival in the 1970s, spearheaded by the VSU. Spiritualism in Australia survives due to the development of a church movement, the advocacy of groups such as the VSU, the generous volunteer efforts of individual Spiritualists, the acquisition of church buildings, and its geographic mobility, all of which have allowed Spiritualist churches to be responsive to changing social and cultural conditions for more than a century. It is one of Australia's largest and most resilient alternative religious movements, not simply a Victorian-era curio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainline Protestant pastors in the United States play pivotal roles in envisioning and planning changes to local congregational practices. They are highly visible and authoritative figures who must work to avoid conflicts that could splinter their churches. Often serving politically mixed laity, pastors must balance a tension between pastoral care and their own convictions. They work to avoid what one pastor called 'parking lot conversations', a particularly hostile form of public confrontation with congregants, which they might encounter because of their leadership or preaching. I examine two items in pastors' tactical toolkit that allow them to advocate for institutional transformation while maintaining congregational cohesion: weekly sermons and personal conversations with congregants. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in three congregations in Michigan – Episcopalian, Presbyterian and United Church of Christ – I focus on pastoral approaches to LGBTQ+ inclusion, an issue which can cause fraught debate in certain mainline Protestant contexts. Navigating when to voice their views and when to be less confrontational, pastors often preach obliquely about LGBTQ+ issues by mentioning the already-inclusive environments their congregations provide, arguing that this is a sure sign of the church's commitment to Christian ideals of welcoming. This approach curbs conflict and lessens the chance disgruntled parishioners will confront them. Conversely, pastors use private conversations with congregants to leverage conflict into teachable moments that can deepen the whole community's commitments to their church. In these conversations, pastors are much more direct about their planning around the role of the church as an inclusive space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employs the therapeutic landscape theory to explore how online religious services during lockdown restrictions shape experiences of well-being and intergenerational learning. We used qualitative data from in depth interviews and focus groups with older adults and pastors in five churches in Ghana to explore how online religious places are conceptualized as therapeutic landscapes for sustaining wellbeing goals amidst a global pandemic. We identified multiple pathways of meaning through which online religious services shape the lives of people in a faith community to sustain the experience of well-being in a difficult time. In addition, this paper reflects on the broader implications of COVID-19 in shaping a paradigm shift in digital religion and intergenerational learning experiences through a changing religious landscape precipitated by lockdown restrictions that have drastically altered traditional religious places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines two figures from the early twentieth century beginnings of the Hebrew Israelite movement. Malinda Morris was a central, though forgotten, figure in William Crowdy's Church of God and Saints of Christ but her creation of an independent Church upon Crowdy's death has not so far been discussed. The strongest body of evidence regarding this Church is a booklet published by one of their Bishops, A.W. Cook, in Harlem, 1925. This booklet offers biographical, legal, constitutional, and theological information about Cook and his branch of Morris' Church. Situated at a crucial juncture, at the beginning of the second wave of Hebrew Israelite preachers and congregations, Cook's booklet offers some important insights into the development of foundational narratives of the movement, as well as allows us to reconstruct some of the life of this forlorn thinker and minister, and his leader Malinda Morris. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technology has changed individual and communal lives radically, resulting in the emergence of online-based churches. Concerns regarding the nature of online-based churches call for a theological investigation. This article critically examines ongoing debates and argues that: An online-based church should be construed and welcomed from the perspective of theocentrism. As of now, it is worthy to embrace church online rather than an online church until the issues of immersion in worship and gatherings of church members, and problems of online sacraments are resolved. This article highlights the problems surrounding online-based churches, and elaborates ecclesiology in the digital era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on recent interest to assess and encourage a relational culture within the Church of England and drawing on the Signs of Growth survey conducted within the Diocese of Southwark, this study examines the association between congregational bonding social capital and both perceived faith development and perceived church growth among 7,924 weekly churchgoers between the ages of 20 and 69 who had been established in their church for at least three years. The data confirmed that a relational culture goes hand-in-hand with personal faith development and with potential for church growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the psychological effects of Christian teachings about sin and hell. Little is known regarding factors predicting whether religious involvement will increase or decrease overall distress, especially for minoritised groups. The researcher developed the Christian Teachings about Sin and Hell Scale (CTASH) and recruited 683 former or current self-identified Christians via convenience sampling. A MANOVA was conducted to determine whether population means for scores on the CTASH differed significantly based on age, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, race, church denomination, and religious identity. Individuals who had disaffiliated with Christianity, were LGBTQ±, were female, were nonbinary, and who had deconstructed their beliefs reported significantly increased overall distress related to the Christian teachings about sin and hell. Certain groups also differed significantly on specific CTASH items. Findings illuminate the interactions between intersectional identity, religious identification, and exposure to teachings about sin and hell as they impact psychological distress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to data analyzed from the Gallup Daily Tracking Politics and Economy survey between 2015 and 2017, nearly half (46.7%) of LGBT adults in the U.S. are religious, and just over half (53.3%) of LGBT adults are not religious. The majority who identified as religious attend Protestant churches. The Pentecostal church is a member of the Protestant Christian tradition. In a Constructivist Grounded Theory study of six U.S. gay male, Pentecostal Christians, our study excavates and chronicles their journey toward wholeness. Three major themes emerged from our study: embracing the journey, belonging to a community, and living unapologetically. From these themes, we learned that wholeness becomes possible when gay male Christians can form identities that are uniquely and holistically their own. We used these themes as a clarion call for clinicians who engage with clients encountering a conflict between their religious/spiritual tradition and their sexual orientation to actively assist their clients with reducing the dissonance they experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Middle Ages, angels were a constant presence and participated with the faithful in praising God. Due to the manifold roles played by angels in Christian theology, it is not surprising that they were a popular subject for church decoration. At the abbey church of Sainte-Foy at Conques, the attention paid to and regard for angels was expressed to an exceptional degree and therefore provide an excellent case study through which to understand how monumental sculpture communicated monastic identity and exegesis. This article considers the formal attributes and spatial arrangement of the sculpted angels at Conques as they relate to early medieval monastic conceptions of angels' function and role within the heavenly community, providing the monks with a celestial model to negotiate the boundaries between the active and contemplative life as articulated by Gregory the Great and the Venerable Bede. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Los cabildos catedralicios de Manila han sido escasamente estudiados a pesar de su papel fundamental en la vida cotidiana, social, política y económica de la capital. La función de estas corporaciones trascendía el ámbito litúrgico, y el alcance de su influencia es particularmente visible durante las sedes vacantes, cuando los capitulares ejercían labores de gobierno por ausencia o deceso del arzobispo. En este trabajo se estudian dos de estos momentos (1641–1645 y 1645–1653). El objetivo es analizar los actores sociales, sus relaciones clientelares y los vínculos personales de amistad, patronazgo y parentesco que dominaron las islas Filipinas en el siglo XVII. Se toma como punto de partida un enfoque micro-político a partir de fuentes documentales de archivo e historiografía coetánea y posterior. El estudio muestra la importancia de los cabildos como cuerpos colegiados para articular redes de poder local durante esos 'interregnos' especialmente en un contexto de crisis política y económica del imperio español en el sudeste asiático. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic led to an increase in the use of online platforms for Christian worship and emphasised the need for a simple psychometric instrument that is sufficiently general to assess affect responses to a range worship services. This paper reports on the development of the six-item Scale of Perceived Affect Response to Online Worship (SPAROW) during the third UK pandemic lockdown in 2021. The scale items were included in an online survey completed from January to July 2021 by 2,017 Anglicans living in England and 1713 Roman Catholics from the UK or the Republic of Ireland. Exploratory Factor Analysis (principal components extraction and varimax rotation) in the Anglican sample indicated a single-dimensional scale that had excellent internal consistency reliability for those who accessed pre-recorded services (α =.90, n = 1238) and live-streamed services (α =.91, n = 1492). Confirmatory Factor Analysis on the Roman Catholic sample using a Structural Equation Model showed a good fit to a single-dimensional scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how a bishop brings a distinctive character to the norms of liturgical worship. The article reflects on the origin of the episcopal role in the Old Testament and its development in the Christian tradition. The article attends to how beauty in the liturgy can draw the worshipping community into a renewed appreciation of God's revelation through creation. It focuses on an ecclesiological aspect of the Church of England that gives responsibility to the bishop for the oversight of worship, seeing the bishop as a symbolic figure whose presence is one way of signifying that the liturgy transcends time and space. The article considers the contribution of contemporary art to the environment of worship, concluding with reference to episcopal patronage of the arts in the diocese of Chichester and a rationale for church buildings, their character and purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research into architectural form analysis using deep learning (DL) methods has shown potential to identify features from large collections of building data, shedding new light into formal aspects of our built environment. As these methods begin to enter architectural, urban, and policy design contexts, it becomes important to develop critical approaches to employing them. In this paper, we document and reflect upon our efforts to create a custom dataset of 3-D models of 331 wooden churches located within the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe, and to use DL methods to explore this dataset with the goal of revealing unexpected formal traits and advancing architectural scholarship on this subject. While existing scholarship groups them into four distinct stylistic categories, our analysis reveals stylistic overlaps, previously undetected micro styles, and shared architectural features. We posit the resulting analyses as an example of an 'architectural distant reading' that enriches our understanding of this architectural typology through an unprecedentedly detailed portrait of its formal characteristics based on a large architectural dataset. Crucially, drawing on recent developments in critical data and algorithm studies, we show how the dataset construction and subsequent analyses, and their results, were shaped by slow, manual data curation processes, methodological constraints, subjective decisions, and engagements with archives, domain experts. We thus illustrate how DL techniques might be contextualized for architectural studies in relation to other modes of knowledge and labour, and offer a detailed case study of state-of-the-art computational methods enriching established approaches to architectural form and historical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study used the stress process model to test the mediating effects of personal mastery and moderating effects of church-based social support on the relationship between daily discrimination and psychological distress across three age groups of African American and Afro-Caribbean adults. Using a national sample of 5008 African Americans and Afro-Caribbean adults from the National Survey of American Life Study, this study employs structural equation modeling to investigate the relationships between daily discrimination, personal mastery, church-based social support, and psychological distress. Daily discrimination was an independent predictor of psychological distress across all groups. Group- and age-specific comparisons revealed significant differences in the experience of daily discrimination and psychological distress. Mastery was a partial mediator of the relationship between discrimination and psychological distress among Afro-Caribbeans while church support was a significant moderator only among the young and older African Americans. Together, our study findings provide useful first steps towards developing interventions to reduce the adverse psychological impacts of daily discrimination on African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans. Intervention efforts such as individual psychotherapy aimed to improve Afro-Caribbean individuals' sense of mastery would be a partial solution to alleviating the adverse effects of discrimination on their psychological health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a larger study of Australian churchgoing Catholics' responses to COVID-19 church closures, the New Indices of Religious Orientation (NIRO) 18-item short form was tested on a sample of 1162 participants. The total sample showed relatively low mean NIRO Extrinsic and Quest scores, but a higher NIRO Intrinsic mean score than previous studies. Older participants reported significantly higher Quest scores than younger participants, and males reported significantly lower NIRO Extrinsic scores and significantly higher Quest scores than females. However, the internal reliability for the 18-item NIRO in this population was lower than in previous studies. Factor analysis supported a three-factor solution with only one instance of cross-loading. The results generally support the reliability of the NIRO as a measure of religious orientation in this population, with some reservations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the debate surrounding calls for churches, particularly the Church of England, to apologize for their historical missionary activities in Africa. Topics include the implications of such apologies on the perception of African traditional beliefs, the historical role of Christianity in the abolition of slavery, and the complexities of reparations for descendants of slaves and other affected communities worldwide.

This study aims to explore how eight pastors' wives of the Pentecostal denomination in the UK, manage stressful situations and apply coping strategies to support their emotional well-being. A qualitative interpretative phenomenological approach was adopted to provide a comprehensive analysis of their personal lived experience. The study identified and explored four main themes: expectations perceived as burdensome, lack of support, relocation and impact on family and coping strategies applied for the support of well-being. The research found that coping strategies employed by participants may not be as useful and effective to cope with the demands of pastoral care, ministry, and stressful situations encountered. As this is an understudied area further research is required to unmask how female leaders in faith-based communities can be supported with their mental health and represented in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Memorials of the lay dead in late medieval English churchyards were constructed from perishable materials, with the exhumation and reuse of burial plots suggesting that a timely forgetting of the individual was an accepted part of the commemorative process. From the 13th century onward, remains exhumed from old graves were increasingly redeposited in specific structures known as charnel houses. The collective redeposition of disarticulated skeletal remains in charnels anonymised the deceased, generating mortuary spaces which foregrounded communal rather than individual memory. In this paper, charnelling and its relation to memory in late medieval England is theorised and explored. Following this, early modern developments are investigated, employing the charnel of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, as a central case study. As the country's largest late medieval charnel, its extreme treatment following the Dissolution of the Monasteries renders it a potent example of how religious reform affected mortuary practice during the period. Through the violent ejection of its contained remains and the structure's secular repurposing as a print shop, treatments of the ancestral dead were employed to enact and manifest ideological change. This produced changes in London's mortuary landscape which in turn memorialised the reformatory process itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines how ash-scattering space in public natural areas in Norway is produced. Fieldwork was conducted with 11 Norwegian bereaved people through interviews and visits to the disposal places to study the practices relating to contemporary ash disposal. The article contributes to a more systematic understanding of the spatial interactions between the bereaved and the deceased, while indicating the importance of considering the fluidity of commemorative space which facilitates for an encounter between the bereaved and the deceased. The findings reveal that the scattering of ashes undermines the traditional relation between death and place (cemeteries) and transforms the public place in natural landscapes into commemorative space. Solid places on sea, floating places by the sea and places where the floating soul appears by the sea are produced as commemorative spaces where the ashes are scattered or where a connection to the sea is likely. The data indicates that the space is created in an open-ended process where both the bereaved's and the deceased's relation to the ash-scattering site (or the sea) and their experiences of the cemetery institution are mutually important factors. The analysis has been inspired by Henri Lefebvre's, Doreen Massey's and Martina Löw's multidimensional understandings of space as constituted relationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines attachment styles, religiosity as measured by religious coping, and church activities, for their possible impact on feelings of well-being in an Indonesian Christian community. This cross-sectional study was conducted on both purposive and snowball samples of 264 Christians from Bandung and Semarang, Indonesia. The study hypothesized that a more positive Self-Other Model of attachment, greater positive religious coping, and higher church involvement would predict greater well-being as measured by flourishing/eudaimonic, affective, and subjective well-being scales. Pearson correlation and multiple regression methods were used to analyze data. Results indicated that 15% of the total variance in affective well-being is attributable to positive self-model attachment, positive religious coping, and higher subjective religiosity/spirituality. The study also found that 9.9% of the total variance in flourishing or eudaimonic well-being is counted for the self-model. However, neither predictor was correlated to hedonistic or subjective well-being. Greater religiosity, as measured through the church activities, was also not correlated with greater measures in the three types of well-being. This study concluded that the predictive power of religiosity such as church activities and attachment to well-being may depend on the characteristics of the culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The church is commonly assumed to scaffold individuals' socially supportive relationships and prosocial behavior. If true, that would make the church an important support for individual development and community change, facilitating and fostering healthy relationships and positive interactions with others. In this study, we analyzed experimental data collected from 30 churches in three Latin American countries to assess the impact of an intervention targeting relational ministry practices on 6- to 14-year-old children's perceived support and prosocial behavior. Data were collected from children before (n = 710) and after (n = 612) the intervention in treatment (n = 25 churches) and control (n = 5 churches) conditions. Results indicated that the introduction of socially supportive practices in church children's ministries increased children's prosocial behavior, an effect mediated by changes in perceived support. Implications for children's development and the church as a means of community change are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Churches serve as a source of connection and support for spiritual wellbeing. More recently, church communities recognize the importance of extending support beyond spirituality and taking a holistic approach that includes mental and physical health. How each church goes about providing support varies among denominations and the needs of their communities. This exploratory study examines how churches of various denominations in the Tri-City region (Pomona, La Verne, and Claremont) of Los Angeles County perceive the seriousness of COVID-19, their responses to the pandemic, and the potential impact on their congregations. Results indicated that the majority (84%) of spiritual community participants view COVID-19 as a threat to personal health, and are taking steps to minimize the threat to their congregations' health and surrounding communities. Implications for church leadership to consider when planning continued operations and congregant support in response to COVID-19 are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Romantic relationship distress leads to decreased satisfaction and dissolution. While therapy is effective for helping distressed couples, it is often inaccessible due to cost, time, and childcare barriers. Churches are often able to offer lower-cost services and provide childcare. In partnership with a network of local churches, university staff trained lay leaders to deliver an evidence-based relationship education program and collected data from 97 couples to evaluate pre- to post-workshop changes in couple functioning. Multilevel modeling was used to examine changes from pre- to post-workshop and thematic analysis was used to analyze open-ended feedback responses. Results showed improvements in communication, relationship satisfaction, commitment, and intimacy safety, with the largest effect found for communication. Participants also reported improved communication skills were one of the most beneficial parts of the program. Through the partnership with a university, churches can offer and rigorously evaluate evidence-based programs to strengthen couple relationships in their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Churches are enduring social institutions that play a critical role in the promotion of health and wellbeing. In this introduction, the function of churches as community change agents is highlighted. A brief history of the role of churches in shaping and transforming social systems is provided along with examples of recent church-based change efforts. Further, this issue presents six articles that explore church-based change efforts impacting relationship development, trauma response, wellbeing, pandemic response, and attitudes toward environmental justice. Each article identifies a specific social problem and examines how churches promote prevention and intervention efforts to address the problem. Overall, this issue suggests that churches continue to serve as a resource for community change and that helping professionals should seek to engage with churches when promoting health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this multiple-case study was to report on the worship experiences of Black families affected by dementia. Data were collected through participant observations of family caregivers (n = 4) and persons living with dementia (n = 4) during worship services and semi-structured interviews with the family caregivers over six months. Data were initially analyzed case-by-case, then across-cases. Four overarching themes emerged: Welcoming church culture, Community support from the church, Engagement during worship service, and Connectedness between the caregiver and their family member living with dementia. Family caregivers reported that their family member with dementia was attentive and expressed moments of clarity during and immediately after worship services. Worship services can be tailored to support families affected by dementia and can promote engagement of the person living with dementia with church activities and family members. Health practitioners are encouraged to acknowledge the influence of religious practices within Black families affected by dementia and integrate them into interdisciplinary care plans and programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion is an important part of many people's lives and there is some evidence that attending church or other religious congregations is positively associated with psychological well-being. However, religious participation is declining in Western Europe and North America. Sunday Assembly is a non-religious gathering that intends to provide a similar communal experience and a sense of spirituality to the church, but without the religious element. In the current study, we aimed to explore the experiences of and motivations for attending a non-religious congregation in relation to well-being. A qualitative approach was taken, gathering data through semi-structured interviews with participants from Sunday Assembly congregations across England. Thematic analysis was used and three key themes were found: (1) searching for meaning and community, (2) Sunday Assembly as protective of mental health, and (3) loneliness in a crowd. Sunday Assembly can provide a sense of belonging and improvement in mental health through shared experience and spirituality, and it can act as a coping mechanism during difficult times. Further research could explore the benefits of Sunday Assembly upon attendee's mental health, test the effectiveness of Sunday Assembly as a coping mechanism, and whether continued attendance improves mood over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preference within the perceiving process (sensing or intuition) is one of the main features within psychological type theory that differentiates clergy serving within different streams of the Christian Church. Previous research has identified a higher proportion of intuitive types among Church of England clergy than among clergy serving within the Free Churches (Baptist, Methodist, Salvation Army). New data from 93 ministers serving within the United Reformed Church suggest that this denomination may occupy a position between the Church of England and other Free Churches, with 55% of male ministers, and 53% of female ministers preferring intuition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older grandparents raising adolescent grandchildren are a hidden caregiving population. Religion serves as a protective factor for many older adult caregivers. The caregiving and religion literature often excludes exploration of caregivers' satisfaction with social support provided by faith-based communities. Nineteen older grandparents raising adolescent grandchildren participated in in-depth qualitative interviews regarding the lived experiences of their social support and satisfaction woth faith-based communities. Research questions were: (1) describe, if any, what types of support you receive from church or religious groups? and (2) how satisfied are you with the support from church or religious groups? The diverse sample of grandparents were White (n = 10), Black/African American (n = 7), Native American (n = 1), and Filipino (n = 1). Respondents were primarily married (58%), white/nonHispanic (53%), grandmothers (84%), with some college education or college graduate (79%). Older grandparent caregivers identified key people, situational circumstances, and tangible goods that enhanced their wellbeing and posed opportunities for more support. Five themes characterizing social support and satisfaction with older grandparent caregivers' perspectives of their faith-based communities were emotional support, activities and resources, stopped attending church, attended church but did not seek support, and mixed satisfaction with religious support. Implications are presented for social work education and social work practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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