Religion has been an important concern for the field of psychology since its inception in
the late nineteenth century in Europe and the United States. Perhaps the field should be
called“Psychologies of Religions”because of the diversity of theoretical and methodo-logical strategies deployed by psychologists. Even though the psychology of religion has,
because of its original historical context, focused upon Christianity and Judaism, the field
has been gradually including other religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and New
Religious Movements.
The psychology of religion is a cluster of interrelated disciplines, themes, and issues that
focus on the human experience of religion and spirituality. The focus, generally, is on the
person: experiences, relationships, beliefs, behaviors, and consciousness as it is related to
supra- or trans-human dimensions, entities, or beings perceived by individuals, groups, and
cultures to be important. Psychologists of religion also recognize the influence of groups,
institutions, and cultures on the construction of religion and spirituality.
In contemporary American society, many people distinguish between “religion” and
“spirituality.”Religion, for some, implies religious institutions and leaders who prescribe
and proscribe beliefs and practices. Spirituality, on the other hand, implies the human
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dimension of experiences, beliefs, and actions that provide meaning, purpose, and, in some
cases, the transcendence of mundane life. Implied in this distinction is the emphasis on
personal choice, freedom, and independence from the constraints of religious ideology and
organizations. In recent years contemporary psychology of religion has begun to explicitly
include spirituality.
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