This volume brings together contributions on faith and meaning-making from across various disciplines into one place. Adherents of the Abrahamic faiths tend to hold that faith is an integral part of their lives. Moreover, it is often considered a life-changing event when a person comes to have religious faith. Alternatively, existential despair and dread are sometimes reported by the person who loses their religious faith. Not only is either type of event a significant moment in a person’s life, but how a person’s faith (or lack thereof) is lived out throughout the course of their life is also importantly connected to meaning.
This volume contains original essays on faith and meaning-making from the perspectives of philosophy, social science, and mental health, and as such constitutes a unique multidisciplinary resource. Religious Faith and Meaning-Making is essential reading for all scholars of religion and especially those focusing on the philosophy, psychology and sociology of religion.
Chapter One: Introduction: Tracing the Narrative.- Part I: Social
Science Perspectives.
Chapter Two: Narrative Identity, Meaning, and
Religious Community.
Chapter Three: The Over-Medicalization of Mental
Disorder, Suffering, & Meaning-Making.
Chapter Four: Once More, with
Feeling: The Ubiquity of Religious Ritual in Meaning-making.
Chapter Five:
The Shield of Faith? Understanding Religiosity and Suicidality.
Chapter Six:
Traps of Meaning: Need for Closure and Finding Meaning.- Part II:
Philosophical Perspectives .
Chapter Seven: Would God be the Ultimate
Attachment Figure? Some Hellish Implications.
Chapter Eight: Faith in
Meaning, and Why it Fails.
Chapter Nine: The Shadow Side of Faith: Meaning
Vs. Meaninglessness.
Chapter Ten: Metaphor, Meaning, and Religious
Discourse: A Linguistic and Theological Archeology of the 'Liquidation of the
Human Spirit.
Chapter Eleven: On Making a Difference.
Chapter Twelve:
Religious Meaning Without Religion: Adapting Herman Dooyeweerds Pistic
Aspect for a Non-Religious Context.
Kirk Lougheed is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and the Director for the Center for Research on Faith and Human Flourishing at LCC International University. He is also a Research Associate at the University of Pretoria.
Travis Myers is Associate Professor of Humanities and Chair of the Department of Theology at LCC International University.
