Posted by R S on August 14, 2003 at 16:12:18
First, by way of introduction let me say that I am a 4th year PhD. student in the Clinical Psychology program at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA, and have joined a research team that is doing similar work in Germany and Atlanta. We are studying religious fundamentalism in varying locations. We see fundamentalism as a form of religious orientation that is not very well understood in the public, or the scholarship. Therefore we have designed a research project that will hopefully clarify some aspects of fundamentalism, which we are loosely defining as a set of beliefs with most or all of the following characteristics:
1. sacred text / hermeneutic absolutism
2. personally authoritative, normative / hierarchy in church / religious groups
3. absolute system of ethics / dichotomy on good (saved) and evil (lost) parts of humanity (light vs. dark)
Our strategy in approaching the field is to compare people who are current members of various religious groups with people who have left those groups within the last 10 years. We are looking to find a trend in those who are currently members and those who choose to leave. We look for those trends through a questionnaire, but more importantly, a 2-3 hour, tape recorded, interview that seeks the narrative history of your life in general but also your religious/spiritual life. .
I think that someone from this website would be a tremendous asset to our project. Specifically, I am looking for one (1) ex-Family member who has left in the last 10 years and is located in the greater Los Angeles area. All information will be held in the strictest confidentiality, and will be combined with the stories from other locations to ensure anonymity. Our project is on a tight schedule, so the quicker I might receive word back, the better the chances of including your stories in the research.
With all that said, let me know if you might be interested. Send me an email at myinterview2003@yahoo.com Thank you for your interest in this project and hopefully the results of the research will help us design better therapeutic strategies for handling the recovery process of those previously involved in certain religious groups.
Robert Swanson