Childhood Misfortune, Ultimate Redemption? A Stress Process–Life Course Analysis of Adult Born-Again Experiences
This article integrates life course and stress process perspectives to better understand the connections between early life victimization, hardship in adulthood, and religious turning points among middle-age Americans. I identified Christian “born-again” transformations as an empirical case, as this...
| Published in: | Sociology of religion |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford Univ. Press
2014
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| In: |
Sociology of religion
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Electronic
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| Summary: | This article integrates life course and stress process perspectives to better understand the connections between early life victimization, hardship in adulthood, and religious turning points among middle-age Americans. I identified Christian “born-again” transformations as an empirical case, as this faith transition (1) is relatively commonplace in the American religious landscape and (2) makes direct claims concerning redemption and new life. Analyses use two-waves of panel data from a sample of American adults with retrospective childhood account, spanning 1995–2005. Among the men and women who were not born again at Wave 1, nearly 10 percent experienced a born-again turning point between Wave 1 and Wave 2. The individuals most likely to undergo this transition were those who faced the broadest forms of victimization during childhood. This association was partially explained by continued mistreatment experienced as adults. Though respondents victimized as children were at high risk of experiencing a broad range of adulthood stressors, few of these hardships predicted a born-again transformation. |
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| ISSN: | 1759-8818 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Sociology of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/socrel/srt058 |