I’ve attended church for as long as I can remember. I started going to Catholic churches where girls that looked like me weren’t common. Then my mom and I started attending non-denominational churches. It wasn’t until I was about 14 or 15 when I actually began to enjoy church. I felt a connection in the message and I can say my true belief in God began then. However, with age I began to reflect on moments where I did not favor organized religion. The rules and practices became rigorous and not conducive towards letting the Spirit flow. At times, I questioned my place within the church. Apparently, I wasn’t alone.
University of Illinois researchers Tamilia D. Reed and Helen A. Neville wanted to tap into that notion, sorta. They conducted a web-based study to see how “religiosity and spirituality” affect the psychological well-being of the Black woman. Out of the 167 Black women that participated in the survey, 79% identified as “fairly to very spiritual.” Over 80% claimed Christianity, 11% claimed no religious affiliation, and 7% claimed a non-Christian faith.
“Spirituality’s full mediation of the relationship between religiosity and life satisfaction suggests that participants’ relationships to other people and to divine beings, along with meaning-making processes, may be the underlying mechanism that connects religion to mental health and life satisfaction. Based on our findings in the current sample, positive psychological well-being for black women may be better accounted for directly by spirituality than by religiosity,” Reed said.
So basically, the results of the study show that we perceive spirituality separately from religion. It may assist with the beliefs, but it is not necessary for one to have a spiritual relationship.
Do you agree? Do you think spirituality and religion go hand-in-hand?
Credits: Emuishere Peliculas