Empowerment in a Religious Setting

Abstract

This study examines the correlates and contexts of empowerment among members of a Christian, nondenominational religious setting. The research approach combines participant-observation and measurement development methodology to capture the empowering aspects of religious experience in a form which lends itself to quantitative analysis, without excessive loss of the phenomenological meaning ofthat experience. The criterion of empowerment is progress toward a salient goal of members-interpersonal behavior change in the direction of group ideals (i.e., in the direction of becoming more like Jesus). Present and retrospective past measurement of perceived interpersonal behavior yielded eight predictor variables from member peer, self-report, and interviewer sources. These variables include religious orientation, locus of control. spiritual experience, group involvement, and religious history. The relationship of the predictors to interpersonal behavior change was assessed in canonical correlation analyses. Results from multiple data sources find that those seen by themselves and by others as empowered are committed to a relationship with God and with others in the setting. They may be described, in part, as experiencing a “psychological sense of community.” In addition, they report a life crisis prior to joining the setting and a sense that God is in control of the events of their life. Follow-up data, three years later, finds a relationship between commitment and life satisfaction. Two years of participant-observation provide hypotheses, consistent with several psychological theories, for suggesting salient setting variables which provide a context for understanding the results.