‘It is never good. Really, it’s just never good’: a dominant theme in the life story accounts of strictly Reformed-raised emerging adults about their religious identity development

ABSTRACT

This article presents a striking finding of our research into the religious identity commitments and process of religious identity development of emerging adults who grew up in strictly Reformed contexts in the Netherlands. We observed a recurrent theme in the life story accounts we studied. Almost all the participants expressed that they feel or felt not good enough for God or believers within strictly Reformed contexts. In this article, we explore this theme and show how feelings of not being good enough are related to various aspects of participants’ strictly Reformed upbringing, such as specific beliefs and specific ideal images. In addition, we show which experiences go along with feelings of not being good enough. Last, we discuss the findings, provide suggestions for future research and point to directions for further reflections by educators.

KEYWORDS:

• Not good enough
• religious identity development
• emerging adulthood
• strictly Reformed
• the Netherlands

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In social media posts, magazine pieces or newspaper columns, etc.

2. Our narrative approach involved us studying the content of the life story narratives to ‘find common thematic elements across participants and the events and experiences they report’ (Patterson, Markey, and Sommers 2012, 137). We thus chose not to ‘keep a story “intact” by theorizing from the case rather than from component themes (categories) across cases’ (Riessman 2008, 53).

3. At the time of the interviews, all participants were 23–25 years old.

4. Considering the number of quotations.

5. ‘Experience strictly Reformed upbringing: not good enough’. Shortened code name in ATLAS.ti: ‘exp str Ref upbr: not good enough.’

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anne-Marije de Bruin-Wassinkmaat

Anne-Marije de Bruin-Wassinkmaat MSc is a PhD-student at the Protestant Theological University Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the religious identity development of emerging adults who grew up in strictly Reformed contexts in the Netherlands. Anne-Marije works as an educational advisor for Driestar Christian University and she is involved with pedagogical and didactical training for secondary school teachers. Besides, she is involved with the identity of Christian schools, both on organization level and classroom level.

Jos de Kock

Jos de Kock is Professor of Practical Theology at the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit in Leuven, Belgium, where he also serves as the rector of the faculty. Currently, he is a board member of the International Academy of Practical Theology, and a board member of the Religious Education Association. His specializations are in the areas of empirical practical theology, research methodology, higher education, religious education, youth ministry, religious identity development, catechesis, and youth and theology.

Elsbeth Visser-Vogel

Elsbeth Visser-Vogel is a lecturer at the Christelijke Hogeschool Ede (Christian University of Applied Sciences). Her specializations are in de areas of religious identity development, adolescents, youth and (religious) education. Besides, she is as a supervisor involved with several research projects.

Cok Bakker

Cok Bakker is professor of Religious Education at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies of the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University and professor in the area of the Moral development of professionals at the HU Utrecht University of Applied Sciences. For max of one day a week he is involved in consultancy work (mainly dealing with religious diversity issues).

Marcel Barnard

Marcel Barnard is professor of Practical Theology at the Protestant Theological University (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) and Professor Extraordinary of Practical Theology at the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa). He is research leader of Practical Theology at the Protestant Theological University.