Religious involvement and self-forgiveness

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine the interface between involvement in religion and self-forgiveness. The data come from a recent nationwide survey of adults age 18 and older (N = 1774). A conceptual model was developed that contains the following hypotheses: (1) Evangelicals will attend worship services more frequently than members of other faith traditions; (2) people who go to church services more often will be more likely to get spiritual support from fellow church members; (3) individuals who receive more spiritual support from religious others will be more likely to believe that they have been forgiven by God; (4) people who believe that they have been forgiven by God will have a greater sense of self-worth; and (5) individuals who have a stronger sense of self-worth will be more likely to forgive themselves for the things they have done wrong. The data provide support for each hypothesis.

KEYWORDS:

• Forgiveness by God
• self-forgiveness
• religion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Research consistently shows that Blacks attend worships services more often than members of other racial/ethnic groups (Taylor et al., 2004). However, the data in Table 1 indicate that the relationship between the variable that compares Blacks with others is not statistically significant (β = −.055; ns). There is a straightforward way to explain this. Recall that 1215 study participants who do not attend church often were excluded from the current study. However, preliminary analysis reveals that when this relationship is examined in the full study sample (N = 2955), Blacks do indeed attend church more often than others (r = .107; p < .001). When combined with the data in Table 1, these additional findings reveal that Blacks attend church more often than others and these race differences arise primarily among people who either never go to church or who only go once or twice a year.

2. One might also wonder why race is not associated with forgiveness by God. The data in Table 1 suggest that Blacks get more spiritual support from fellow church members (β = .187; p < .001) and people who get more spiritual support are more likely to believe that they have been forgiven by God (β = .259; p < .001). When this specific indirect effect is coupled with the other indirect effects that operate through the model (β = .066; p < .001; not shown in Table 1), the resulting total effect of race on forgiveness by God is statistically significant and in the anticipated direction (β = .058; p < .05; not shown in Table 1).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by John Templeton Foundation [grant number 40077].