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This paper analyzes redemptive narratives constructed by Mashhadi Jewish immigrants through oral histories, memoirs, and life stories collected across generations. It examines how conceptions of religion, community, and family shaped their meaning-making around migration challenges. The first case study examines Malka Aharonoff's lamentation reconstructed from religious redemption across generations into a Zionist narrative. The second analyzes Esther Amini's published memoir, which reconciles her story with that of her immigrant parents through narrative, demonstrating its role across generations with gender as the focal point. The later cases of Aharon Namdar and Mehran Bassal present individual oral histories, capturing major migration waves from Iran, playing out the differing import and expression given to Zionism and to religion by different immigrants. The study explores how selective appropriation and cultural translation occurred between generations. It sheds light on ideological and cultural frameworks underlying immigrant perspective. By comparing narratives emphasizing collective redemption versus individual experiences, it offers insights into identity formation and the role of memory in immigrant communities dispersing over time. By demonstrating narrative's therapeutic role in processing dislocation across generations, the study sheds light on cultural transmission and identity formation within dispersed immigrant communities. It offers a fresh perspective on their migration experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and loneliness in the United States, using the 2018 General Social Survey to assess their interactions against a backdrop of declining traditional religious affiliation and a rise in "spiritual but not religious" identification. It examines religion and spirituality's capacity to counteract loneliness, a condition with significant health implications. The analysis uncovers complex relationships between aspects of religious life and loneliness, showing no mitigating role of spirituality when controlling for other factors, with complex and varied negative relationships of religious service attendance and self-rate religiosity to different aspects of loneliness. Yet, any potentially protective effect of religion varies, with minority religious groups reporting feelings of increased loneliness. These findings underscore religion and spirituality's nuanced roles in emotional well-being, indicating that their benefits (or not) against loneliness are complex, varied, and depend on the aspect of religion or loneliness observed, along with non-religious factors. The paper contributes to the literature on societal loneliness, changing religious and spiritual engagements, and highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach to explore the role of religion and spirituality in understanding loneliness specifically, and personal and social well-being more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of one's identity in late modernity is sometimes viewed as a project of the autonomous self in which one's identity may shift or change over the course of one's existence and development. For the Christian, however, one's identity is both a divine gift, and a task of ecclesial formation, and for both the gift and the task, Christian baptism is fundamental. Baptism represents the death of the self and its rebirth in Christ, a decisive breach with the life that has gone before. Baptism establishes a new identity, a new affiliation, a new mode of living, and a new life orientation, direction, and purpose. This paper explores the role of baptism in the formation of Christian identity, finding that Christian identity is both extrinsic to the self and yet also an identity into which we are called and into which we may continually grow. The essay proceeds in three sections. It begins with a survey of recent philosophical reflection on the concept of identity, continues by reflecting on the nature of Christian baptism in dialogue with this reflection, and concludes by considering in practical terms how baptism functions in the process of conversion–initiation toward the formation of mature Christian identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to test the importance of belonging to religious communities to the frequency of using religious strategies for coping with stress, taking into account the moderating role of identity status and gender. This study used Polish adaptations of two questionnaires: The Religious Coping Questionnaire and the Dimensions of Identity Development Scale. Participants in this study were adolescent and young adult Polish Catholic girls and boys, belonging and not belonging to religious communities. The survey was carried out using the pencil–paper method on a sample of 407 young people with varying degrees of involvement in religious practice. A multivariate analysis of variance showed that the frequency of using positive religious coping strategies differs significantly between groups of people belonging to and not belonging to a religious community. As a result of the study, the interaction of the variable belonging to a religious community and the variable identity status in deciding on the frequency of using positive religious strategies for coping with stress was recognized (F = 2.448; p = 0.033). However, the interaction of these variables with gender did not reach the level of statistical significance (F = 0.655; p = 0.658). Multiple regression analysis indicates that the identity dimension Identification with Commitment explains 14.7% of the frequency of using the Cooperation with God strategy. Belonging to religious communities is significant for the frequency of use of selected religious coping strategies and the intensity of all dimensions of identity development. The results of the statistical analysis showed that identity status is a moderator of the relationship between belonging to religious communities and the intensity of positive religious coping strategies. It was found that the frequency of use of religious coping strategies and the intensity of identity dimensions differed between Polish Catholic girls and boys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emotional, physical, and spiritual health of athletes continues to be a concern at all levels of sport. With respect to emotions and health, previous studies have sought to understand the role of normalization of emotion on elite female rowers' decisions to train regardless of their health. This research demonstrated how athletes may be persuaded to accept that emotions are negative, irrational, and weak, and this may play a significant role in subsequent unhealthy behaviours. In turn, these findings have generated further explorations into a more comprehensive emotion education for all athletes, which have focused on athletes' emotional awareness and spiritual growth. The present paper provides theoretical, educational, and practical insight into the areas of emotion and spiritual development. In doing so, it presents a conceptual model for sport chaplains, coaches, and/or sport advocates for educating and mentoring the emotional and spiritual formation of athletes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of one’s identity in late modernity is sometimes viewed as a project of the autonomous self in which one’s identity may shift or change over the course of one’s existence and development. For the Christian, however, one’s identity is both a divine gift, and a task of ecclesial formation, and for both the gift and the task, Christian baptism is fundamental. Baptism represents the death of the self and its rebirth in Christ, a decisive breach with the life that has gone before. Baptism establishes a new identity, a new affiliation, a new mode of living, and a new life orientation, direction, and purpose. This paper explores the role of baptism in the formation of Christian identity, finding that Christian identity is both extrinsic to the self and yet also an identity into which we are called and into which we may continually grow. The essay proceeds in three sections. It begins with a survey of recent philosophical reflection on the concept of identity, continues by reflecting on the nature of Christian baptism in dialogue with this reflection, and concludes by considering in practical terms how baptism functions in the process of conversion–initiation toward the formation of mature Christian identity.

This study explores the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and loneliness in the United States, using the 2018 General Social Survey to assess their interactions against a backdrop of declining traditional religious affiliation and a rise in “spiritual but not religious” identification. It examines religion and spirituality’s capacity to counteract loneliness, a condition with significant health implications. The analysis uncovers complex relationships between aspects of religious life and loneliness, showing no mitigating role of spirituality when controlling for other factors, with complex and varied negative relationships of religious service attendance and self-rate religiosity to different aspects of loneliness. Yet, any potentially protective effect of religion varies, with minority religious groups reporting feelings of increased loneliness. These findings underscore religion and spirituality’s nuanced roles in emotional well-being, indicating that their benefits (or not) against loneliness are complex, varied, and depend on the aspect of religion or loneliness observed, along with non-religious factors. The paper contributes to the literature on societal loneliness, changing religious and spiritual engagements, and highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach to explore the role of religion and spirituality in understanding loneliness specifically, and personal and social well-being more generally.

The present study aims to test the importance of belonging to religious communities to the frequency of using religious strategies for coping with stress, taking into account the moderating role of identity status and gender. This study used Polish adaptations of two questionnaires: The Religious Coping Questionnaire and the Dimensions of Identity Development Scale. Participants in this study were adolescent and young adult Polish Catholic girls and boys, belonging and not belonging to religious communities. The survey was carried out using the pencil–paper method on a sample of 407 young people with varying degrees of involvement in religious practice. A multivariate analysis of variance showed that the frequency of using positive religious coping strategies differs significantly between groups of people belonging to and not belonging to a religious community. As a result of the study, the interaction of the variable belonging to a religious community and the variable identity status in deciding on the frequency of using positive religious strategies for coping with stress was recognized (F = 2.448; p = 0.033). However, the interaction of these variables with gender did not reach the level of statistical significance (F = 0.655; p = 0.658). Multiple regression analysis indicates that the identity dimension Identification with Commitment explains 14.7% of the frequency of using the Cooperation with God strategy. Belonging to religious communities is significant for the frequency of use of selected religious coping strategies and the intensity of all dimensions of identity development. The results of the statistical analysis showed that identity status is a moderator of the relationship between belonging to religious communities and the intensity of positive religious coping strategies. It was found that the frequency of use of religious coping strategies and the intensity of identity dimensions differed between Polish Catholic girls and boys.

The emotional, physical, and spiritual health of athletes continues to be a concern at all levels of sport. With respect to emotions and health, previous studies have sought to understand the role of normalization of emotion on elite female rowers’ decisions to train regardless of their health. This research demonstrated how athletes may be persuaded to accept that emotions are negative, irrational, and weak, and this may play a significant role in subsequent unhealthy behaviours. In turn, these findings have generated further explorations into a more comprehensive emotion education for all athletes, which have focused on athletes’ emotional awareness and spiritual growth. The present paper provides theoretical, educational, and practical insight into the areas of emotion and spiritual development. In doing so, it presents a conceptual model for sport chaplains, coaches, and/or sport advocates for educating and mentoring the emotional and spiritual formation of athletes.