I read an interesting journal article recently. Researchers considered what differences in forgiveness exist among 475 people affiliated with faiths descending from Abraham (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) and those of no religious affiliation. It looked at behavior (one’s actual behavior) and future projections (how one thinks s/he will respond to future transgressions) in forgiveness, as well as the person’s attitudes (beliefs) about forgiveness. Some of the results were surprising to me. Maybe they will be to you as well.
What was not so surprising is that there were only minor differences among the participants from the three faith affiliations. For the most part, their positions on forgiveness were similar. The secular participants showed less evidence of forgiveness in attitude and in their projections about the future than the religious group.
What I found very surprising is that although the religious person’s thoughts and beliefs about forgiveness were different from the secular person, this fact did not translate into an actual change in behavior. Christians may believe differently about forgiveness, but they did not actually behave differently form any other group, including those of no faith! Wow! Isn’t forgiveness an action Christ mandated (not a mere belief)? I wonder what else this fact might apply to. For example — Might we believe in the importance of unconditional love but not actually behave differently than those who do not? Certainly, we could attribute this discrepancy to many things… the person’s commitment for example… but to me this research says so much about the effectiveness of our approach to teaching Christian values. It makes me wonder if and how churches (or temples and mosques) consider the effectiveness in their teaching styles. And, why is it that psychology researches this stuff, but I don’t see the same scholarly research broadly used by religion? I mean, how do you know that what you are teaching actually has the impact intended? And, if you know congregants are not truly being impacted, in their actual living, then why continue using those methods? I’m not saying, ’stop talking about forgiveness’ or ‘don’t teach anything until you know the best way’… but what I am asserting is that clearly our methods need to be reconsidered, over and over again. We do know that what worked in education, in entertainment, and in religious outreach 50 years ago doesn’t work today, but what about the way we pass on our values to others? If Christians truly want to ‘return to our Christian heritage’, to ‘impact the world’ and to ‘reach the nations’, shouldn’t we figure out and continually re-evaluate the most effective ways to to do it?
Sorry, I don’t have rights to reproduce the article. The title is Impact of religious affiliation and religiosity on forgiveness by Adam Fox and Trang Thomas, published in the Australian Psychologist, September 2008.