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I hope that this book does what any survey of the psychology of religion and spirituality needs to do, and gives an overview of what psychology can tell us about them. I believe it does that in a reliable and up-to-date way, and does it concisely and fairly comprehensively. I have tried to write in a way that assumes no background in psychology and will be accessible to theologians, philosophers, sociologists, church leaders, and the general public.
I have not tried to give a reference to scientific research for every factual claim made here; that would have turned it into a different kind of book. However, I hope that every factual claim made here is one that could be substantiated in that way; there are always references to good secondary sources that go into particular research studies in more detail than is possible here. Where I have speculated, I have tried to make clear that is what I am doing, and I have only offered speculations in which I have a reasonable amount of confidence.
“Religion” and “spirituality” are related and overlapping topics, and I welcome and endorse the recent trend to extend the psychology of religion to include the psychology of spirituality as well. So far, there is less psychological research on spirituality than on religion, but that is rapidly changing. Though I have tried to summarize what psychology can tell us about religion and spirituality, I have tried to do more than that. To be specific, I have tried to do three additional things.
First, I have tried to offer a critical appraisal of current psychology of religion, and to indicate what current lines of enquiry seem to me to be most promising to pursue in the coming period. I believe that several potentially important topics are not currently receiving the attention they deserve. I have tried, to some extent, to stand outside the current preoccupations of people working in the field, and to ask what would most interest people not working in the field.
Second, I have tried to attend to conceptual issues. These are hugely important in every academic discipline but are often ignored. They are certainly important in the psychology of religion. My intention here is to move to-and-fro between conceptual and empirical material, showing how there can be fruitful interplay between the two.
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