This thematic issue brings together current research focused on lived religion and/or lived theology. Several of the articles have been developed from papers presented at the national Research Conference in Theology and Religion held in Turku/Åbo in May 2024. The articles explore diverse possibilities of lived perspectives in current research, build on previous literature and critically challenge some of their assumptions. They highlight both the necessity of this perspective and the need for continued theoretical and methodological development.

In Ghana, the situation of persons with mental illness is precarious. This is due, in part, to the inadequate resources for mental health care. Individuals and families whose relatives suffer from mental illness rely largely on faith-based resources. The media has sought to highlight aspects of the stigmatisation and rejection of the mentally ill. These reportages show the dilapidated conditions under which vulnerable persons are kept in religious institutions. They also highlight serious issues that need attention, but how exactly do they construct mental illness, religion, and Ghanaian society and do they challenge or uphold stigmatising notions about religion and the mentally ill? We use a discursive and narrative approach to unpack the depictions of three reportages and one official documentary about mental illness and religion in Ghana. We argue that stigmatisation prevails in the chosen videos, but the videos also do provide knowledge and understanding, however with varied focus on and insights into religious aspects of mental health care.

AbstractThe purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the basic characteristics of the university students who have participated in the Young Adults and Religion in a Global Perspective (YARG) project, as mirrored in the survey data, and to discuss the findings in light of theoretical assumptions about young adults. The chapter provides an introduction to two prevalent research perspectives on youth: a developmental perspective, and a cohort perspective. Background statistics as well as the main findings on religion are then discussed in light of these perspectives. The respondents’ age, civil state and relational commitments are analyzed from a developmental perspective, which assumes similarity on behalf of young adults as a consequence of their age. Furthermore, findings on values and media use are presented in order to explore whether the survey data provides support for the participants forming a generation, the main tenet of a cohort perspective, in terms of sharing values and media habits. The concluding section discusses the extent to which higher education sets university students apart from the youth population in generally, as reflected in the YARG data. The chapter therefore provides a first glimpse into who the participants are, and what the categorization of them as young adults entails.

AbstractResearch focusing on gender and religion underlines the need to explore how religion is gendered and how religion genders. What is also often called for is an approach that allows for and can register complexity while not ignoring possible gender related differences. In this chapter, we begin with a short overview of the survey results that relate to gender and then turn to the worldview prototypes identified with the help of the Faith Q-Sort. Our primary focus is on the prototypes that are clearly gendered, that is to say, dominated by participants identifying as either male or female. We explore what characterizes these prototypes. Using interview material, we delve into questions of gender brought up by persons of these prototypes and illustrate the complex ways in which questions of gender and worldviews interact. The chapter underlines that gender differences and similarities captured in a survey only tell a small part of the story; that gender and religion are situated in contexts that shape the views on and understandings of both; and that gender and religion are complex notions allowing for creative engagements that can confirm, challenge or reimagine ideas concerning both.

This is a book review of Religion and Film: The Basics (Routledge, 2021).

AbstractThe chapter brings together the main insights from the Young Adults and Religion in a Global Perspective (YARG) study, as presented in the current volume. It starts by discussing the sample used in the study and in the chapters of the volume; after this, the findings about worldviews are explored, and the chapter concludes with some observations pertaining to methodology. Throughout the chapter, the focus is on the need to challenge the often taken for granted categories and perspectives that are projected onto the world in the Study of Religions, and it is suggested that there are important methodological implications involved in meeting this challenge.

AbstractHow can we comprehend contemporary forms of religion? What is an adequate methodological approach? Religion as an object of study has become increasingly evasive and there is an urgent need to address the limitations emerging from previous conceptual bias and limited empirical perspectives. This chapter presents the international research project Young Adults and Religion in a Global Perspective (YARG), its aims, questions, leading ideas and perspectives. In particular, we shed light on the mixed-method approach that was developed in order to meet the current challenges and demands. At the core of this is the Faith Q-Sort (FQS), a novel method for assessing religiosity developed by David Wulff (J Sci Study Relig 58:643–665, 2019). The chapter describes the strength of FQS for comparisons across cultures and its potential to expose new and emerging worldview subjectivities and defining elements in these. Finally, we shed light on how we applied the mixed method approach in studies of relevant themes.

AbstractIn many studies of young adults, prosocial attitudes and behaviors are on the agenda. The often reported decline in civic engagement among young adults is generally presented as a concern. Prosocial attitudes and behaviors have been linked to aspects of well-being; high scores on some prosocial attitude indicators are seen as a sign of positive adjustment. Prosocial attitudes and behaviors are also key in discussions of civic engagement, volunteering, and altruism – aspects, in a sense, of the well-being of a society, and they are also of interest in discussions of religion. Commonly, a link between prosociality and religion has been indicated.In this chapter, we bring together findings from the research project Young Adults and Religion in Global Perspective (YARG) for an overview of prosocial attitudes and behaviors among young adult university students. We focus particularly on civic engagement and volunteering. Based on survey data, we first briefly explore who expresses prosocial attitudes and behaviors and the values connected to prosocial behaviors. This perspective offers only tentative answers. For a more in-depth view, we continue by exploring the data from the Faith Q-Sort. Finally, we zoom in on two examples, Turkey and Sweden, and compare the views on civic engagement and volunteering among young adults in these two contexts.

AbstractHow can we make sense of religion and spirituality in a cross-cultural perspective? Is it at all possible to compare what we are used to calling ‘religion’ across different cultures? In this chapter we use findings from Faith Q-studies (FQS) in 12 different countries to investigate variance of religion and spirituality from an international perspective. Our results shed light on themes and variations and show the capacity of the FQS to systematically recognize recurring themes while also remaining sensitive to unique but significant nuances across samples. We further propose that the termfamily resemblancecatches well how to comprehend the complexity of variation and provides a conceptual contribution to the debate on universalism vs. particularism.

Review of George D. Chryssides and Stephen E. Gregg (eds): The Insider/Outsider Debate: New Perspectives in the Study of Religions. Equinox, 2019.

The chapter explores expressive and collaborative uses of social media among young adults in Turkey, focusing in particular on young adults who are active in various types of volunteering. The chapter highlights a rich religious media landscape that some young adults actively interact with by listening to religious lectures, posting questions online, and engaging in conversations on various religion-related topics. Social media also fills many practical functions in relation to volunteering and helping, such as aiding information seeking, organizing work, and engaging in online campaigns. The chapter thereby also highlights the ways in which social media have brought about notable changes in the character of volunteering and social engagement by allowing for online and click-based engagements.

The chapter begins with an overview on current research on young adults, religion, and social media. It then explicates the mixed-method approach employed in the YARG project and provides an overview of its quantitative findings regarding young adults' religiosity, media use, and engagements with social media. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the usefulness of the term "digital natives" to distinguish the young adults taking part in YARG.

The chapter focuses on the context of Ghana. Based on the Ghanaian YARG data, the chapter explores a set of notable ways in which the proliferation of social media has affected the religious engagements and practices of young adults in Ghana. The chapter highlights how active use of social media, as evident among young adults in Ghana, influences their religious lifestyles. It particularly reflects on the respondents' agency and the way they negotiate the material they find on the Internet and social media, focusing on both the "contents" and "discontents" they express with the medium.

This chapter outlines the three main topics that are varyingly employed in each case-specific contribution to this volume. It accounts for significant recent transformations in the present-day global media environment, focusing on the proliferation of social media. The chapter then moves to account for current theoretical perspectives on agency and identity construction, connectivity, and authority in the area of digital religion research, focusing in particular on how these perspectives can be used to shed light on the present-day role of social media in the religious/spiritual lives of young adults.