Longitudinal Analyses of Religious and Spiritual Development among Seminary Students

Researchers (including IR/IE)FacultyFormation Directors/Student Life Staff
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DESCRIPTION: We conducted a longitudinal study of spiritual development among a sample of graduate-level seminary students (N = 119) at a religiously affiliated university in the Midwest. Seven longitudinal hypotheses were tested based on a relational model of spirituality (Shults & Sandage, 2006). Over time, we expected that the seminary context would facilitate increases in students' questing, intrinsic religiosity, spiritual well-being, spiritual openness, and spiritual activity. Furthermore, increases in intrinsic religiosity were hypothesised to lead to improvements in spiritual well-being, spiritual openness, realistic acceptance, and spiritual activity. Finally, we proposed that increases in spiritual questing would lead to greater spiritual openness and activity but decreased spiritual well-being. The results provide general support for these hypotheses and an empirical picture that differentiates intrinsic religiosity from questing.

KEYWORDS: development; longitudinal; religion; seminary; spirituality; well-being

CITATION: Williamson, Ian Todd, and Steven J. Sandage. 2009. "Longitudinal Analyses of Religious and Spiritual Development among Seminary Students." Mental Health, Religion & Culture 12 (8): 787–801. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674670902956604.

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