Christian Views of Self and God: Context Matters

Abstract

Twenty-four Christian college students and 24 state university students were interviewed using Gilligan's moral choice paradigm (Brown et al., 1988). Justice narratives predominated among the Christian college students; among the state university students, care and justice narratives were equally prominent. Eight state university students articulated belief in the Christian God. These state university Christians described themselves less often in justice terms than the Christian college students and more often in terms of both justice and care than the remaining state university students. Further, the state university Christians described God in terms of justice more often than did the Christian college students. The implications of these differences for faith development are explored.

Moderators of the Relationship between Religiosity and Alcohol Use in College Students

“…While this initial study has indicated the importance of distinguishing between private and public religiosity in the study of underage alcohol use, these findings may serve as a basis for future work in considering how other factors also associated with the college transition (e.g., social groups, educational pursuits, religious beliefs) might together impact drinking behaviors. Furthermore, it may prove valuable to assess the impact of fundamentalism and students' views of God or other deities (e.g., as forgiving or condemning) on illicit substance use (Cook & Hillman, 2006;Cook, Larson, & Boivin, 2003). A similar possible direction for future research would be to capture peer closeness as measured through communication and bonding as well as the degree to which respondents consider their peers to be good role models to determine whether participants' affinities with their peers impact the influence of peer alcohol use on drinking tendencies as a function of religiosity.…”