Religion, Demokratie und Toleranz: Mythen und empirische Fakten. Ein Resümee.

Adapting my religion: How young believers negotiate religious belonging

“…Thus, the main strength of this approach lies in breaking with one-dimensional accounts of religious belonging. In line with previous research on religious transmission (Ateş and Schnell, 2016; Bebiroglu et al, 2017; Klingenberg and Sjö, 2019), the most important drivers of religious adoption were family members, peers, and religious mentors. Religious adoption establishes a primary link to a specific religious tradition and marks the first step in crafting religious belonging.…”

“…Consequently, family was the most influential factor for the adoption of religion. This paramount role of intergenerational, intra-family transmission echoes the dominant scholarly position on religious socialisation and transfer (Ateş and Schnell, 2016; Bebiroglu et al, 2017; Mahoney, 2021). As a consequence, participants’ adoption of ‘their’ religion often manifested in attending religious services, participating in communal religious initiation rites (e.g., baptism and circumcision), religious festivities, and observing religious rules.…”

“…These existing paradigms typically prioritise the individual side of the negotiation of belonging instead of considering the process of adopting and adapting religion in-between individual practices and social situatedness, or, using Gidden’s terminology, structure, and agency. So far, research on religious belonging used to focus primarily on religious minorities, most prominently Muslims (see, e.g., Ateş and Schnell (2016) categorisation of forms of religiosity, which is exclusively based on the consideration of young Muslims). Extant research may also build on anecdotal rather than systematic findings.…”

“…Adaption follows the adoption phase during which the individual typically had acquired some religious knowledge and has come to an (initial) understanding of the position of (the own) religion in society. For most participants, the process of adaption began during adolescence (Ateş and Schnell, 2016; Mahoney, 2021). Our data indicates two different rationales, namely, the adaption of religious practice and doctrine, and the adaption of one’s religiosity to everyday social surroundings.…”