The experience of, and beliefs about, divine grace in mainline protestant Christianity: A consensual qualitative approach

Abstract

The empirical study of grace, a relational virtue, is in its beginning stages. The purpose of this study was to provide rich, context-based, qualitative data to describe Mainline Protestants’ (a) experiences of, and (b) beliefs about, divine grace. Interviews were conducted with 28 community adults who were affiliated with Mainline Protestant Churches. Results indicated that Mainline Protestant Christians have varying beliefs about divine grace and how it is related to both the present moment and the afterlife. Divine grace was often defined as, or associated with, other relational virtues (e.g., forgiveness and love), and participants occasionally defined grace as a gift. In addition, divine grace was also reported to be difficult to accept at times for a variety of reasons, but the effects of divine grace have direct associations with participants’ overall well-being. Divine grace was also associated with beliefs about heaven or the afterlife, yet participants had varying beliefs about how grace is applied to non-Christians. Limitations and future directions for research are discussed in light of the present empirical literature on divine grace.

The interplay of divine grace with forgiveness and humility in mainline Protestant Christianity: A consensual qualitative approach.

“…Interestingly, there was also an aspect of guilt or pressure placed on the individual to either (a) seek forgiveness for committing a hurt or offense or (b) respond with forgiveness to an individual who hurt or offended them for a rare number of participants. Although divine grace was defined as a gift by several mainline protestants in this sample (Hodge et al, 2023), the recognition that some participants have these contingencies or rules they follow to experience divine grace suggests that grace may not be perceived as a gift by all Mainline Protestant Christians.…”

“…In other words, it appears that grace is difficult to describe outside of other benevolent relational terms (e.g., love, forgiveness). Additionally, Hodge et al (2023) suggested that it may be beneficial to define divine grace as “the totality in which God acts in a benevolent manner towards a receiver, which promotes a sense of connection between the receiver and God,” as only a small number of participants in this study identified grace from God as being a gift or as being unmerited/unearned. However, it may be the case that removing qualifiers such as gift and unmerited may dilute grace to the point where it is impossible to distinguish grace from other related virtues (e.g., charity, kindness).…”

“…This sample was previously examined by Hodge et al (2023), but the research question examined in the present study is unique. Specifically, Hodge et al's study focused on participants' general ideas about grace, whereas the present study focused on participants' ideas about the relationships between grace with forgiveness and humility.…”

“…Other details about study procedures and the data analysis process were identical to what was reported by Hodge et al (2023). Please see the online Supplemental Material for a thorough description of (a) study procedures, (b) the process of consensual qualitative research (CQR; as applied to this study, (c) the research coding team, and (d) the identified biases the research team had prior to coding the interviews.…”

“…The assumption that a divine being offers grace is an important element of many faith traditions (Tennent, 2007), and it is especially present in Abrahamic faith traditions (i.e., Christianity, Judaism, Islam; Emmons et al, 2017). Due to the centrality of grace in Abrahamic faith traditions, recent attempts have been made to describe experiences of, and beliefs about, grace within several groups of Christianity (e.g., Mainline Protestant Christians, LGBTQ+ Christians, Christian Friends [i.e., Quakers]; Hodge et al, 2023; Schollars et al, 2021; Webster et al, 2022). Although theological and psychological reflections on grace have distinguished grace as a virtue apart from other related virtues (e.g., altruism, forgiveness), Christians in these qualitative studies primarily defined grace as forgiveness (Schollars et al, 2021), love (Webster et al, 2022), or a combination of many different virtues, including forgiveness and love (Hodge et al, 2020).…”