Parents' experiences of an adult child's religious deconversion : an interpretive description study
department or school: Health and Social Development, Faculty of (Okanagan)
department or school: Nursing, School of (Okanagan)
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCO
creator: Wiebe, Glendon Paul
issued: 2018-10-16T15:53:10Z
issued: 2018
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Increasing numbers of individuals are no longer identifying as religious. Religious change research has focused on this shift as well as explored how these individuals account for their religious change. Though links between religion and family are well-established in the literature, parents’ perspectives on an adult child’s religious change have largely been overlooked. In religious change research, parents are frequently portrayed as enacting theologically-rigid and relationally-punitive responses to a child’s departure from the family’s religious tradition. Using semi-structured interviews, this study explored parents’ experiences of a child’s “deconversion” from the family’s evangelical, Protestant religious tradition. Parents’ accounts illustrated diverse definitions, attributions, and responses related to an adult child’s religious change. In light of evangelical faith-keeping, parental culpability, and “shunning” discourses related to deconversion, parents’ accounts reflected determined and resourceful approaches to upholding both family and faith commitments. A child’s deconversion illuminated a number of double binds for parents. For many participants, nurturing a child’s critical thinking, for example, did not encourage a child to “make their faith their own” but, paradoxically, influenced a child’s deconversion. Parents negotiated several seemingly irreconcilable positions by privileging certain biblical texts over others, questioning the interpretive accuracy of evangelical discourses related to deconversion, or separating domains of family and faith. The decision to respond to a child’s deconversion in relationally-affirming ways often elicited a less-than-supportive response from a parent’s faith community. This research began to address the minimal attention on parents’ perspectives of an adult child’s religious deconversion. In the present study, parents’ accounts departed from the polarized and divisive ways that familial religious differences are o…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/67579
note: PARENTS’ EXPERIENCES OF AN ADULT CHILD’S RELIGIOUS DECONVERSION: AN INTERPRETIVE DESCRIPTION STUDY by Glendon Paul Wiebe A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The College of Graduate Studies (Interdisciplinary Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) October 2018 © Glendon Paul Wiebe, 2018 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis/dissertation entitled: Parents’ experiences of an adult child’s religious deconversion: An interpretive description study _____________________________________________________________________ submitted by Glendon Paul Wiebe in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Dr. Barbara Pesut, School of Nursing Supervisor Dr. David Kuhl, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia (Vancouver) Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Thomas Heilke, Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Carl Leggo, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia (Vancouver) University Examiner Dr. Sam Reimer, Department of Sociology, Crandall University External Examiner iii Abstract Increasing numbers of individuals are no longer identifying as religious. Religious change research has focused on this shift as well as explored how these individuals account for their religious change. Though links between religion and family are well-established in the literature, parents’ perspectives on an adult child’s religious change have largely been overlooked. In religious change research, parents are frequently portrayed as enacting theologically-rigid and relationally-punitive responses to a child’s departure from the family’s religious tradition. Using semi-structured interviews, this study explored parents’ experiences of a child’s “deconversion” from the family’s evangelical, Protestant religious tradition. Parents’ a…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2018-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0372820
language: eng
degree discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/67579