International Society for the Psychology of Religion
The International Society for the Psychology of Religion is a society for the promotion of the psychology of religion . Its full name is "International Society for the Psychology of Religion - The International Association for the Psychology of Religion".
Members, goal setting and activities
The company sees itself as an interdisciplinary association. Members are academics from all disciplines, not just theologians and psychologists .
Society should expressly promote the psychology of religion in its entirety, without setting thematic or methodological restrictions. To this end, international congresses on the psychology of religion are organized and a magazine is published. A prize awarded by the Society is intended for work in the psychology of religion, especially by young scientists.
Archive for Psychology of Religion
The International Society for the Psychology of Religion publishes the journal Archives for the Psychology of Religion - Archiv für Religionspsychologie , the world's oldest journal for the psychology of religion. The periodical is designed in three languages. Since 2003 a volume has been published annually by the Dutch publisher Brill in English, French and German.
Godin Prize
The Godin Prize was awarded since 1967 by the Belgian religious psychologist André Godin (1905–1997) as the "Quinquennial Prize for the Scientific Psychology of Religion". He has had his name since Godin's death in 1997 and is awarded by the International Society for the Psychology of Religion for outstanding monographs on religious psychology or five magazine articles by an author. The Godin Prize is endowed with 1000 euros.
Board
The company is managed by a seven-member board who is elected every three years. Members (as of 2010) are: Jozef Corveleyn, James W. Jones, Herman Westerink, Marinus HF van Uden, Vassilis Saroglou, Mario Aletti, Hans A. Alma.
history
The organization was founded in Nuremberg in 1914 on the initiative of the Protestant pastor Wilhelm Stählin as a society for religious psychology ; international scientists, including from the United States, were involved. Also in 1916 the first volume of the planned magazine archive for psychology of religion appeared. The First World War prevented further activities almost completely. It was not until 1921, when the society had almost disintegrated, that a second and a third volume of the archive appeared.
In 1927 Stählin handed over the management of the organization - now known as the International Society for the Psychology of Religion - to Werner Gruehn, who was also Protestant . Under Gruehn's leadership, the company's objectives were restricted to its content-related interests and its methodological approach. Nevertheless, three more volumes of the magazine appeared between 1929 and 1936, these times titled with the addition "und Seelenführung". During the Second World War , the company's activities weakened again. Even after the end of the war, Gruehn was unable to organize conferences or publish any further volumes in the archive, despite several attempts.
Shortly before his death in 1961, Gruehn entrusted the Catholic Wilhelm Keilbach with the reorganization of the company. Volume 7 of the archive appeared in the following year, followed by conferences and further volumes at intervals of about two to three years, but these were limited to contributions from a small group of scientists and had the character of conference reports. A fundamental renewal of society did not take place. The criticisms of an overly strong fixation on the German language, an undemocratic statute and a cementing of the management structures as a result led to a split in the 1970s. A group of young scientists formed, the "European Psychologists of Religion", who did not see themselves as an opposition to the Society for Religious Psychology, but increasingly could not do anything with the older members who had been sidelined from research.
A conference in Soesterberg in 2001 ushered in what is now the third renewal of the company. A new statute with renewed electoral modalities ensures that the board does not always consist of the same people. The Archive for Religious Psychology is now published as a regularly edited scientific journal that takes into account contributions from outside society. The range of topics of the company is now not subject to any restrictions.
literature
- Jacob A. Belzen: Like a Phoenix from Its Ashes? On the Fate and Future of the International Association for the Psychology of Religion In: Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 52, No. 6, 2004, pp. 441-457