A word from the editor: researching religion, spirituality and aging

The Journal of Religion, Spirituality, and Aging has been published since 1984 the creation of Publisher, Bill Cohen, Founder of Haworth Press and Rev. Bill Clements, Ph.D., then a Chaplain at Emory University. Research into topics of religion and aging has been conducted as a variable since the late 1890s. However, it did not have much impact on the field of Gerontology until after World War II. Originally dominated by research in the field of Sociology, after 1945, Psychology and other professions started to contribute to this area of inquiry. It is understood in the United States that the 15–20 years post World War II saw a surge in interest in religion, including attendance at Church, Synagogue, Temple, and Mosque, often abbreviated as just “Church attendance.”

Inquiry in Religion, Spirituality and Aging has passed through four stages:

1890 – 1945Pre inquiry, dominated by Sociology

1946 – 1976Combined practice, theological and Research

1977 – 1990Combined research with new use of “Spiritual

Well-Being” as a variable.

1991 – PresentProgressive movement to emphasis just on Research

with slow transition from strict use of Religiosity to

Spirituality as a central focus of research.

Pre-inquiry Stage 1890–1945, while one can argue that there are important references back to and including many holy scriptures, the scientific and practice inquiry into religion as a part of the lives of older adults began in the late 1890s to 1910. The work of E.D. Starbuck in 1911 and studies by G. Stanley Hall in 1922 are just examples of some of these early works. Starbuck was a Psychologist of Religion where Hall was a Sociologist. These early studies were largely built on the concept of Religiosity. While Religiosity Scales varied in length and targeted variables, they all had variations of two common questions, “How often do you attend Church (implied Synagogue, Temple, or Mosque)? And how often do you pray? These questions continue to be employed by most studies today, however more recently they have been used as a part of much larger study queries.

Combined practice, theological and research Stage 1946–1977, was a period of growing impact. Authors like Robert Havighurst and Barbara Pittard Payne Stensel¹ were critical in this time frame. Barbara Payne notes that prior to 1976, there were 3 methodologies for using religious behavior, 1) organizational participation; 2) religiosity, including privatized religious behavior; and 3) religious activities, practices, and personal adjustment (Payne, 1982). During this time theologians from various denominations and ministry staff were involved in developing programs and rational for paying attention to older adult ministries.

In 1971a third White House Conference on Aging in the United States was held. This conference struggled with the new rules in the Nixon Administration regarding the separation of Church and State. When developing the White House Conference, unlike the previous 2 White House Conferences, they could not include religion, so Clark Tibbets, Ph.D. who had published in Psychological Well-Being posed the question, could there be such a thing as Spiritual Well-Being? The term was field tested by Rev. Grover Hartman at a conference in Indiana who thought it was a good term, so it was used instead of Religion at the White House conference. As a political work-a-round for the conference, it was quite successful. However, it was not defined until what became the National Interfaith Coalition on Aging (NICA) in preparation for the 1977 Inter-decade Conference on Aging and Spiritual Well-Being.

Combined research with new use of “Spiritual Well-Being” as a variable stage 1977–1990 was a time where all the above activities flourished. In the 1980s and 1990 in the U.S. several Institutes on Aging were developed as the result of the Federally Funded Gerontology in Higher Education Conference (GIST). This included programs at Luther Theological Seminary and Baylor University. These programs became think tanks for both denominations and the academic study of Religion, Spirituality and Aging. In this time frame, two major efforts, one by David O. Moberg attempted to develop a working definition of Spiritual Well-Being, but between the NICA definition and these two efforts, this term continues to elude scientific definition to adequately support evidence-based research. Instead, much of the research in this time frame would use the term Spiritual Well-Being, but examination of this term suggested that their work more appropriately reflected the combination of Religiosity and Spirituality. Psychological Well-Being historically was referred to as a “Happiness” variable, thus referring to emotional happiness. Since that is the root of Spiritual Well-Being, then it should refer to the Spiritual “Happiness” of the individual. The challenge here is that most theologians would prefer spiritual depth. Spiritual Happiness is effective in some religious traditions, but not all.

In this time frame, the Journal of Religion, Spirituality and Aging published a combination of program, theological reflection, and quantitative/qualitative research articles. The journal was new in this time frame and welcomed a variety of authors; however, they came mostly from the United States. It should be noted that in this time frame, the journal changed its name 2 times, from the Journal of Religion and Aging to the Journal of Religious Gerontology.

Progressive movement to emphasis just on Research with slow transition from strict use of Religiosity to Spirituality as a central focus of research, 1991 – Present Stage, has moved away from the concept of Spiritual Well-Being and joined the other disciplines to discussing Religion, and Spirituality. By the mid-1990s the term Spiritual Well-Being hardly appeared in the journal. While it still pops up in a small number of articles, including one group from the Middle East who now has a new Spiritual Well-Being Scale, it is generally not used to reflect the original intention of the 1971 White House Conference on Aging.²

The Journal of Religion Spirituality and Aging in 1999 when Ellor took it over changed its name one last time to the present Religion Spirituality and Aging. The focus and the audience at this point continues to be Chaplains, Social Workers, and other medical workers along with a variety of Academic authors. As such, the journal continues to seek articles that appeal to all three of these groups. With the push in the publication world for Lab of Science and other publication rating scales which are based more on evidence-based research, like all other journals this has meant that many of the practice concepts that formally made up the journal have fallen away. This journal will continue to strive to publish articles that are evidence-based, but also reflecting practice applications as it is able to do so.

As of Vol 36, #4 of the Journal of Religion, Spirituality and Aging will have a new Editor. Jocelyn Shealy McGee, Ph.D. Diana Garland School of Social Work, Baylor University, will be the new Editor of the Journal of Religion, Spirituality and Aging. The Founding Editor was Rev. Bill Clements, Ph.D., the Second Editor was Rev. Stephen Sapp, Ph.D. and I have been the 3^rd Editor. I took over the second half of Volume 9 of the journal and will be stepping down after Vol. 36, #3. After 27 volumes spanning 25 years, it is time for a new editor for this journal. I look forward to supporting Dr McGee and know that the journal will continue to be a great success.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Barbara Pittard Payne, Stensel was a faculty member at Georgia State University. She was married 3 times, so you will find a spiritual assessment scale under the name of the Pittard Scale, much of her work was with the name Payne, but near the end of her life some of her work uses all 3 names. She was an amazing person, but all three of these names are the same person.

2. In the late 1990’s, Jim Ellor and Mel Kimble had a grant from the Retirement Research Foundation in part to study the history of the Religion and Aging movement. Together we went around the country to interview all the key figures in the field with the help if Jim Seeber, obtaining both their insights and their historical documentation for all of the discussion above. See, Ellor, J. W. & Melvin A. Kimble (2004). The heritage of religion and spirituality in the field of gerontology: Don Clingan, Tom Cook, and the National Interfaith Coalition on Aging. Journal of Religious Gerontology, 16(1/2).

 

David O. Moberg, Ph.D. has often been referred to as the Father of the field of Religion, Spirituality and Aging.  Born in 1922, Dave died in September 2023 at the age of 101.  He was Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Marquette University.  While there he arranged for the archives of the National Interfaith Coalition on Aging to be housed at the MarquetteUniversity Library which continue to offer a rich historical resources for the field.

When I first met David, he was on the faculty of Bethel College in St. Paul Minnesota when he wrote one of the first books on Religion and Aging with Robert Gray. He subsequently moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to join the faculty at Marquette University in 1991.  Dr Moberg was active in both Sociology and Gerontology groups.  He was the author of the papers prepared for the 1971 White House Conference on Aging on Spiritual Well-Being.  He authored a wide variety of books and articles over the more than 40 years of his career.

I am thankful for his important contributions to the field as well as the Journal of Religion, Spirituality and Aging.  He will be missed.

Jim Ellor