Abstract
This research note advances the religious coping literature by testing whether belief in an evil world conditions the stress-moderating role of scripture reading. Hypotheses are tested with original data from a survey of Black, Hispanic, and White American churchgoers from South Texas (2017–2018; n = 1,115). Our findings show that reading scripture for insights into the future attenuates the positive association between major life events and psychological distress, but only for congregants who do not believe the world is fundamentally evil and sinful. For congregants who believe the world is evil, scripture reading amplifies the association between life events and distress. Whether scriptural coping is beneficial for mental health could be contingent on a believer’s broader assumptions about the nature of the world we live in.
Keywords: scriptural coping, religious coping, religious and spiritual struggles, major life events, stress process, mental health
INTRODUCTION
Two recent studies have found that scripture reading practices moderate associations between major life stressors and mental health outcomes. Krause and Pargament (2018) analyzed scriptural coping practices among a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States and found that reading the Bible more often (a) attenuated the inverse association between major life events and the sense of hope, and (b) predicted increased benevolent religious reappraisals (e.g., “seeing one’s situation as part of God’s plan”). Religious reappraisals, in turn, accounted for the stress-buffering role of Bible reading.
A second study by DeAngelis, Bartkowski, and Xu (2019) analyzed data from the 2012 General Social Survey and found that respondents with low socioeconomic status and poor health were more likely than their advantaged peers to turn to scripture for insights into wealth and health, respectively. Contrary to Krause and Pargament (2018), however, this second study also found that reading scripture for health insights amplified the positive association between poor self-rated health and depressive symptoms. The authors concluded that “more work is clearly needed to uncover and explain the varied contexts in which scriptural coping either buffers or exacerbates stressors” (DeAngelis et al. 2019:186).
This research note advances our understanding of scriptural coping. Using original survey data collected from congregants in South Texas, we provide further evidence that scriptural coping moderates associations between major life events and mental health. We also test whether belief in an evil world conditions the stress-moderating role of scripture reading. People who adhere to this worldview perceive the world to be fundamentally evil and sinful rather than benign. We contend that whether scriptural coping is beneficial or harmful to mental health will depend on whether readers also adhere to belief in an evil world. By testing this hypothesis, our study can help to advance a fledgling literature on scriptural coping by reconciling contradictory findings.
METHODS
Data
Data come from an original survey of churchgoers in South Texas. We conducted paper and online surveys in Christian churches from evangelical, mainline, Catholic, and Black American traditions. Between 2017 and 2018, we surveyed thirteen churches ranging in size from approximately 50 to more than 1,500 congregants. Surveys were distributed to churchgoers during weekend services. Church members were asked to fill out the survey and then return it within three weeks. Reminders were sent out in churches on a weekly basis. Each participating church received a $1,000 check in appreciation for participation in the survey. Individual members’ participation was anonymous and voluntary and there was no monetary reward given to individual respondents.
A total of 3,539 paper surveys were distributed, along with online surveys distributed via church email correspondences. A total of 1,201 completed surveys were returned (73% paper; 27% online), resulting in a response rate of 34%, though the rate could be lower depending on the exact number of email solicitations received and opened. Our analytic sample is restricted to respondents with valid data on our dependent variable (n = 1,115).
Measures
Psychological distress.
Our main mental health outcome is a measure of psychological distress adapted from the K10 and CES-D scales (Kessler et al. 2002; Radloff 1977). Respondents were asked how often they experienced the following symptoms in the past 30 days: (1) felt bothered by things that usually did not bother them, (2) lacked an appetite, (3) could not “shake off the blues,” (4) felt everything they did was an effort, (5) felt hopeless about the future, (6) was unable to keep their mind on what they were doing, (7) felt so sad that nothing could cheer them up, (8) felt like they could not “get going,” (9) felt shortness of breath or trouble breathing, (10) felt numbness or tingling in parts of their body, (11) felt sweaty but not due to heat or exercise, and (12) felt that life was ultimately meaningless. Response choices ranged from “never” (=1) to “almost always” (=5). We created a scaled score by taking the average of all 12 responses (alpha = .91).
Recent life events.
Respondents were asked whether they personally experienced any of the following situations within the past year: (1) a serious accident or injury, (2) a serious illness, (3) an unexpected death of a loved one, (4) trouble with the law, (5) a robbery or break-in, (6) a marital separation or divorce, (7) an unwanted loss of a job, (8) a major financial crisis, (9) trouble with drug/alcohol addiction, and (10) physical assault or mugging. We added together yes (=1) and no (=0) responses to create a checklist inventory.
Scriptural coping.
Respondents were asked how often they read the Bible “to learn about what the future holds.” Response choices ranged from “never” (=1) to “almost every day” (=5). This item is identical to the item used in the 2012 General Social Survey module on scripture reading practices. We dummy-coded the item such that 1 = “reads the Bible for insights into the future” and 0 = “does not.” Main findings were substantively identical regardless of whether we treated this measure as ordinal or dichotomous.
Belief in an evil world.
Respondents were asked, “What is your general view of the world we live in?” They were then presented with a 7-point scale where 1 = “the world is filled with evil and sin,” 4 = “somewhere in between,” and 7 = “there is much goodness in the world.” We dummy-coded this variable such that respondents who answered 3 or higher were compared to respondents who answered 1 or 2—namely, those who entirely or almost entirely believed “the world is filled with evil and sin.”
Control variables.
We controlled for age (in years), gender (1 = female, 0 = male), race-ethnicity (Hispanic, White, Black, other), marital status (1 = married, 0 = not married), employment status (full time, part time, unemployed, retired, homemaker, other), education (1 = less than high school, 5 = postgraduate), and household income (1 = less than $10k, 8 = more than $250k).
We also controlled for Biblical views, religious attendance, prayer, and religious salience. To measure Biblical views, respondents were asked, “Which one statement comes closest to your personal beliefs about the Bible?” Responses included, “The Bible is the actual word of God and should be taken literally,” “The Bible is the inspired word of God but should not be taken literally,” and “The Bible is an ancient book of fables, legends, history, and moral teachings written by human beings.” We measured religious attendance by asking respondents, “Aside from weddings, funerals, and religious holidays, about how often do you attend religious services at your place of worship?” Responses ranged from “a few times a year or less” (=1) to “several times a week” (=5). Prayer was measured by asking, “Outside of religious services, about how often do you spend time alone praying?” Responses ranged from “never” (=1) to “several times a day” (=6). We measured religious salience by asking, “How important is your religious faith in your everyday life?” Responses ranged from “not at all important” (=1) to “my religious faith is the most important thing in my life” (=5).
Analytic Strategies
Analyses were conducted in Stata 15. We estimated psychological distress using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression techniques with robust (Huber-White) standard errors to correct for heteroscedasticity. We also included dummy variables for congregation and survey administration type (paper vs. online), to account for unmeasured similarities among members of the same churches or among those who completed the survey online instead of paper (not shown).
Analyses are presented as three separate models. Model 1 estimates direct associations between psychological distress and recent life events, scriptural coping, and belief in an evil world while adjusting for control variables. Model 2 introduces a two-way interaction term between recent life events and scriptural coping to test whether reading scripture for insights into the future moderates the association between recent life events and psychological distress. To test whether belief in an evil world further conditions scriptural coping practices, Model 3 adds a three-way interaction term between recent life events, scriptural coping, and belief in an evil world (in addition to all lower-order, two-way interactions).
To facilitate our presentation of the three-way interaction, we graph linear predictions of psychological distress by recent life events, scriptural coping, and belief in an evil world (Figure 1). This figure is split into two panels with psychological distress on the y-axis and life events on the x-axis. The two lines represent average slopes for congregants who do versus do not read scripture for insights into the future. The panel on the left shows the interaction between life events and scripture reading for congregants who do believe in an evil world. The panel on the right shows this same interaction for respondents who do not believe in an evil world.
Figure 1.
Psychological distress by recent life events, scripture reading, and belief in an evil world.
Missing Data
The following variables had missing observations: psychological distress (n = 86), recent life events (n = 70), scriptural coping (n = 60), belief in an evil world (n = 55), Biblical views (n = 60), religious attendance (n = 31), prayer (n = 32), religious salience (n = 37), age (n = 47), gender (n = 34), race-ethnicity (n = 43), marital status (n = 37), employment status (n = 46), education (n = 36), and household income (n = 106). With the exception of psychological distress, we replaced all missing observations with 25 iterations of multiple imputation by chained equations (Johnson and Young 2011). Missing data on psychological distress are handled with listwise deletion. Findings were substantively identical before and after imputation.
RESULTS
Table 1 presents descriptive statistics. The average respondent reports approximately one recent life event, 46% read scripture for insights into the future, and 14% believe the world is evil. The average respondent is also 63 years of age, is college educated, and reports an annual household income of $50–100,000. Moreover, 65% of respondents are female, 63% are White, 67% are married, and the majority is either full-time employed (35%) or retired (45%).
Table 1.
Descriptive Statistics of Study Variables: Congregation Health and Wellness Study (n = 1,115).
| Mean | S.D. | Min. | Max. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| ||||
| Focal Variables | ||||
| Psychological distress | 1.54 | .54 | 1 | 4.5 |
| Recent life events | .73 | 1.18 | 0 | 10 |
| Scriptural coping | .46 | 0 | 1 | |
| Believes in an evil world | .14 | 0 | 1 | |
| Control Variables | ||||
| Age | 62.95 | 14.36 | 22 | 95 |
| Female (vs. male) | .65 | 0 | 1 | |
| Race-ethnicity | ||||
| Hispanic (reference) | .28 | 0 | 1 | |
| White | .63 | 0 | 1 | |
| Black | .05 | 0 | 1 | |
| Other | .04 | 0 | 1 | |
| Married (vs. not married) | .67 | 0 | 1 | |
| Employment status | ||||
| Full time | .35 | 0 | 1 | |
| Part time | .08 | 0 | 1 | |
| Unemployed | .02 | 0 | 1 | |
| Retired | .45 | 0 | 1 | |
| Homemaker | .07 | 0 | 1 | |
| Other | .03 | 0 | 1 | |
| Education | 3.95 | .97 | 1 | 5 |
| Household income | 5.20 | 1.65 | 1 | 8 |
| Biblical views | ||||
| Literal word of God | .35 | 0 | 1 | |
| Inspired word of God | .57 | 0 | 1 | |
| Book of fables | .08 | 0 | 1 | |
| Religious attendance | 3.99 | .83 | 1 | 5 |
| Prayer | 4.90 | 1.22 | 1 | 6 |
| Religious salience | 4.32 | .67 | 1 | 5 |
Table 2 reports regression estimates of psychological distress. Recent life events are positively associated with past-month symptoms of psychological distress. Holding all other variables in Model 1 constant, each additional life event is associated with an increase in psychological distress of .127 units (p < .001). The two-way interaction term in Model 2 indicates that reading scripture for insights into the future attenuates the positive association between recent life events and distress (b = −.072; p < .05). Finally, the three-way interaction term introduced in Model 3 is positive and statistically significant (b = .192; p < .05). This coefficient indicates that reading scripture for insights into the future attenuates the association between recent life events and distress more so for respondents who do not believe in an evil world.
Table 2.
Regression Estimates of Psychological Distress: Congregation Health and Wellness Study (n = 1,115).
| Model 1 | Model 2 | Model 3 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| |||||||||
| Focal Variables | |||||||||
| Recent life events | .126 | (.018) | *** | .166 | (.028) | *** | .170 | (.031) | *** |
| Scripture reading a | .086 | (.032) | ** | .082 | (.033) | * | .104 | (.034) | ** |
| Believes in an evil world | .060 | (.058) | .062 | (.059) | .145 | (.082) | |||
| Interaction Terms | |||||||||
| Life events × scripture reading | −.072 | (.035) | * | −.103 | (.037) | ** | |||
| Life events × evil world | −.020 | (.057) | |||||||
| Scripture reading × evil world | −.202 | (.101) | * | ||||||
| Life events × scripture reading × evil world | .193 | (.086) | * | ||||||
| Control Variables | |||||||||
| Age | −.002 | (.001) | −.002 | (.001) | −.001 | (.001) | |||
| Female | −.009 | (.035) | −.004 | (.035) | .000 | (.034) | |||
| Race-ethnicity (ref. = Hispanic) | |||||||||
| White | −.098 | (.048) | * | −.102 | (.048) | * | −.113 | (.048) | * |
| Black | −.248 | (.118) | * | −.244 | (.116) | * | −.250 | (.118) | * |
| Other | −.005 | (.099) | −.001 | (.099) | .007 | (.097) | |||
| Married | −.081 | (.040) | * | −.080 | (.040) | * | −.077 | (.039) | |
| Employment status (ref. = Full time) | |||||||||
| Part time | −.064 | (.054) | −.061 | (.055) | −.083 | (.055) | |||
| Unemployed | .151 | (.135) | .168 | (.131) | .187 | (.130) | |||
| Retired | .000 | (.043) | .000 | (.043) | −.007 | (.043) | |||
| Homemaker | −.037 | (.061) | −.045 | (.059) | −.036 | (.058) | |||
| Other | .452 | (.165) | ** | .445 | (.166) | ** | .440 | (.165) | ** |
| Education | .016 | (.020) | .022 | (.020) | .024 | (.020) | |||
| Household income | −.048 | (.015) | ** | −.050 | (.015) | ** | −.051 | (.014) | *** |
| Biblical views (ref. = Literalist) | |||||||||
| Inspired word of God | .008 | (.038) | .009 | (.038) | .003 | (.038) | |||
| Book of fables | .153 | (.072) | * | .155 | (.071) | * | .149 | (.071) | * |
| Religious attendance | −.014 | (.022) | −.016 | (.021) | −.021 | (.021) | |||
| Prayer | −.011 | (.016) | −.009 | (.016) | −.007 | (.016) | |||
| Religious salience | −.030 | (.033) | −.030 | (.033) | −.034 | (.033) | |||
|
| |||||||||
| Constant | 2.233 | (.215) | *** | 2.295 | (.214) | *** | 2.314 | (.213) | *** |
| Adjusted R2 | .181 | .186 | .197 | ||||||
Notes: Unstandardized linear regression coefficients are reported with robust standard errors in parentheses. Estimates also account for congregation and survey type (not shown).
1 = reads scripture for insights into the future, 0 = does not read scripture for insights into the future.
p < .05
p < .01
p < .001 (two-tailed).
Figure 1 clarifies these interactions. The left panel shows that reading scripture for insights into the future actually amplifies the positive association between life events and distress for congregants who do believe in an evil world. The right panel shows that reading scripture attenuates this association for congregants who do not believe in an evil world.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Two recent studies have found contradictory evidence regarding the stress-moderating role of scripture reading. One study found that scripture reading buffered associations between stressors and mental health (Krause and Pargament 2018), while a second study found that scripture reading amplified these associations (DeAngelis et al. 2019). The present study demonstrates that belief in an evil world conditions the stress-moderating role of scripture reading. In our analysis of original survey data from congregations in South Texas, we found that scriptural coping buffered stressors only if congregants did not believe the world was fundamentally evil. Scriptural coping amplified stressors, however, for congregants who believed the world was evil.
The findings reported in this brief report are consistent with DeAngelis et al.’s (2019) hermeneutic perspective of scriptural coping, which contends that the cognitive schemas readers bring to scripture will condition the mental health effects of scripture reading practices. Our findings also contribute to a recent body of research that underscores the potential “dark side” of religious coping (Pargament 2002; McConnell et al. 2006; Ellison and Lee 2010; Ellison et al. 2012; Exline et al. 2014), especially for religious believers with negative views of the world and humanity (Pargament et al. 2001; Musick 2000; Exline and Rose 2005; Bjorck and Thurman 2007; Uecker et al. 2016). In our analyses, religious persons with pessimistic beliefs about the nature of the world exhibited increased distress associated with scriptural coping. For those with more positive beliefs, however, scripture reading attenuated symptoms of distress.
Our study is characterized by limitations that future research could overcome. Our data are from a cross-sectional, non-probability sample of Christian churches in South Texas. Our sample is also skewed toward older female participants who attend services at their churches regularly. Thus, our sample is not representative of the average churchgoer but more indicative of the views of older and more active religious practitioners.
Future research is needed to examine scriptural coping practices among other Christian and non-Christian religious communities with different geographic, racial-ethnic, and socioeconomic characteristics. Future studies should also explore the kinds of scriptural passages that religionists rely on as a part of their coping practices. Persons with divergent views of human nature may focus on different types of passages, and even different books of the Bible, when searching for comfort, clarity, and inspiration.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Data for this study was supported by grants from the H. E. Butt Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation (#61107). Reed DeAngelis received support from the Population Research Infrastructure Program (P2C-HD050924) and the Biosocial Training Program (T32-HD091058) awarded to the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
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