Longitudinal Investigation of Developmental Change in Religiosity in Germany with the Faith Development Interview and Psychological Scales: Matching Funds for our Project in the U.S. Funded by the John Templeton Foundation

詹姆斯·福勒斯的信仰发展理论影响了美国和德国的实践神学，尤其是宗教教育和田园关怀，以实现一生中宗教信仰的变化和发展的视角。福勒斯理论还启发了数十个研究项目，这些项目大多是以信仰发展访谈(FDI)为工具的研究。然而，在信仰发展研究的相对悠久和可敬的传统中，没有纵向设计的主要研究。因此，严格地说，信仰的发展变化从未得到经验的证明。相反，所有的经验结果都依赖于对特定信仰阶段的特定年龄偏好的记录，然后在结构发展传统中提出的毫无疑问的概念假设的框架下进行解释。比勒费尔德当代宗教传记研究中心拥有500多名FDI(主要来自DFG资助的关于皈依和灵性语义学的研究项目)，约90名FDI与伊斯兰受访者，以及500多名表示愿意接受采访但迄今尚未联系的人，比勒费尔德当代宗教传记研究中心拥有庞大的数据库和坚实的起点，可以在以多元化、宗教多样化为特征的各种宗教信仰和世界观的基础上，纵向研究成人时期的信仰发展。与美国的一个由约翰·邓普顿基金会(John Templeton Foundation)资助的项目平行，德国这个为期30个月的新项目的第一阶段实施了纵向设计。它从计划于2015年进行的第一轮外国直接投资重新面试开始，并利用所有可获得的数据，构建了一个约500人的德国外国直接投资样本，这些人将在2020年接受重新面试。对外国直接投资的研究主要是解释性的，但结果至少可以部分量化并输入SPSS数据库。在我们的定性FDI评估中，这是创新的，我们不仅关注结构性的发展性宗教活动，而且还关注叙事的连贯性、依恋、精神化和智慧。根据调查问卷的详细人口统计数据和若干量表，如个性(NEO五因素问卷)、依恋、心理健康和成长(Ryff)、生成性(LGS)、不容忍歧义、宗教中心性、宗教原教旨主义、对上帝的信仰和宗教图式(RSS)，可以评估和分析随着时间的发展变化的心理预测因素和相关因素。因此，该项目结合了定量和定性的方法，还可以利用比勒费尔德已经积累的经验。因此，这一项目的目的是回应这样一种愿望，即提供关于宗教发展及其条件的明确的经验证据。

James Fowlers theory of faith development has influenced practical theology in the U.S.A. and in Germany, and here especially religious education and pastoral care, to implement a perspective of change and development of religiosity over the lifespan. Fowlers theory also has inspired dozens of research projects, which mostly were studies using the faith development interview (FDI) as instrument. However, in the relatively long and respectable tradition of research in faith development, there is no major study with a longitudinal design. Thus, strictly speaking, developmental change in faith has never been evidenced empirically. Instead, all empirical results rest on the documentation of age specific preferences for specific faith stages, which then are interpreted in a framework of unquestioned conceptual assumptions which are suggested in the structural-developmental tradition. With more than 500 FDIs (mainly from the DFG-funded research projects on deconversion and the semantics of spirituality), with ca.90 FDIs with Islamic respondents, and with more than 500 persons who indicated readiness for an interview, but have not been contacted so far, the Bielefeld Research Center for Biographical Studies in Contemporary Religion has the unique privilege of a considerable data base and a solid starting point for a longitudinal study in faith development across the adult years in the wide range of religious persuasions and world views which characterizes pluralistic, religiously diverse societies. Parallel to a Project in the U.S. that is funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, this first phase of 30 months of the new project in Germany implements a longitudinal design. It starts with a first round of FDI reinterviewing, planned for 2015, and constructs, with all data available, a FDI German sample of ca. 500 persons who will be reinterviewed in 2020. Research with the FDI proceeds primarily interpretatively, but results can at least partially quantified and imported in SPSS data bases. In our qualitative FDI evaluation, and this is innovative, we focus not only on structural developmental religious operations, but also on narrative coherence, attachment, mentalization, and wisdom. On the basis of a questionnaire with detailed demographics and a number of scales, such as personality (NEO Five Factor Inventory), attachment, psychological wellbeing and growth (Ryff), generativity (LGS), intolerance of ambiguity, centrality of religion, religious fundamentalism, belief in God and religious schemata (RSS), psychological predictors and correlates for developmental change over time can be assessed and analyzed. The project thus combines quantitative and qualitative approaches, and can also capitalize on the experience already accumulated in Bielefeld. Thus, it is the aim of this project to respond to the desideratum of providing clear empirical evidence about religious development and its conditions.