When Healing Fails: Cognitive dissonance and resilience factors in failed religious healing. A comparative study of three local Christianities

拟议的研究项目解决了基督教信徒如何应对缺乏宗教治疗和奇迹的问题。一方面，这个问题的出发点是观察到治疗正在经历一个显著的繁荣，不仅在深奥的市场，而且在基督教运动和教会的背景下，从五旬节灵恩自由教会到天主教。另一方面，迄今为止，关于治疗和宗教的各种研究的重点很少放在非治疗方面，尽管研究结果在探索一般宗教交流的力量和宗教社区的恢复力方面是非常有指导意义的。本研究项目以费斯廷格的认知失调理论为出发点。认知失调最初描述的是一种状态，在这种状态下，演员一方面感知到他们的欲望、希望和理想与另一方面经历的现实之间的不平衡。（宗教）期望的缺失会产生认知失调，从而导致行为和交流中的某些反应，使情况变得合理。宗教行为者无法从更高权力的影响下摆脱身体或精神痛苦的经历构成了宗教行为者的现实，迄今为止在研究中很少受到关注。虽然认知失调描述了所提出的研究的起点（一个困境），但我们将问，这种感知问题是用哪种交际手段来解决的，这些手段是否会导致不和谐的永久消除。因此，一个核心问题是：宗教团体能否对经历过的突发事件永久免疫？因此，认知失调理论被扩展到包括社会学弹性研究中的最新发现，以便更具体地询问给定的交际资源。因此，计划中的研究不仅应该是这一愿望发展的先驱，而且最重要的是通过重建宗教表演和叙述来观察交流和行为的具体方式，以探索和讨论宗教研究方法的可能性。在研究策略和方法方面，该项目旨在比较三个当地的基督教教派。目的是发展一个整体类型的沟通因素的弹性。因此，该项目的中心目标之一是将比较研究作为宗教研究的核心能力放在关注的中心。

The proposed research project addresses the question of how Christian believers deal with the lack of religious healing and miracles. On the one hand, the starting point of the question is the observation that healing is experiencing a significant boom not only in the esoteric market, but also in the context of Christian movements and churches from Pentecostal-charismatic free churches to Catholicism. On the other hand, the focus of various research on healing and religion has so far been little on the aspect of non-healing, although the results were extremely instructive in exploring the power of religious communication in general and resilience of religious communities in particular.The research project uses the theory of cognitive dissonance according to Leon Festinger as a starting point. Cognitive dissonances initially describe, quite generally, a state in which actors perceive an imbalance between their desires, hopes and ideals on the one hand, and experienced reality on the other. The absence of (religious) expectation creates cognitive dissonance that causes certain reactions in behavior and communication to make the situation plausible. Experiences of religious actors not to be liberated from their physical or mental suffering by the influence of higher powers constitute a reality of religious actors, which hitherto received little attention in research. While cognitive dissonances describe a starting point for the proposed research (a dilemma), we will ask with which communicative means this perceived problem is countered and whether these means lead to a permanent dissolution of the dissonance. A central question is therefore: Can religious communities permanently immunize against experienced contingencies? The theory of cognitive dissonance is therefore expanded to include more recent findings in sociological resilience research in order to more specifically ask about the given communicative resources. The planned research should thus not only pioneer in the development of this desideratum, but above all by the reconstruction of religious performances and narrations to look at the concrete ways of communicating and behaving, in order to explore and discuss the possibilities of a religious studies approach to resilience. In terms of research strategy and methodology, the project aims to compare three local Christian denominations. The aim is to develop an overall typology on the communicative factors of resilience. One of the central aims of the project is therefore to put comparative research as a core competency of religious studies at the center of attention.