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LIBRARY
Michigan State
University

 

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

MARITAL SEPARATION: A RELIGIOUS
LIFE CRISIS EVENT

presented by
Ann Marie Scheerbaum

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

_M:A-_. degree in w

grin/0% W

Major professor

RDbert A. Caldwell

Baum

0-7639 MS U is an Ammau'vc Action/Equal Opportunity Inninm'ou

 

 

MSU

LIBRARIES
“

 

 

RETURNING MATERIALS:
Place in book drop to
remove this checkout from
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MARITAL SEPARATION: A RELIGIOUS
LIFE CRISIS EVENT

BY

Ann Marie Scheerbaum

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Psychology

1987

ABSTRACT

MARITAL SEPARATION: A RELIGIOUS
LIFE CRISIS EVENT

BY

Ann.Marie Scheerbaum

This research investigated the impact of marital separation on
individuals who were active members of a religious congregation.
Adhering to traditional religious beliefs, viewing marriage as a
sacrament, divorce as a sin, and denominations as disapproving of
divorce were positively correlated with religious stress. Continued
participation in church activities (called ”religious adjustment”) was
positively correlated with religious support and approval of the
separation by clergy and congregation. Religious opposition from clergy
and congregation decreased religious adjustment. Traditional religious
beliefs, closeness to clergy and congregation, and number and frequency
of contact with friends were positively correlated with religious
support. Marriage Officiants gave less support and more opposition.
Individuals who were likely to show skepticism towards traditional
religious answers or who were initiators with.chi1dren experienced
greater opposition. Further research on mini-networks within gldbal
networks plus continued exploration of the impact of social opposition

on life crisis events is indicated.

To my mother and father
Ann and Al Rosavage
with love

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This manuscript would be incomplete without an acknowledgement of
the support I received from my professional and personal social
networks. First of all, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Robert A.
Caldwell, for his unwavering faith in my analytical ability, for his
insistence that I continually perfect my writing skills, and for his
emotional support throughout every phase of this project.

It was sometimes difficult to devote enough time to this research
and continue to fulfill my other professional responsibilities. I am
very grateful to my committee member and supervisor, Dr. Nbrman Abeles,
for his understanding of this dilemma and for his support as I struggled
to set priorities and satisfy my obligations.

I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Elaine Donelson for
her excellent suggestion that I perform item analyses on the subscales
developed for this research and for her comments and input regarding the
religious aspects of the project. In addition, Dr. Donelson was a
constant support especially during times of frustration and
discouragement.

I also owe a special thank you to Suzy Pavick, not only for
excellent typing and proof-reading, but also for being a friend to me
throughout this experience. Her "good luck hug" minutes before my oral
defense will always remain a warm memory.

I would like to express my appreciation to the clergy of the

greater Lansing and Jackson areas who graciously took the time to

iv

distribute my questionnaires, and to the separated individuals who were
willing to share their experiences with me. Without them, none of this
would have been possible.

I also wish to thank my parents for teaching me the importance of
education and for being supportive and understanding during this major
career change in my life.

Finally, to my husband, Lou, and my children, Stephanie and Dana, I
owe a very special thank you for all their love, encouragement, and
patience throughout this project. Because they never lost faith in my
ability to succeed, I was able to trove forward even during the rough
periods when it seemed to me that the manuscript would agar: be
finished.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES. O O C O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
INTmDmI‘Iw. O I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Marital Disruption as a Stressful Life Event . . .
Marital Separation as a Stressful Spiritual Event.
Social Networks as Sources of Support. . . . . . .
Social Networks as Sources of Stress . . . . . . .
Religious Congregations/Clergy as Support Systems.
Personal Religious Orientation . . . . . . . . . .
OtherMediatingVariables.............

mm. 0 O O O O C O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Subjects/ Procedures .
mures O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

RESLIIES O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Religious Stress and Religious Adjustment.
Religious Support and Religious Adjustment
Religious Support, Stress and Adjustment .
Religious Opposition and Religious Stress.
Personal Religious Orientation and Its Effects
Gender, Religious Stress, and Religious Support.
Initiator Status, Children, Religious Support and
Opposition..................
Religious Stress and Its Determinants. . . . . . .
Religious Support and Its Determinants . . . . . .
Religious Opposition and Its Determinants. . . . .
Additional Determinants of Religious Adjustnent. .

DI$USSIm0 . O O O O O O O C O O O O O O O I O O O O 0

Religious Stress and Religious Adjustment. . . . .
Determinants of Religious Support. . . . .
Determinants of Religious Opposition
Determinants of Religious Stress . .
Determinants of Religious Adjustment
Inplications............

vi

Page

viii

H

NwmthI-J

18
20

25

25
25
25
26

30

31
32
32
35
35

40

40
42
47
49
52
53

APPENDIX A.

APPENDIX B.

APPENDIX C.

REFERENCES.

56
62
74

76

Table

10

11
12'
13
14

15

LIST OF TABLES

Religin erpS. O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0
Personal Religious Orientation. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analysis
OfmanS’Erld'aIIdQueStooooooococo-oooo

Average Religious Social Support and Opposition . . . .

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analyses of
Religious Support and Religious Adjustment. . . . . . .

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analyses of
Religious Support, Religious Opposition, and Religious
stress 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analysis of
Personal Religious Orientation and Religious
Stress (IT-=71) o o o o o o o o o o o o o I o o o o o o 0

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analysis of
Religious Support and Personal Religious Orientation. .

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analysis of
Religious Opposition and Personal Religious Orientation

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analysis of
Personal Religious Orientation and warmth.and
Friendliness of Clergy and Congregation after Marital
Separation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Pearson Product Moment and Point Biserial Correlational
Analysis of Religious Stress and Its Determinants . . .

Oneeway'Analysis of variance of Religious Affiliation
and Religious Stress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Pearson Product Mbment and Point Biserial Cbrrelational
Analysis of Religious Support and Its Determinants. . .

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analysis of
Religious Opposition and Its Determinants . . . . . . .

Pearson Product Moment and Point Biserial Correlational
Analysis of Religious Adjustment and Its Determinants .

viii

Page
20

23

23
24

26

27

28

29

30

31

34

35

36

38

39

INI‘RODLKTI‘ ION

Marital Disruption as a Stressful Life Event

 

Recent researCh studies indicate that marital disruption (divorce
and/or separation) is a highly stressful life process or event which
increases the prObability of psychological and physical disability
(Bloom, Asher, & White, 1978). Stress is an abstract construct that
requires explanation. As Rabkin and Struening (1976) stated, "Stress,
like anxiety, is a broad and general concept describing the organism's
reaction to environmental demands" (p. 1014). Hans Selye (1956), a
pioneer in stress research, called it a "general adaptation syndrome" in
which stress can be ”good" stress (Eustress) or "bad" stress (Distress).
"Stress,” however, usually refers to Selye's concept of "distress" and
can be defined as a condition in which there is a marked discrepancy
between the demands made on an organism and the organism's capability to
respond. When this occurs, stress can have serious implications for the
future of the organism (Caplan, 1981). The reactions to stress are
generally considered to be either physiological, such as rapid heart
rate, trembling, etc., or psychological, such as nervousness, fear,
anxiety, depression (Rabkin & Struening, 1976).

One way that stress can be measured is by examining personal life
changes, such as bereavement, loss of a job or marriage, in fact
anything which “alters the individual's social setting" (Rabkin &
Struening, 1976). Holmes and Rahe (1969) further refined this
definition by labeling social stressors as "any set of circumstances the

1

advent of which signifies or requires change in the individual's life
pattern" (Holmes & Rahe as cited in Rabkin & Struening, 1976, p. 1014).

In a life event scale developed by Holmes and Rahe (1967), divorce
is listed as the second most stressful life event, preceded only by
death of a spouse. The effects of marital disruption cited by Bloom,
Asher, and White (1978) include: Increased admissions to psychiatric
facilities, higher prdbability of motor vehicle accidents, illness,
alcoholism, and death by homicide, suicide, or malignant neoplasms. In
addition, vebrugge (1979) found that separated and divorced persons have
the worst health status of all marital categories.

Evidence also suggests that the period of marital separation, prior
to the divorce decree itself, is the most stressful time period
(Albrecht, 1980; Chiriboga, Roberts, & Stein, 1978; Crosby, Gage, &
Raymond, 1983;‘Weiss, 1975). During this period individuals go through
several of the difficult stages that Bohannon (1970) has labeled the
“stations of divorce." These are: Iegal--the civil divorce;
emotional--severing emotional ties with the marital partner;
economic-dividing the wealth; co-parental--child custody;
communityb-public acknowledgment that the marriage is over; and
psychic-one's own acknowledgment that the marriage is ended. Another
"station" that Bohannon omits, however, is spiritual/religious-
acceptance or acknowledgnent from the individual '3 religious comnunity
(religious congregation and clergy) that the marriage is ended. In
addition, the spiritual/religious station also includes the separating
individual's own willingness to accept the dissolution of the
relationship when he/she views marriage as a religious ceremony, rite,
or sacrament. Religious congregation, for the purpose of this paper, is

defined as those individual's who belong to the same religious parish as

the separating individual. Clergy is defined as any minister or priest

who is assigned to the individual's parish.

Marital Separation as a Stressful Spiritual Event

 

In ViEW’Of the fact that, as of 1983, there were 131,000,000 church
members in the United States (Pargement, Silverman, JOhnson, Echemendia,
& Snyder, 1983), it is highly likely that marital separation creates a
spiritual/religious crisis for many of the approximately two million
people (Spanier & Thompson, 1983) who are liable to experience marital
disruption each year. Also, although church laws are becoming more
lenient about divorce (weiss, 1975); nevertheless, many Christians view
marriage as a religious sacrament and, therefore, permanent. As Bernard
(1981) states:
There is something very awesome about 'What.God has
put together let no man put asunder.‘ Churches have
traditionally taken the stand that condoning divorce
could be directly translated as being anti-family.
As a result 'sin' has often been added to the other
inherent burdens of divorce (p. 69).

According to Gerald TWomey, a Catholic priest and author of When

Catholics Marry Again, '. . . the marriage of Christians is both a human

 

reality and a sacred mystery, raised by Christ and His Church to the
dignity of a sacrament" (p. 28). The issues of the permanence of
marriage is not merely a Catholic one, however, for most Christians view
divorce as a sin and contrary to the teachings of Christ, or at the very
least less than God's ideal (Bustanoby, 1978; Carlozzi, 1984). The
Jewish religion also views marriage as a religious rite and has a
divorce ceremony in which the wife must participate if she is to have
any "legitimate” children in any subsequent marriages (weinglass,
Kressel, & Deutsch, 1978). In point of fact, however, for clergy, "the

best divorce is no divorce," and although most clergy accept that

divorce is often inevitable and even desirable, their first
responsibility is to try and save the marriage (Kressel, Iopez-Morillas,
Weinglass, & Deutsch, 1979; Weinglass et al., 1978).

Given all of the above information, the fact that marital
separation is a stressful life event and a potentially stressful
spiritual event seems to be well established. One can go a step further
and state that all individuals who are active members of a religious
congregation will experience at least some religious stress (worry over
the religious/spiritual meaning of marriage; feel they are committing a
sin, be concerned with their church's view of divorce, etc.). The

severity of this religious stress, however, may be mediated or affected

by other variables.

Social Networks as Sources of Support

 

One factor that is believed to act as a mediator or buffer between
life stress and adjustment is social support (Cassel, 1974; Lefcourt,
Martin, & Ebers, 1981). Cobb (1976) in his review of the literature on
social support concluded that it has beneficial effects for sudh life
events as pregnancy, hospitalization, employment termination, and
bereavement. According to Gottlieb (1981), "Social support. . .is
purported to be a key situational moderator of or buffer to the effects
of psychosocial stressors on health" (p. 228). In this model,
therefore, there should be "a significant interaction effect between
stress and social support.when psychological adjustment is the dependent
variable” (Caldwell & Bloom, 1982, p. 649).

A second model of social support hypothesizes that social support
has a direct effect on adjustment, which means that the more social
support, the better the psychological adjustment. Support for this main

effect model comes from studies by Andrews, Tennant, Hewson, and

valliant (1978) as well as from research by Lin, Simeone, Ensel, and Kuo
(1979).

Social support can take several forms. For example, Fiore, Beehan,
and Cbppel (1983) distinguish.between emotional, cognitive, and tangible
support. Emotional support consists of comforting expressions, both
verbal and physical, to the individual; allowing the individual to
express his/her feelings or concerns, and responding in a non-judgmental
way to the situation and/or prdblem. Emotional support, therefore,
implies an open, caring atmosphere in which the individual can freely
express concerns without fear of judgement or condemnation.

cognitive support consists of providing concrete information to
help the individual understand the prdblem.

Tangible support consists of providing needed services such as

 

financial aid, babysitting, or a place to live; that is, concrete be-
havioral services beyond role expectations.
In regard to marital disruption, however, Wilcox (1981) points out

that,

while speculation regarding the role of social

support in the process of coping. . .has been

extensive, empirical research directly relevant to

the question.has been limited, with the bulk of the

literature descriptive in nature (p. 101).
He goes on to state that, rather than drawing from empirical evidence,
professionals rely on verbal reports from separated individuals
indicating beneficial experiences with social support from friends,
family, and others in their network (Weiss, 1975). These verbal
reports, however, are consistent with research by Caldwell and Bloom
(1982) who examined the impact of social support on the stress of
marital disruption. They found that the most ”dominant" dimension of

social support during marital separation is the source or the group of

people involved. These groups are typically parents, relatives,
siblings, and professional community support networks. Storm, Sheenan,
and Sprenkle (1983) , in a study of separated women's communication
patterns, reported that most.women (92%) appear to turn to other women
for help with their decision to separate and over 80% of them continue
to contact family and friends for support after the separation has

occurred.

Social Networks as Sources of Stress

 

However, despite convincing evidence that social support acts as a
buffer between life stress and adjustment, or that it has a direct

effect on adjustment, there is also evidence that social networks can

exacerbate stress and hinder successful adjustment. Dohrenwend and
Dohrenwend (1981) suggest that "socially undesirable events may lead to
rejection and stigmatization rather than support" (p. 19) and caution
researchers to assess norms and expectations of network members when
examining these networks as support systems. Barrera (1981) maintains
that ”major sources of support could also constitute major sources of
strain" (p. 76) and indeed there is researCh that supports this theory.
For example, Fiore et al. (1983) studied spouse caregivers of patients
with Alzheimer's disease and found that ”the extent of upset with the
social network, either as a result of unmet expectations of support or
of negative input from important others, was the best predictor of
depression” (p. 433). Revenson, Wbllman, and Felton (1983) in a study
of adult cancer patients, report that respondents often found "support"
from their network members increased their negative mood, decreased
their autonomy and selfdworth, and often constituted an additional
source of stress. walker, MacBride, and vachon (1977) in a study of

bereavement, found that widows' networks were often not supportive of

their need to develop personal identities as single women, and suggest
that the "nature of the crisis" may dictate how supportive or stressful
one's social network actually is.

Network members' attitudes and values about the life crises events
of divorce and separation, therefore, may be crucial in determining not
only the amount of support, if any, they can give, but also whether they
themselves may be an additional source of stress. For example, Goode
(1956) found that the disapproval of an individual's divorce by family
and friends increases the stress of marital disruption. Research by
Green (1983) showed that external pressure to remain married from work-
mates and friends is negatively correlated with.subsequent divorce
adjustment. weiss (1975) interviewed divorcing women who indicated they
felt resentment towards parents because of their insistence on knowing
all the details of the marital breakup. Tolsdorf (1981), in a study of
the social networks of thirteen families in the process of divorce,
feund that network interaction can be "both supportive and destructive"
especially because family and friends usually end up taking sides in the
marital conflict.

It seems clear, therefore, that social networks can be either
supportive, nonrsupportive, or stressfu1 when individuals are in the
throes of life crises, and that one variable which seems to determine
how support systems react is the members' evaluation of the event itself
as either acceptable or not acceptable. It is likely, therefore, that
even though individuals may turn to their social networks for help
during stressful life events, they may not receive support if their
network disapproves of their behavior or action. It seems that the
relationship of social support, social network, specific life event

crises, and network members' attitude about that life crisis event needs

to be examined empirically so that.we can get a better understanding of
how social support can best be mobilized and utilized by individuals

undergoing life stress.‘

Religious Congregations/Clergy as Support Systems

One potential source of both support and stress during marital
separation is the individual's religious community (religious congre-
gations and clergy). As stated above, it seems inevitable that, of the
two million people who undergo marital disruption each year, a
significant portion of them will be affected by the sixth station of
divorce--spiritual/religious.

Although there is little concrete information in the researdh
literature about reactions of the religious congregation to the marital
separation of a member, clergy have stated that there is often a "subtle
social rejection“ from individuals with "traditional“ backgrounds
(weinglass et al., 1978). In a letter to his Episcopal congregation,
Carl Carlozzi (1984) condemns the prejudice of the parish family towards
the divorcing couple:

As a priest, I see people who love their God and who
for the whole host of reasons, are going through, or
have been through, the hell of a marital breakup.
And I see them coming into our body of believers and
finding that because of some fellOW'worshippers, the
pain of their hell is then intensified through
judgments based on hearsay, innuendo, and facts
which are simply not in evidence. This ought not to
be so in parish families (p. 10).
That a religious congregation may be a source of stress is further
evidenced by this comment from a man who recently attended a retreat for

separated and divorced Catholics:

9

Last year when I saW'this retreat house was offering

a weekend retreat for separated and divorced

Catholics, I said to my wife, 'What's wrong with

those folks? Anyone can make a marriage work if

they just try hard enough at it.‘ And now I stand

before you a newly separated and badly hurting man.

I'm so sorry that I judged you, and I'm afraid of

the judgment of others (TWomey, 1982, p. ix).
A minister who runs divorce support groups also revealed that
individuals often feel judgment and alienation from their religious
congregation, or even if they do not receive overt condemnation, they
may not receive aid or support in any way, either (Lacey, personal
crmnunication, September 20, 1984).

As stated earlier, most clergy initially feel obliged to try to
save the marriage and often View divorce as a "necessary evil."
weinglass et al. (1978), in an exploratory survey of the role of clergy
in marital disruption, point out that clergy may be hindered in their
ability to be supportive due to restrictions placed on them by the
official church dogma regarding divorce. One other prOblem that has not
been addressed in the literature is the fact that if clergy performed
the marriage ceremony they may find it difficult to reconcile their need
for the marriage to be successful with the reality of its failure.
Regardless of how it is manifested, therefore, it seems evident that
clergy and religious congregation can have a profound impact on the

religious experience of divorce.

Personal Religious Orientation

If clergy and religious congregation can have difficulty with the
religious aspects of marital disruption so can separating individuals.
Research suggests that individuals who have strong beliefs in the value
of marriage will have more difficult adjustments to marital disruption

(Goode, 1956; Spanier & Castro, 1979). Lewis and Spanier (1979)

10

speculate that one of the most significant variables that mediate
between marriage and voluntary separation is religious doctrine and
commitment.

Over the years, religious researchers have theorized about the
various ways of being religious. The most popular conception has been
Gordon.Allport's distinction between extrinsic (immature) and intrinsic
(mature) religious beliefs (1950). Batson and Ventis (1982) re-examined
Allport's earlier writings on mature and immature religion and concluded
that Allport was really describing mature religion as encompassing

two distinct and apparently independent orientations
to religion-the end (intrinsic) orientation, which
concerns degree of devout adherence to religious
beliefs and practices, and the quest orientation,

which concerns degree of openrefid’ , critICal
struggle with existential questions (p. 168-169).

 

 

Batson and ventis further found that Allport's concept of immature
religion was not

the polar opposite of either the end or quest
orientation, but a third distinct and independent
orientation--the means (extrinsic) orientation,
which concerns the degree one uses religion as a
means to other, self—serving ends (p. 169).

 

Finally, Batson and ventis View means, ends, and quest as "three
independent continuous dimensions, each uncorrelated with the other two"
(p. 165). Thus, individuals can be viewed as "religious" in a
three-dimensional framework since they will receive a score on all three
continuums. High scores on specific continuums, however, can lead to
different consequences. For example, Batson and Ventis postulate that
adherence to religious beliefs can be restricting for those who use
religion as a "means to an end" and can be both.a source of freedom and
a source of bondage for those who View religion as an "end in itself.”

They state:

11

For people who use their religion as an extrinsic
means to self-serving ends, religion is likely to be
perceived as an oppressive set of prescribed beliefs
and behaviors. For them, it is restricting, a drag.
But for people whose religion is an intrinsic end in
itself, it is likely to be perceived as an important
source of personal freedom. For them, it is a joy;
it provides freedom from existential doubt and fear
(e.g., fear of death), as well as from a variety of
self-destructive behaviors (e.g., excessive drinking
and lust). But the freedom obtained by the devout,
intrinsic believer is obtained at a price: it is
freedom with bondage, bondage to the belief system
itself (p. 205).

Finally, Batson and Ventis maintain that
the dual emphasis with the Quest orientation on
skepticism toward traditional answers and critical
reflection on 'religious questions' [is] not. .
.likely to produce either liberation from
existential fear and doubt or the dramatic
behavioral changes that the devout, intrinsic
believer enjoys (pp. 207-208).
Hewever, they believe that, although individuals with a quest
orientation toward religion will not see religion as necessarily
restricting or freeing, they may exhibit a "reduced readiness" to bind
themselves to their current religious beliefs.

TWO studies of these theories (Batson, 1980; Batson, Duncan, Levy,
Major, & Miller, 1980), although far from conclusive, have indicated
that the above hypotheses are reasonable, and suggest that further
research on means, end, and quest.would help in our attempt to
understand how different religious orientations affect the lives of
individuals. Individuals who are going through a 'religious taboo” suCh
as marital separation or divorce may experience different degrees of
religious stress depending on whether they score higher on means, end,
or quest.

For example, Batson and ventis maintain that higher scores on the

intrinsic end orientation may lead to "absolutistic and uncritical

12

reliance on traditional, orthodox doctrine and practices" (p. 169),
which could conceivably increase the religious stress of marital
separation; whereas, higher scores on the "quest” orientation may
indicate a reduction in absolutistic thinking and an increase in
flexibility regarding religious questions or issues and reduce the
religious stress of marital separation. Finally, a high score on
religion as a “means" could indicate that the individual will experience
more religious stress by opposition or loss of support from the

religious congregation or clergy.

Other Mediating Variables

 

In order to accurately assess the impact of personal religious
orientation and social support from church and/or clergy on religious
adjustment to marital separation, it is important to obtain some
additional information about the separating individual. Cther important
variables are:

1) Gender: In a review of four studies examining gender
differences in pre— and post-separating men and women, Bloom and
caldwell (1981) found that, prior to separation, women reported more
severe psychological symptoms than did men; however, during the early
post-separation period, men reported significantly more severe symptoms
than did women. {Also, results of a study by Astor-Dubin and Hammen
(1984) indicate that women show a greater inclination to seek help from
others in coping with.depression; whereas, men employ more cognitive
strategies such as intellectualized detachment, using self-statements
like ”I thought that if I start focusing on.other more positive things
I'd feel better" (p. 87).

l3

2) Initiator versus nonrinitiator: Several researchers have

 

reported that separation or divorce is less stressful for the person who
initiates it, even if there are not overwhelming differences in marital
dissatisfaction or pre—separation discomfort between initiators and non-
initiators. In addition, in most cases where being the initiators
appears to play a mediating role in postrseparation adjustment, its
effects are greater for women than for men (Pettit & Bloom, 1984). It
may be, therefore, that the impact of initiator status on the stress of
marital disruption is confounded by gender. In the case of the
religious divorcing individual, the situation may be further confounded
by the possibility that an initiator may receive more judgmental
attitudes from the religious congregation and clergy who view marital
dissolution as contrary to their religious beliefs.

3) Children: Adjustment to marital disruption has been found to
be more difficult for individuals with children (Hetherington, Cox, &
Cbx, 1976). This appears to be greater for women than for men. In
fact, research evidence suggests that more men than women are likely to
be helped with child care prdblems, and that, therefore, single fathers
have an easier time of it than single mothers (Bandwein, Brown, & Fox,
1974; Hetherington et al., 1976; Ferri, 1973). In terms of the
religious separating individual, the presence of children may adversely
affect the amount of religious social support for the initiator and
positively affect the amount of religious social support for the non-
initiator. It seems likely that the religious congregation and clergy
will be less judgmental of the person who has children and has been
fbrced, so to speak, into disrupting the family unit, and more

judgmental of the one who "breaks up” the family.

l4

4) Religious affiliation: In a study of life crisis among the

 

religiously committed, Ebaugh, Richman, and Chafetz (1984) found that
sectarian differences exert a consistent effect regardless of member
characteristics, on reactions to crises. Therefore, sects which
traditionally are viewed as opposed to divorce or have strict rather
than liberal views are liable to increase the religious stress of
marital separation.

Other demographic variables that.need to be included are length of
time in the congregation, amount of congregational involvement prior to
separation, number, importance, and frequency of contact with friends in
the congregation, and whether the clergy married the couple. In
addition, the individual's previous relationship*with the clergy, and
religious divorce attitude (i.e., their view of divorce as a

religious/spiritual event) prior to separation need to be assessed.

Hypotheses

 

In light.of the above literature review on social support, personal
religious orientation, the stress associated with marital separation,
and, in particular, the religious aspects of marital disruption and the
religious stress that can occur, the following hypotheses are
postulated:

1) There will be a negative correlation between religious stress
associated with marital separation and religious adjustment to
marital separation.

2) a. Religious social support from the religious congregation will
have a direct effect on religious adjustment to marital separation.
There will be a positive correlation between congregation social

support and religious adjustment.

4.

15

b. Religious social support from the clergy will have a direct

effect on religious adjustment to marital separation. There will be

a positive correlation between clergy social support and religious

adjustment.

c. Religious social support from the religious congregation will

mediate the effect of religious stress on religious adjustment.

Congregation social support, therefore, through its interaction with

religious stress will have an indirect effect on religious ad-

justment to marital separation.

d. Religious social support from clergy will mediate the effect of

religious stress on religious adjustment. Clergy social support,

therefore, through its interaction with religious stress will have

an indirect effect on religious adjustment to marital separation.

a. Religious opposition from the religious congregation will

increase religious stress. There will be a positive correlation

between religious opposition from the religious congregation and

religious stress.

b. Religious Opposition from clergy will increase religious stress.

There will be a positive correlation between religious opposition

from clergy and religious stress.

Personal religious orientation will affect the religious stress of

marital separation in the following manner:

a. Scores on religion ”as an end" will have a positive correlation
with religious stress.

b. Scores on religion as a "quest” will have a negative correlation
with religious stress.

c. Scores on religion as a "means to an end” will interact with

religious opposition and its effect on religious stress. The

5.

7.

8.

16

higher the score on "means" the greater stress associated.with

religious opposition.

Women will experience greater religious stress due to low religious

social support than men. There will be an interaction between low

social support, gender, and religious stress.

There will be an interaction between the presence of children and

initiator status. The presence of children will decrease social

support for the initiator.

Religious stress will be affected by the following other variables:

a.

b.

C.

The individual's perception of the church's stance on divorce.
The individual's perception of divorce as a sin.

The individual's previous relationship with clergy and religious
congregation.

The individual's personal religious divorce attitude.

Initiator or non-initiator status.

The presence of children.

The amount of involvement in church related activities.
Traditional or nontraditional religious affiliation.

The individual's perception of marriage as a religious rite or

sacrament.

Religious social support during marital separation will be affected

by the following variables:

a.

b.

C.

Divorce attitude on the part of clergy.

Divorce attitude on the part of the religious congregation.
Marriage performed by clergy of congregation.

Number of close friends in the congregation.

The frequency of contact with friends in the religious

congregation.

17

f. The amount of time the individual has been a member of the
religious congregation.

g. Gender of the separating individual.

h. Clergy's perception of divorce as a sin.

i. Religious congregation's perception of divorce as a sin.

Religious opposition will be affected by the following variables:

a. Divorce attitude on the part of clergy.

b. Divorce attitude on the part of the religious congregation.

c. Religious congregation's perception of divorce as a sin.

d. Clergy's perception of divorce as a sin.

METHOD

Subjects/Procedures

 

Seventyhone individuals, 53 females and 18 males, returned
completed questionnaires. These subjects were all members of a Christian
congregation at the time of marital separation and had been separated at
least six months. The mean time of separation was 33 months, with a
range of 6 months to 96 months. All but six of the respondents had
children with the mean 2.4 and the range 0 to 8.

Only Christian congregations were asked to participate because the
Batson and ventis orthodoxy subscale (Batson & Ventis, 1982) was
developed only for Christian denominations and would, therefore, not
apply to nonFChristian denominations.

Subjects were recruited through the ministers of churches in the
Greater Lansing and Jackson areas. Letters were sent to 38 ministers
(see Appendix A) asking them to contact those individuals in their
congregations who had been separated from their spouse while a member of
a Christian denomination. A brief explanation of the research was
included in the initial letter.

Approximately one week after mailing the letters, followeup phone
calls were made and a more detailed explanation of the purpose of the
research was given if the minister desired additional information. One
ooncern.expressed.by the majority of ministers was the preservation of
anonymity for their parishioners. It.was explained to them that the

packet contained a stamped self-addressed envelop which the subject

18

19

would use to mail in the results. In addition, there was no requirement
fer names or addresses. Finally, the minister, church office, or church
bulletin were the avenues of obtaining volunteers, therefore the
researcher would have no need or way to obtain names of individuals.
Upon receipt of this information, all but one minister agreed to assist
in obtaining subjects, although six churches discovered they had no one
that met the criteria and did not accept any packets. Two ministers
invited the researcher to present the project to divorce support groups
that met in their churches.

The researcher also offered to meet with the ministers, explain the
research more fully and/or show them the questionnaires. Eight
ministers stated an interest in a face to face interview and sub-
sequently met and talked with the researcher prior to accepting any
questionnaires.

TWo hundred and twenty nine questionnaires were distributed to the
29 churches and the two support groups. One hundred forty (61%) were
either pciked up from the church office by separated individuals in the
congregation or were mailed to them by clergy. Of these 140, 71
completed questionnaires were returned to the researcher giving a
response rate of 51% (see Appendix C for number of packets delivred to
each denomination). Included in the packet of questionnaires was a
letter to the potential subject briefly explaining the research (see
Appendix A).

Ail 71 subjects filled out the Marital Separation Questionnaire and
the Religious Life Inventory (minus one or two questions from a small
number of subjects). Sixty-one subjects filled out the Social Support

Questionnaire and 39 subjects filled out the Religious Opposition

20

Questionnaire. Implications of the response rate, especially to the
Religious Opposition Scale, will be explained in the Discussion.
Seventeen Christian denominations were represented in the sample
(see Appendix C). These denominations were combined into three groups:
Mainline Protestant (e.g., Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran); Liberal

Protestant (e.g., United Church of Christ, Congregational); and

 

Traditional (e.g., Catholic, Mormon). "Traditional” referred to a

 

strict view of the unacceptability of divorce (see Table 1).

Table 1

Religious Groups

 

 

Mainline Protestants Liberal Protestants Traditional
n 43 15 12
Percentage 61 22 17

 

Measures

Marital Separation.guestionnaire (developed by the investigator).
This questionnaire consisted of 48 questions including yes—no response
items, Likert Scale items, and request for demographic data. Specific
questions focused on pre-separation and current involvement in church-
related activities, relationship with clergy and congregation, as well
as personal attitudes towards suCh issues as divorce, sin, and the
sacrament of marriage (see Appendix B).

Two subscales were developed from this questionnaire: Th3.

Religious Stress Subscale and the Religious Adjustment Subscale.

21

The Religious Stress Subscale consisted of items 25 through 29 on

 

the Marital Separation Questionnaire (see Appendix B). Scores were
averaged: Potential range was 0 to 3, actual range was 0 to 2.4, the
mean was .83, and the coefficient alpha.was .82.

The Religious Adjustment Subscale consisted of items 30, 32 through

 

36, 39 through 42, and 44 of the Marital Separation Scale. Scores were
averaged: Potential range was 0 to 5, actual range was 2.3 to 5.0, the
mean was 4.0, and the coefficient alpha was .62.

Religious Life Inventory (RLI) (Batson & ventis, 1982) (see

 

Appendix B). This scale measures whether individuals view their
religion as a means to an end, an end in itself, or a quest. This scale
does not type individuals into one of the three categories; rather, it
shows the degree to which each individual may be categorized on all
three dimensions. All three factors, therefore, are independent of each
other.

The scale was developed by combining Allport and Ross's (1967)
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Scale with four new scales labeled "External,"
”Internal," 'Interactional," and "Orthodoxy." Factor analysis produced
three independent factors which Batson and ventis labeled "Religion as a
Means, Religion as an End, and Religion as a Quest." Once the
relationship between the scales and the underlying factors was
determined, Batson and ventis computed an individual's score on each of
the three factors relative to other individuals. Thus, they have
developed an empirical measure of the degree to which an individual
orients towards religion in each of the three ways, as a means, end, and
quest (1982, pp. 157-158). Batson and ventis carried out their factor

analysis using a principal component analysis with orthogonal rotation,

22

thus they are confident that all three factors are independent of one
another.

coefficient alphas for the six subscales were as follows:
Interactional = .50, External = .54, Extrinsic = .78, Intrinsic = .78,
Internal = .84, Orthodoxy = .93.

Means, End, and Qgest.were computed by obtaining a Standard Score

 

(SS) for all six subscales and then using the following formulas:
Means = (.9 x SS Extrinsic) + (-.2 x SS Intrinsic) + (.3 x SS
External)

End = (.3 x SS Intrinsic) + (.3 x SS External) + (.3 x SS
Internal) + (.3 x SS Orthodoxy)
Quest = (.9 x SS Interactional) + (-.2 x SS Orthodoxy)

See Table 2 for the mean, standard deviation, and range of the three

religious orientations. See Table 3 for the correlational analyses of

all three scaleS‘with.each other.

Religious Support/Religious Opposition.guestionnaire (developed by

 

this author adopted from Fiore et al., 1983) (see Appendix B). Subjects
were asked to fill out two lists composed of clergy and up to 10
individuals per list from their religious congregation that they knew
personally prior to marital separation. They were asked to record
frequency of contact prior to separation and degree of closeness to the
individual. Using a Likert Scale, subjects rated each individual on
frequency of emotional, cognitive (biased or unbiased), and tangible
religious opposition and support. The average amount of support and
opposition was computed by dividing the total amount of each item by the
number of clergy or congregation members listed. See Table 4 for the

means, standard deviations, and ranges of these computed variables.

23

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 2
Personal Religious Orientation

n=71 Mean Standard Deviation Range
Means .01 .98 -2.6 to 2.2
M -002 095 —201 to 108
Qiest .02 1.0 -3.0 to 2.7

Table 3

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analysis
of Means, End, and Quest

n=71 Means End Quest
bbans -.32** .21*
End -.32** -.31**
Quest .21* -.3l**
* p < .05.

**_p < .01.

24

Table 4

Average Religious Social Support and Opposition

 

Mean Standard Deviation Mode Range

 

n=50

 

Emotional
cognitive
Tangible

n=57

 

Emotional
cognitive
Tangible

n=29
Ehctional

cognitive

Removal of
Tangible Aid

n=33

 

Emotional

cognitive

Removal of
Tangible Aid

Religious Social Support

 

Clergy
3.6 1.4 5.0 0-5
3.0 1.7 5.0 0-5
1.8 1.8 0.0 0-5
Congregation
3.2 1.2 5.0 0.8-5
2.1 1.5 0.0 0.0-5
2.3 1.5 1.0 0.0-5

Religious Opposition

 

Clergy
.66 1.0 0 0—4
.59 1.1 0 0-5
.57 1.3 0 0-5
Congregation
.93 1.1 0 0-4
.65 0.8 0 0-2

 

code: Iikert Scale

 

0 = never
1:

sometimes 5

often
alnost always

to
II II

RESULTS

Religious Stress and Religious Adjustment

 

It was hypothesized that religious stress would be negatively
correlated with religious adjustment. Pearson Product Moment Correla-
tional analysis demonstrated that these two subscales were unrelated
(E. = .03; p < .38) . Possible reasons for this essentially zero

correlation will be explored in the discussion section.

Religious Support and Religious Adjustnent

 

It was hypothesized that religious support would increase religious
adjustment. The relationship between religious adjustment and religious
social support from congregation and clergy was treasured using the
Pearson Product Monent Correlation Coefficient (see Table 5) . The
correlations of cognitive and tangible support with religious adjustment
were not significant for congregation or clergy support; however,
religious emotional support from both clergy and congregation was

significantly correlated with religious adjustnent.

Religious Support, Stress, and Adjustment

 

It was hypothesized that religious support would nediate the effect
of religious stress on religious adjustment. Given the fact that there
was no correlation between religious stress and religious adjustrrent,
this hypothesis was only tested for the support variables that were
significantly correlated with either religious stress or religious

adjustment. These two variables were: Enotional support from

25

26

Table 5

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analyses of Religious
Support and Religious Adjustment

 

 

 

Congregation (n=56) Clergy (n=49)
r r
Emotional .37** .25*
cognitive .02 .04
Tangible .03 -.02
* p < .05.
** p < .01.

clergy and from congregation. Multiple regression analyses was run
using these two factors with religious stress and an interaction term to
predict religious adjustment. Results indicated that the interaction of
religious stress with religious emotional support had no effect on

religious adjustment.

Religious Opposition and Religious Stress

 

It.was hypothesized that religious opposition would increase
religious stress. The relationship between religious stress and
religious opposition from clergy and congregation was analyzed using the
Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. The correlations of
emotional and tangible opposition from clergy and congregation with
religious stress were not significant; however, cognitive opposition did
increase religious stress if it.was from congregation (r = '35342.< .01)

but not if it was from clergy (see Table 6). Additional analysis

27

revealed no significant relationship between amount of religious support

and religious stress (see Table 6).

Table 6

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analyses of Religious
Support, Religious Opposition, and Religious Stress

 

 

 

congregation Clergy
r r
Opposition
(n=33) (n=29)
Emotional .02 .09
cognitive .35* .12
Tangible .07 -.03
Suppgrt
(n=57) (n=50)
Emotional -.08 .09
Cognitive -.06 .18
Tangible -.07 .07

 

*p< .05.

28

Personal Religious Orientation and Its Effects

It was hypothesized that an individual's personal religious
orientation.would affect the amount of religious stress associated with
marital separation. Results of Pearson Product Moment Correlational
analysis can be found in Table 7. Scores on religion as a "means” and
as a "quest" had no relationship with religious stress. Religion as an

end; however, was positively correlated with religious stress.

Table 7

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analysis of Personal
Religious Orientation and Religious Stress (n=71)

 

 

r
Means .06
End .28*
Quest .03

 

*p< .01.

It was also hypothesized that scores on religion as a "means” would
interact with religious opposition and its effect on religious stress.
Given the fact that correlations between ”means" and stress and between
"means" and opposition were not significant, this hypothesis was not
testable. Additional analysis of the relationship between religious
orientation and religious support and opposition revealed a significant
positive correlation between religion as an end and emotional and
tangible support from clergy. There was also a significant correlation

between "end" and cognitive support from congregation (see Table 8),

29

scores on "quest" were significantly correlated with emotional,
cognitive, and tangible opposition from congregation and tangible
opposition from clergy (see Table 9). Finally, an individual's
perception of clergy warmth and friendliness immediately after marital

separation was positively correlated with religion as an "end” and

Table 8

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analysis of Religious
Support and Personal Religious Orientation

 

 

Emotional Cognitive Tangible
r r r
Clergy (n=50)
Means . 10 - . 06 - . 05
End . 24* . 22 .38**
Quest -.11 .09 -.07

Congregation (n=57)

 

DEEDS -015 _018 -005
End .16 .27* .08

Quest .04 .20 .28*
* p < .05.

** p < .01.

30

Table 9

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analysis of
Religious Opposition and Personal Religious Orientation

 

 

 

Emotional cognitive Tangible

r r r
Clergy (n=39)
Means .12 -.01 .07
End .09 .26 .08
Quest .29 .09 .31*
congregation (n=33)
Means .03 -.06 -.08
End .19 .24 .03
Quest .32* .32* .36*
*p< .05.

negatively correlated with religion as a "means” (see Table 10).

Cbngregaticn.warmth and friendliness was not significantly correlated

with religious orientation.

Gender, Religious Stress, and Religious Support

 

religious support, gender, and religious stress.

It was hypothesized that there would be an interaction between

Point biserial

correlational analysis revealed no significant relationship between

gender and either religious stress or religious support; therefore, this

hypothesis was not testable.

31

Table 10

Pearson Product Moment Correlational Analysis of
Personal Religious Orientation and warmth and Friendliness
cf Clergy and Congregation after Marital Separation

 

 

Clergy (n=68) Congregation (n=67)
r r
Means -.22* -.04
End .21* .07
Quest -.05 .14

 

*p< .05.

Initiator Status, Children, Religious Support,

 

and Religious Opposition

 

It.was hypothesized that initiators with children would experience
less support from clergy or congregation than noneinitiatorS‘with
children. Individuals who stated that marital separation was "mutual"
or that they alone initiated separation were combined to form two
groups, initiators with children (n = 40) and nonrinitiators with
Children (n = 25). Given the fact that only four subjects without
children.were initiators of separation and only two subjects without
Children.were non-initiators, no analysis was done on these two groups
due to the small number of subjects per cell. Point Biserial Correla-
tional analysis revealed no significant relationship between initiators
‘with children and amount of religious support (see Table 13); however,
additional analyses of religious opposition and initiators with children
revealed that emotional opposition from clergy and congregation as well

as tangible opposition from clergy were significantly correlated with

32

initiators who had children (see Table 14) . It should be noted,
nonetheless, that point biserial correlational analyses of initiator
status by itself with religious support and opposition showed the same

results as above. (see Tables 13 and 14) .

Religious Stress and Its Determinants

 

Individuals ' perceptions of their denanination' s stance on divorce,
their own perception of the acceptability of divorce, whether they
thought divorce was a sin, and whether they viewed marriage as a
religious sacrament were positively correlated with religious stress.
Additional analysis revealed that individuals who perceived their clergy
or congregation as trying to stop their separation experienced greater
religious stress than those who saw their clergy or congregation as not
trying to stop their separation. Also the warmer and friendlier
congregation members were after separation, the less religious stress
was felt, although warmth and friendliness of clergy was not correlated
with religious stress. Relationship with clergy and congregation prior
to separation, amount of time per month spent on church activities ,
initiator status and religious affiliation were not related to religious

stress (see Tables 11 and 12) .

Religious Social Sppport and Its Determinants

 

Number of friends immediately prior to separation was significantly

 

correlated with emotional support from clergy and with tangible support

from clergy and congregation. Frequency of contact with friends was

 

significantly correlated with tangible support from congregation.

Additional analysis revealed that closeness with clergy was positively

33

correlated with emotional, cognitive, and tangible support from clergy;
closeness with congregation was positively correlated with emotional and
tangible support from congregation (see Table 13).

TWenty (28%) individuals stated their minister at the time of
separation had also married them; 51 (72%) individuals were not married
by their minister at the time of separation. Individuals whose minister
married them received less emotional, cognitive, and tangible support
from their clergy than those individuals whose ministers at the time of
separation had not married them (see Table 13).

Approval or disapproval of divorce in general by clergy or
congregation (except for tangible support from congregation), whether
clergy or congregation viewed divorce as a sin, gender, and the amount
of time individuals were members of the congregation were not correlated
with religious support (see Table 13).

Additional analysis revealed that emotional, cognitive, and
tangible support from clergy but not from congregation were
significantly correlated with how'warm and friendly the individual

perceived them to be after the marital separation (see Table 13).

34

Table 11

Pearson Product Moment and Point Biserial Correlational

Analysis of Religious Stress and Its Determinants

 

 

n r
Individual's view of

marriage as a sacrament 71 .39**
Relationship with clergy

prior to separation 70 -.01
Relationship with congregation

prior to separation 71 -.09
Amount of time per month

spent on church activities 70 .08
Clergy attempt to stop

separation 71 .27**
Congregation attempt to stop

separation 71 .40**
warmth and friendliness of

congregation after separation 67 -.37**
warmth and friendliness of

clergy after separation 68 —.09
Individual's view of divorce

as a sin 70 .47**
Individual's perception of

ChurCh's official view of

acceptability of divorce 69 —.37**
Individual's personal view of

the acceptability of divorce 65 -.38**
Initiator status 71 -.09

 

** p < .01.

35

Table 12

One-way Analysis of variance of Religious
Affiliation and Religious Stress

 

 

Religious Affiliation n Mean Standard Deviation
Mainline Protestant 43 .74 .60
an-mainline

Protestant 15 .70 .66
Traditional 12 1.13 .63

 

F(2, 67) = 2.09. p< .13.

Religious Opposition and Its Determinants

 

Approval or disapproval of divorce in general by clergy or
congregation and.whether clergy or congregation viewed divorce as a sin
were not correlated with religious opposition. Additional analysis
revealed that those individuals whose clergy at the time of separation
were the same ones who married them received more cognitive opposition

from clergy than those whose clergy had not married them (see Table 14).

Additional Determinants of Religious Adjustment

 

Additional analysis revealed that emotional and tangible opposition
from clergy and congregation were negatively correlated with religious

adjustment. However, only cognitive opposition, from copgregation was

 

correlated negatively with religious adjustment. Also, approval by
congregation of an individual's separation was positively correlated
with religious adjustment as was an individual's perceptions of clergy
or congregation warmth and friendliness immediately following the

marital separation (see Table 15).

36

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Table 15

39

Pearson Product Moment and Point Biserial Correlational
Analysis of Religious Adjustment and Its Determinants

 

 

 

 

 

Clergy Congregation
n r n r
Approval of
individual's
divorce 63 .26* 64 .50**
Warmth and
friendliness
after separation 67 .37** 66 .25*
Emotional
opposition 29 -.55** 33 -.49**
Cognitive
opposition 29 -.18 33 -.48**
Tangible
opposition 29 -.65** 33 -.48**
* p < .05.

** p < .01.

DISCUSSICX‘J

The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of marital
separation on individuals who, because of their active involvement in a
religious congregation, would be likely to view this life crisis event
as a spiritual crisis as well. It was hypothesized that personal
religious beliefs and worry about the religious aspects of separation
(religious stress) would affect continued participation in church
activities, importance of church friends, etc. (religious adjustment).
In addition, religious support and opposition from clergy and
congregation would have significant impact on religious stress and
religious adjustment. Finally, religious support and opposition would be
influenced by the attitudes of the clergy and congregation towards the

separated individual and to marriage and divorce in general.

Religious Stress and Religious Adjustment

The most unexpected finding of this research is the lack of
correlation between religious stress and religious adjustment.
There are several possible explanations: First, the two scales emphasis
different experiences. Religious stress measures thoughts and feelings
about the religious aspects of separation (e.g., "When you first.became
separated from your spouse, how often did you.worry over the
religious/spiritual meaning of marriage?"); whereas, religious

adjustment measures participation in church related activities,

40

41

continued membership in a pre—marital separation congregation, and
relationships with clergy and congregation. In other words, religious
stress involves intrapersonal issues while religious adjustment involves
interpersonal and group activities.

Although a negative correlation between religious stress and
religious adjustment was anticipated, in view of the fact that
respondents attributed both increased and decreased participation in
church activities to their separation, it seems that continued network
interaction is not related to marital separation in a straightforward
manner. Membership and activity in a church group may not be an
adequate measure of adjustment for individuals who continue to remain
active in a religious congregation.

Another important consideration is that all participants were
members of a congregation at the time they filled out the
questionnaires; consequently, they do not fully represent separated
individuals who experience religious stress over marital separation. It
is possible that individuals who are no longer members of a religious
congregation left because of unresolved feelings about the religious
aspects of separation or because of negative interpersonal experiences
within their congregations.

In addition, it is important to keep in mind that social
desirability is a drawback of the questionnaire method of research
(Kidder, 1981). Given that items on the religious adjustment scale ask
about present relationships with church, clergy, and congregation, it is
possible that respondents, in an effort to present their church in a
positive light, were generous in their responses to these questions.
Self report bias could be important in all the results of this project,

especially considering that.most subjects learned about this research

42

from their clergy, and could, therefore, represent the more satisfied
churdh goer. On the other hand, several clergy infermed the researcher
that they were contacting individuals who had not been satisfied with
the church's response to their separation. Some churches put notices in
bulletins or newsletters rather than contact specific individuals.

Also, an advantage of the questionnaire method is that respondents have
greater assurance of confidentiality and anonymity. Thus, they may feel
freer to express negative views or reactions (Kidder, 1981). In this
case, because respondents were not asked any identifying information and
all answers were kept confidential, clergy need never know their
responses unless individuals choose to share this information.

Finally, largely due to the essentially zero correlation between
religious stress and religious adjustment, no buffering effect of
religious support.was found. Previous research, which demonstrated that
social support, through its impact on stress, affected adjustment (e.g.,
caldwell & Bloom, 1982; Wilcox, 1981) primarily measured adjustment in
psychological (i.e., anxiety, depression), or health related terms.
"Behavior" was defined in terms of symptoms, life satisfaction, or
feelings of well—being, not in terms of activity in group function or
closeness to friends within the social network. ,Future research on
social networks needs to focus on intrapersonal and interpersonal

measures of adjustment.

Determinants of Religious Support

 

Religious support from both clergy and congregation was found to be
affected by several factors. The closer subjects were to clergy prior
to separation, the more emotional, cognitive, and tangible support they

received. It.may be that these subjects simply came in contact with

43

their clergy more often prior to separation or that a bond of friendship
existed between them. Interestingly, although closeness to congregation
was also positively correlated with emotional and tangible support,
there was no significant relationship between closeness to congregation
and cognitive support. cognitive support supplies concrete information
regarding the church's view on marriage and divorce; therefore,
congregation members may feel less need to provide this type of support
to close friends believing it will be provided by clergy. In addition,
the separating individual may not seek out this information from other
congregation members.

Number of friends was positively correlated with tangible support

from both clergy and congregation. Frequency of contact with.friends
and tangible support from congregation were also positively correlated.
Although Monroe, Imhoff,‘Wise, and Harris (1983) found a relationship
between number of friends and amount of support, other research found no
effects (e.g., Husaini, Neff, Newbrough, & Moore, 1982; Thoits, 1982).
It must.be kept in mind, however, that the bulk of research on social
support has examined the entire network; whereas the present research is
looking at one specific subset of an individual's network. The people
in this mini network are assumed to share similar religious beliefs with
the separating individual. It may be that some individuals are more
active practitioners of their faith, naturally have more friends within
the congregation, and also see them more frequently, while others are
less active in the group activities within the church and consequently
have less friends. This apparently is unrelated to the length of time
the individuals are members of the congregation which.was not correlated

with support from either clergy or congregation.

44

warmth and friendliness from clergy after separation was
positively correlated with emotional, cognitive, and tangible support
from clergy; however, this factor was unrelated to all three types of
support from congregation. This result is somewhat.difficult to
interpret. Perhaps because the item did not refer to friends in the
congregation, but rather to all the members, what we are seeing is that
fellow church members may say "hello" in a warm and friendly manner to
each other but not engage in any sort of intimate conversation. Thus,
the separated individual may perceive warmth and even "friendliness" but
not relate in-depth.to many of the other members of the congregation.
On the other hand, clergy are more apt to counsel the separated couple
as part of their ministry (weinglass et al., 1978), therefore, those
clergy who give more support may be perceived as warmer and those who
offer less support may be perceived as colder and less friendly due to
the disappointment individuals feel who get little religious support
from their spiritual advisor.

Religion as an end was positively correlated with emotional and
tangible support from clergy and cognitive support from congregation.
Adso, religion as a quest was positively correlated with tangible
support from congregation. According to Batson and.Ventis (1982), the
end orientation ‘...concerns degree of devout adherence to religious
beliefs and practices” (p. 168); therefore, clergy may view these
individuals as deeply concerned about the religious aspects of
separation and more in need of comforting words such as "YOu are still a
good Christian." Tangible support may result from the frequent contact
needed to provide religious emotional support. In regard to cognitive
support, perhaps clergy view these individuals as already knowledgeable

about church laws and not in need of assistance to obtain this

45

information. It is not clear why only cognitive support would increase
from congregation members . They may feel that because individuals are
sincere in their faith they deserve assistance in finding out the exact
positim of their church on divorce. If these individuals are receiving
adequate emotional and tangible support from clergy, they may not ask
for or appear to need this support from others.

The positive relationship between quest and tangible support from
congregation is more difficult to interpret. Perhaps these individuals
do not request or appear to need much emotional or cognitive support
because they are facing these issues with what Batson and Ventis (1982)
call a "skepticism toward traditional answers and critical reflection on
'religious questions'” (p. 207) . Nonetheless, they may still be in need
of financial aid, babysitting, etc. and are thus provided help in this
area from friends in the congregation.

It was hypothesized that clergy who married the separated
individual would give less support. This was confirmed for all three
types: emotional, cognitive, tangible. As suggested above it is likely
that clergy who perform the marriage ceremony and, therefore, give the
church's blessing on the union have a vested interest in saving the
marriage. However, it is also possible that these separated individuals
may be more reluctant to approach their clergy for support due to
feelings of guilt or failure.

The hypotheses that clergy' s and congregation's disapproval of
divorce in general and their view of divorce as a sin would be
negatively correlated with religious support was not confirmed by this
study, except for the fact that the less congregation members approved
of divorce in general , the less t_en_gible support the individuals

received. Reasons for these results are not immediately evident. Since

46

we are relying on the separated individual to answer for the clergy and
congregation member on this private belief, it may be that they are
incorrect in their understanding of the other's position on the matter.
It is noteworthy that as many as 38 of the 71 respondents either felt
unable to answer this item at all or indicated that they did not know
what their clergy or congregation member felt about these two issues.

Initiator status with or without children was not found to
correlate significantly with religious support. Although this
hypothesis was not confirmed, it is interesting that there was an
interaction between initiators with children and religious opposition.
(See Determinants of Religious Opposition below.) One possible
explanation is that individuals were not restricted to naming the same
individuals on the support and opposition lists therefore we may be
dealing with two groups of individuals within the congregation, one
viewed as supportive, the other viewed as oppositional.

Gender was not found to be significantly correlated with.religious
support. There are two likely explanations for the fact that this
hypothesis was not confirmed. This sample was heavily biased with 53
females and 18 males. An unsuccessful attempt was made to solicit more
questionnaires from men. Several clergy stated that there were fewer
separated or divorced males than females in their congregation. Second,
researCh on gender differences in social support (e.g., Astor-Dubin &
Hammen, 1984) indicates that women show a greater inclination to eee§_
help. However, clergy and congregation may not wait to be approached
but offer support unasked. If this is the case, both men and women can
be expected to receive approximately the same amount of support.
FUrther research with a balanced number of males and females coupled

47

with a question regarding regeest for support could help resolve this

issue.

Determinants of Religious Opposition

 

.A surprising result of this research is that only 39 or the 71
subjects filled out the religious opposition scale. Despite the fact
that subjects could check "no opposition" for each individual listed, 20
of those who did not put any names down wrote a note stating they
received no opposition from clergy and congregation; 11 merely left the
questionnaire blank. One respondent indicated she found the support and
opposition questionnaires "confusing” and needed further clarification.
However, the fact that statistical significance was obtained for many
variables associated with religious opposition despite the relatively
small sample size suggests that these results are powerful indicators of
the phenomenon being examined.

The hypothesis that the more clergy and/or congregation disapproved
of divorce in general or viewed divorce as a sin, the more religious
opposition subjects would report was not confirmed. As stated above,
respondents may not have been sure of where their clergy or congregation
stood on this issue and consequently didn't answer the question or made
an educated guess. It is also possible that disapproval of divorce in
general does not necessarily lead to punitive action against
congregation members who become separated. In principal, clergy or
congregation may find divorce objectionable from a religious
perspective, but in practice may not extend this attitude into behavior
towards others.

Individuals whose ministers married them experienced significantly

more cognitive opposition from clergy. This finding, coupled with lower

48

emotional, cognitive, and tangible support suggests that, while these
clergy did not engage in significantly more emotional or tangible
opposition; that is, they apparently refrained from judgmental attacks
against the individual, they engaged in a more passive form of
opposition (i.e., less support) except when it came to providing
information regarding the church's stance against divorce. This result
strengthens the argument that marriage Officiants have a vested interest
in preserving the marriage of two people they join together.

Another intriguing finding is the significant correlation between
religion as a quest and emotional, cognitive, and tangible opposition
from congregation and tangible opposition from clergy. As discussed
above, quest orientation is manifested by a "skepticism" toward
traditional beliefs; therefore, these individuals may be targets of more
active arguments based on church doctrine or teaching. A possible
explanation for the lack of significance between quest and clergy
emotional and cognitive opposition is that congregation members may be
less apt to share their skepticism towards traditional answers or
questioning of beliefs with clergy who could be perceived as less
receptive to these views. ‘Why clergy would remove significantly more
tangible aid, however, is puzzling and requires further analysis.

Finally, initiators with children were found to experience
significantly greater emotional opposition from both clergy and
congregation as well as tangible opposition from clergy than non-
initiators with children. This was also true when initiator status was
examined by itself. However, given the fact that only four initiators
and two non-initiators did not have children, it is impossible to
partial out the effects of children in this research. It is noteworthy

that initiators with children received more emotional opposition -- more

49

judgments from both clergy and congregation that they were "committing a
sin" or were "not being good Christians,” etc. This strongly suggests
that actively seeking marital separation is looked on as ”wrong" or a
"mistake" by the religious community and that this gets communicated to
parents who choose to leave the marriage. These results are not
necessarily in conflict with previous research which showed that
initiators had an easier time if it compared to non-initiators (e.g.,
Pettit & Bloom, 1984; Spanier & Thompson, 1983). As mentioned above,
"adjustment" in the present research was defined in interpersonal, not
psychological or health related terms; thus the outcome measures are not

comparable with each other.

Determinants of Religious Stress

 

This research suggests that religious stress, the inner struggle
‘with the spiritual aspects of marital separation, is most affected by
personal beliefs regarding divorce and marriage. Religion as an end was
positively correlated with religious stress. This makes sense given the
fact that end orientation concerns a deep commitment to current
religious beliefs and practices. The hypothesis that quest would be
negatively correlated with religious stress was not confirmed. Perhaps
those separated active church members who score high on quest continue
to experience religious stress over the breakup of a marriage even if
they feel free to question their traditional religious beliefs.

Religion as a means was uncorrelated with either stress or opposition

and, therefore, an interaction between means and opposition which would
increase religious stress could not be tested. One possible explanation
is that religion as means does not measure religiousness per se, rather

it measures the impact of the social environment on individuals'

50

religious practices. In addition, according to Batson and ventis
(1982):
...development along the extrinsic, means
orientation should involve little change in an
individual's cognitive structures, for development
on this orientation does not require that
existential questions be seriously confronted at all
(p. 162).
If this is the case, the inner religious experience of marital
separation may not be related to religion as a means because means does
not measure intrapersonal religiousness.

It is interesting, however, that further analysis of religious
orientation reveals there was a negative correlation between warmth and
friendliness after separation and "means," and that "end" was positively
correlated with warmth and friendliness. It may be that, since means is
associated with.using religion for self—serving ends, those individuals
are not perceived as taking religious aspects of the separation
seriously in contrast to those persons with.high end scores who may be
perceived as sincerely struggling with religious stress. On the other
hand, given that means is assumed to be associated with a need for group
recognition, these individuals may be more sensitive to subtle
withdrawal from others in their church. Scores on religious stress,
however, would not be expected to increase for these people because
there is little if any inner struggle with the religious aspects of the
separation.

Contrary to expectations, relationships with clergy and
congregation prior to separation, amount of time per month spent on
church activities, initiator status, and religious affiliation were not

related to religious stress. In addition, religious support and

opposition, except for cognitive opposition from congregation.were not

51

significantly related to religious stress. All of the above, except for
initiator status and religious affiliation, are interpersonal in nature.
One could argue that religious affiliation, in that it involves a
religious ”group" is also interpersonal. Intrapersonal stress over the
religious aspects of separation does not appear to be affected by
interactions with other church members or clergy. Interestingly,

however, several kinds of opposition did affect religious stress.

 

cognitive opposition from congregation but not from clergy was
significantly correlated with religious stress. It may be that clergy
discussing the church's official stance on divorce is expected and,
therefore, not as traumatizing as friends in the congregation actively
trying to convince people of the unacceptability of divorce. Along
these lines, the more congregation members or clergy actively attempted
to stop subjects from leaving their spouse, the greater stress that.was
experienced. Since this type of opposition is aimed at the individual's
logp_marriage, it may be that subjects feel more pressure and
consequently more religious stress over the action.

It is surprising that initiators, who received significantly more
opposition and less support did not report significantly more religious
stress. Perhaps because initiators, in general, ”consistently perceive
more benefits to marital separation" (Pettit & Bloom, 1984, p. 507),
they are less affected by others' reaction to their decision.

Contrary to research by Ebaugh et al. (1984), who found that
religious affiliation affected reactions to crises, there was no
relationship between religious affiliation and religious stress. The
fact that 60 of the 71 subjects did not change religious affiliation

suggests that this sample is biased toward the satisfied church goer.

52

As suggested above, a sample of separated individuals who are no longer
active church members may show different results.

As mentioned earlier, personal religious convictions were
significant factors in religious stress. Subjects who viewed marriage
as a sacrament, divorce as a sin, their church's official view of
divorce as unacceptable and who themselves viewed divorce as
unacceptable experienced significantly greater religious stress. The
religious stress of marital separation, therefore, appears to be
profoundly affected by personal religious orientation and beliefs,
somewhat affected by religious opposition, and minimally affected by
religious support from clergy or congregation, although warmth.and
friendliness of congregation members after the separation.was associated

with less religious stress.

Determinants of Religious Adjustment

 

The lack of a relationship between religious stress and religious
adjustment has already been discussed above. Factors that did affect
religious adjustment were all interpersonal in nature, suggesting that
continued group participation and importance of friends and clergy are
what is affected by support and opposition from clergy and congregation.
However, only emotional support from both congregation and clergy was
significantly correlated with religious adjustment. Perhaps unbiased
information is expected as part of the church's responsibility and
tangible support can be obtained elsewhere. The warmer and friendlier
clergy and congregation were after the separation as well as the more
clergy and congregation approved of the separation were also positively
related to religious adjustment, further emphasizing the importance of

positive experiences with.group members.

53

Although cognitive and tangible support did not significantly
affect religious adjustment (i.e., participation in church activities,

importance of friends), cognitive opposition from congregation plus

 

tangible opposition from clergy and congregation were negatively
correlated with religious adjustment. Again, it appears that
congregation members providing religious information against divorce
coupled with removal of tangible support by clergy and congregation have
significant impact on continued participation in church related
activities and friendships. Given the fact that religious emotional
support increases the likelihood of continued church participation, and
cognitive and tangible opposition decreases this likelihood, it seems
that people who receive little support for themselves as "good
Christians," are told that their church is against divorce and also find
themselves being deprived of previously available tangible support, are
apt to significantly decrease their activity in a church community and
become distant from congregation friends and clergy. It appears,
therefore, that opposition plus lack of support is what strongly
determines how important friends continue to be and how muCh
participation takes place in church activities. It.would be interesting
to sample a group of individuals who left active participation in
organized religion to ascertain if lack of religious support and
increased religious opposition were significant factors in their

decision.

Implications

 

That marital separation is a significant spiritual crisis for
individuals who are active members of religious congregations is

strongly supported by this research. Marital separation causes these

54

individuals to struggle with their church's and their own position on
marriage and divorce. Those who are traditional in their beliefs are
more apt to worry and lose sleep over the separation. Interestingly,
although such things as prior relationships with clergy or congregation
and religious support appears to have little effect on religious stress,
some interactions with congregation members increase stress. For
example, the more they attempt to stop the separation or relate the
church's position as antidivorce, the more religious stress increases.

Another finding of major interest is the fact that stress or worry
over marital separation apparently does not directly affect continued
participation in church activities or the importance of clergy and
friends in the congregation. Not too surprisingly, it is the reactions
and actions of those people who were part of the separated individual's
pre-separation church family that affect continued participation. If
‘.people experience little or no emotional support, have repeated
reminders that their church frowns on divorce, sense disapproval of the
separation and a lack of warmth or friendliness from clergy and/or
congregation, they are likely to become less active in church activities
and place less importance on their friends or clergy in the
congregation.

In addition to the above, it is noteworthy that initiators with
children report greater emotional opposition from both clergy and
congregation. Also, the more separated individuals openly question
traditional beliefs, the more emotional, cognitive, and tangible
opposition they report from congregation members. Marriage Officiants
give significantly more cognitive opposition and less support,
suggesting that they may feel compelled to prevent or discourage

separation if they married the couple.

55

All of the above is compelling evidence that, for those individuals
who possess some sort of religious faith, marital separation is likely
to precipitate a religious crisis. The resolution of this crisis will
be affected by religious beliefs and attitudes of the individual
themselves as well as by the religious attitudes and actions of their
clergy and other congregation members. Further research into this area
will hopefully strengthen the results found here and also clarify the
findings so that those religious individuals who experience marital
separation or who will interact with separated individuals in their
congregation will be more sensitive and aware of the religious crises
marital separation precipitates, as well as understand their role in
helping or hindering people as they attempt to cope with their spiritual
concerns.

In addition to providing important information on the religious
stress of marital separation, this investigation has also demonstrated
that.mini-networks within an individual's global network can be
significantly affected by specific life crisis events. Social support
and stress research has typically examined global networks (except
perhaps for family interactions) and by virtue of being too broad has
perhaps lost important information about how stress, social support and
social opposition interact with.each other to the detriment of the mini-
network itself.

Finally as Fiore et al. (1983) maintain, opposition as well as
support from one's social network can have significant impact on
individuals within that network. In view of the fact that social
networks can be both supportive and oppositional in the face of life
crisis events, future research must not ignore the role that opposition

plays in the stress associated with events in the lives of individuals.

APPENDICES

APPENDIXA

56

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

 

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLCXSY EAST LANSING ' MICHIGAN ' 43824
nvcnorocv IESEAICII BUILDING

Dear

I am a graduate student in Clinical Psychology at Michigan State University. I am
conducting research on the impact of religious congregations, clergy and personal
religious beliefs on the stress of marital separation.

As you are probably aware, marital separation is a stressful life event which
affects almost two million people each year. Divorced and separated individuals have a
higher incidence of motor vehicle accidents, psychiatric admissions, and death by
homicide, suicide and cancer than other individuals. Separated individuals also face
various pressures, such as financial concerns, child custody disputes and legal and
emotional stress. In addition, for many indivrduals, marital disruption is a religious issue
which raises questions and conflicts that can negatively affect their overall adjustment
to the separation.

There is increasing research evidence that social networks can be sources of
support during life crisis events, and can be significant factors in helping individuals
cope successfully with these crises. However, there is also evidence which suggests that
these same networks can be additional sources of stress if, for example, they disapprove
of the person's behavror or refuse to lend support when needed. In addition, individuals
will feel different amounts of religious stress over the separation depending on their
own personal religious beliefs.

In order to better understand the church's role in helping its members cope
successfuly with the life crisis event of marital separation, I am conducting research to
determine what kind of reactions individuals receive from their religious congregations
and clergy. I will also be looking at how their personal religious beliefs affect marital
separation adjustment. Hopefully, the information obtained from this research will be
beneficial to clergy and members of religious congregations as they attempt to help
individuals cope successfully with the religious aspect of marital separation.

I am writing to ask if you would be willing to help'me contact individuals in your
congregation who were separated from their spouse no more than five years ago. I would
'like to ask them to fill out several questionnaires. Their responses will be kept
confidential and anonymous and they and you are welcome to see the results of this
research upon completion of the project.

I will be calling you within a week so that we can discuss this request further. If
necessary, I would also be willing to meet with you at your convenience.

Sincerely,

Ann-Marie Scheerbaum

M II I b an Allimliw Anion/Equal Opfovlolu'ly Inuit-lino

57

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

 

wnmmr or rsvcumoov
rsvcuowcv nesuncu BUILDING

EAST lANSING ' IIICHIGAN ' ‘1‘

Dear Church Member:

I am writing to ask if you would be willing to participate in a research project that
will be looking at the impact of marital separation on individuals who were actively
involved in a religious congregation just before and during their first few months of '
marital separation. * '

This letter and packet of questionnaires were mailed by your clergy so that I would
not know your name and you would therefore remain completely anonymous and your
reSponses would be confidential.

As you are probably aware, marital separation is a stressful life event that affects
more than two million people each year. There is a growing body of evidence which
suggests that marital separation can cause both emotional and physical stress for
individuals coping with this crisis. In addition, marital separation is often a religious
issue which can raise questions and conflicts for many individuals.

In order to better understand the church's role in helping its members cope
successfully with the life crisis event of marital separation, I am writing to ask if you
would be willing to fill out several questionnaires. These questionnaires will be asking
you to think about your marital separation from a religious perspective as well as asking
you to answer some questions about your religious beliefs and your involvement in your
congregation both prior to and after your separation.

All information is completely confidential and anonymity will be preserved. No
obligation of any kind is involved and you may change your mind about participating at
any time. In addition, no financial cost is involved. By sending back the completed
questionnaires, you will be giving your consent to participate in this project.

It will probably take you an hour or two to complete the enclosed forms. Please do
not put your name on the questionnaires. In this way your identity will remain anonymous
and your responses confidential. A stamped self-addressed envelope is included. Please
return these forms within a week of receiving them. Once I have received all the
completed questionnaires I will be able to begin analysing the information.

Thank you in advance for taking part in this project. When it is completed you may
have access to the results if you so desire. If you have any questions, please feel free to
call me and I will be happy to discuss this with you at greater length. I can be reached
at 355-9561}. If I am not available, the secretary will take a message and I will return
your call as soon as possible. You do not have to leave your name, just say that you are
calling about the religious marital separation project.

I

Sincerely,

Ann-Marie Scheerbaum

MS U h a IV/c'muu'lv Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

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APPENDIX B

Today's date

Sex:

62

MARITAL SEPARATION QUESTIONNAIRE

 

Male Female

Number of children

 

Amount of time separated from Spouse months/years

1.

 

Thinking back, was it you or your spouse that first
suggested the idea of separation?

respondant Spouse mutual

Later on, which of you continued to insist most on a
separation?

respondant spouse mutual

PLEASE THINK BACK TO JUST BEFORE YOUR MARITAL SEPARATION TO
ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS.

3.

What was your religious affiliation? (E.g., Catholic,
Methodist, etc.)

 

How many years were you a member of the congregation
(e.g., First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, St. Mary's
Church of Lansing) you belonged to just before your
marital separation?

years

 

How many years were you involved in church-related
activities (e.g., church religious service, guild or
committee, fund raisers, etc.) before your marital
separation?

years

 

How many times a month were you involved in these
church-related activities?

times/month

 

In general, how would you describe your relationship
with the clergy of your congregation?

Very Distant About Average Very Close
1 2 3 4 5

8.

10.

ll.

12.

13.

63

In general, how would you describe your relationship
with the members of your congregation?

Very Distant About Average Very Close
1 2 3 4 5

Did any clergy in your congregation take part in your
marriage ceremony?

yes no
What was your understanding of your religious

affiliation's OFFICIAL view of divorce? That is, in
general, what was the Baptist, Methodist, etc., view of

divorce as YOU understood it?

Divorce was:

Almost
Never Sometimes always
Don't know acceptable acceptable acceptable
0 l 2 3

What was your personal view of divorce just before your
marital separation?

Divorce was:

Almost
Never thought Never Sometimes always
about it acceptable acceptable acceptable
0 1 2 3
What was your clergy's view of divorce?
Divorce was:
Almost
Never Sometimes always
Don't know acceptable acceptable acceptable
0 1 2 3

What was your religious congregation's view of divorce?

Divorce was:

Almost
Never Sometimes always
Don't know acceptable acceptable acceptable

0 1 2 3

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

64

Did any of your clergy attempt to stop you from leaving
your spouse or attempt to stop your spouse from leaving
you?

9
yes no

 

Did any of your close friends in the religious
congregation attempt to stop you from leaving your
spouse or your spouse from leaving you?

yes no

 

Did your clergy consider divorce a sin?

yes no don't know

 

 

Did you consider divorce a sin?

yes no no opinion

 

 

Did most of the members of the congregation that you
knew consider divorce a sin?

yes no don't know

 

 

How many close friends did you have in your religious
congregation?

 

In general, how would you describe the religious
congregation members' response to you after your marital
separation? That is, how warm and friendly were they?

Not at all warm Somewhat warm Very warm
or friendly and friendly and friendly
1 2 3

In general, how would you describe your clergy's
response to you after your marital separation? That is,
how warm and friendly were they?

Not at all warm Somewhat warm Very warm
or friendly and friendly and friendly
1 2 3

In general, did your religious congregation approve or
disapprove of your decision to separate?

Totally disapproved Neutral Totally approved
1 2 3 4 5

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

65

In general, did your clergy approve or disapprove of
your decision to separate?

Totally disapproved Neutral Totally approved
1 2 3 4 5

Did you consider marriage a religious sacrament or rite
prior to your marital separation?

yes no

 

When you first became separated from your Spouse, how
often did you worry over the religious/spiritual meaning
of marriage?

Never Sometimes Often Almost Always
0 l 2 3

When you first became separated from your spouse, how
often did you feel you were committing a Sin by
separating?

Never Sometimes Often Almost Always
0 1 2 3

When you first became separated from your spouse, how
often did you find yourself concerned with your church's
view of divorce?

Never Sometimes Often Almost Always
0 1 2 3

Were there times when you were first separated that you
could not take care of things because you were dwelling
on the spiritual/religious aspects of your separation?

Never Sometimes Often Almost Always
0 l 2 3

When you were first separated, did you ever have trouble
getting to sleep or staying asleep because you were
thinking about the spiritual/religious aspects of your
separation?

Never Sometimes Often Almost Always

O 1 2 3

66

THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS ALL REFER TO YOUR PARTICIPATION IN
CHURCH-RELATED ACTIVITIES TODAY:

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

Are you as actively involved in church-related
activities as you were before your separation?

Much Somewhat About the Somewhat Much
less less same more more
1 2 3 4 5

Is the decision regarding involvement in church—related
activities related to your marital separation?

yes no

 

fi

Are you a member of any church-related committees or a
lay participant in religious ceremony?

yes no

 

If your answer to #32 is NO, is this related to your
marital separation?

yes no

 

Are you presently a member of the same congregation as
before your separation?

yes no

 

If your answer to #34 is NO, was your decision to leave
related to your marital separation?

yes no

 

 

If you answered YES that you changed congregations
because of your marital separation, was this decision
due to a feeling that you were not accepted by your
religious congregation or clergy because you were
separated from your Spouse?

clergy was not accepting

most of religious congregation was not accepting

other, explain

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

67

If you are not legally divorced, how much do your
religious beliefs about the permanence of marriage have
to do with this?

Not at all Somewhat Very much
1 2 3 4 5

If your clergy asked you to participate in a religious
divorce ceremony, how helpful was it?

Participated and it was...

 

Asked but
did not Not at all Somewhat Very
Was not asked participate helpful helpful helpful
0 l 2 3 4

Have you changed your religious affiliation (e.g., from
Methodist to Baptist)?

yes no

If you answered YES to #39, was your decision caused by the
divorce laws of your former religious affiliation?

yes no

In general, how would you describe your relationship with
the clergy of your congregation today?

Very distant About average Very close
1 2 3 4 S

In general, how would you describe your relationship with
the members of your congregation today?

Very distant About average Very close
1 2 3 4 5

How many close friends do you have in your congregation?

 

How important to you are your friends in your congregation?
Not very important About average Very important

1 2 3 4 5

68

45. How well-adjusted would you say you are to your marital
separation as far as your religious beliefs are concerned?
That is, how often do you worry about whether you committed
a sin or disobeyed the law of the church?

Never Sometimes Often Almost always

0 1 2 3

69

Part I (Please answer these questions as you would have
just before your marital separation.)

Part I concerns statements about your religious development.
There is no consensus about right or wrong answers; some
peOple will agree and others will disagree with each of the

statements.

(SD = Strongly disagree, D = Disagree, A = Agree, SA =

Strongly agree)

SD D A SA
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10.

11.

The church has been very important
for my religious development.

Worldly events cannot affect the
eternal truths of my religion.

My religious development is a
natural response to the innate need
of man for devotion to God.

It might be said that I value my
religious doubts and uncertainties.

My minister (or youth director, camp
counselor, etc.) has had a profound
influence on my personal religious
development.

God's will should shape my life.

On religious issues, I find the
opinions of others irrelevant.

It is necessary for me to have a
religious belief.

When it comes to religious ques-
tions, I feel driven to know the
truth.

I find my everyday experiences
severely test my religious convic-
tions.

A major factor in my religious
deve10pment has been the importance
of religion for my parents.

SA

SA

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

70

I do not expect my religious convic-
tions to change in the next few
years.

Religion is something I have never
felt personally compelled to
consider.

I have been driven to ask religious
questions out of a growing awareness
of the tensions in my world and in
my relation to my world.

My religion serves to satisfy needs
for fellowship and security.

My religious development has emerged
out of my growing sense of personal
identity.

My religion is a personal matter,
independent of the influence of
organized religion.

Whether I turn out to be religious
or not doesn't make much difference
to me.

Certain people have served as
”models" for my religious develOp-
ment.

I have found it essential to have
faith.

It is important for me to learn
about religion from those who know
more about it than I do.

God wasn't very important for me
until I began to ask questions about
the meaning of my own life.

I find it impossible to conceive of
myself not being religious.

The "me" of a few years back would
be surprised at my present religious
stance.

Questions are far more central to my
religious experience than are
answers.

71

SD D A SA

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 26. Outside forces (other persons,
church, etc.) have been relatively
unimportant in my religious develop-
ment.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 27. For me, religion has not been a
"must."

Part II (Please answer these questions as you would have
just before your marital separation.)

Part II concerns the prevalence of various types of relig-
ious ideas and practices. Again, there is no consensus about
right or wrong answers; some people will agree and others
will disagree with each of the statements.

SD D A SA

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. Although I believe in my religion, I
feel there are many more important
things in my life.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 2. It is important to me to spend
periods of time in private religious
thought and meditation.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 3. It doesn't matter so much what I
believe so long as I lead a moral
life.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 4. If not prevented by unavoidable

circumstances, I attend church.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 S. The primary purpose of prayer is to
gain relief and protection.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 6. The church is most important as a
place to formulate good social
relationships.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 7. I try hard to carry my religion over
into all my other dealings in life.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8. What religion offers me most is
comfort when sorrows and misfortune
strike.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 9. I pray chiefly because I have been
taught to pray.

l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. The prayers I say when I am alone
carry as much meaning and personal
emotion as those said by me during
services.

SD

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

72.

Although I am a religious person I
refuse to let religious considera-
tions influence my everyday affairs.

A primary reason for my interest in
religion is that my church is a
congenial social activity.

Quite often I have been keenly aware
of the presence of God or the Divine

Being.

I read literature about my faith (or
church).

If I were to join a church group I
would prefer to join a Bible Study
group rather than a social fellow-
ship.

Occasionally I find it necessary to
compromise my religious beliefs in
order to protect my social and
economic well-being.

One reason for my being a church
member is that such membership helps
to establish a person in the
community.

My religious beliefs are what really
lie behind my whole approach to
life.

Religion is especially important to
me because it answers many questions
about the meaning of life.

The purpose of prayer is to secure a
happy and peaceful life.

Religion helps to keep my life
balanced and steady in exactly the
same way as my citizenship, friend-
ships, and other memberships do.

Part III

73

(Please answer these questions as you would have
just before your marital separation.)

We now turn to another area of religious life--religious
belief. Each of the following statements expresses a belief.
As on the previous statements, circle the number that best
indicates your agreement or disagreement with the belief

stated.

SD D
1 2 3 4 5

A
6

SA

7 8 9

1.

10.
11.

12.

Again, there are no right or wrong answers.

I believe in the existence of a just
and merciful personal God.

I believe God created the universe.

I believe God has a plan for the
universe.

I believe Jesus Christ is the Divine
Son of God.

I believe Jesus Christ was resur-
rected (raised from the dead).

I believe Jesus Christ is the
Messiah promised in the Old
Testament.

I believe one must accept Jesus
Christ as Lord and Savior to be
saved from sin.

I believe in the "second coming"
(that Jesus Christ will one day
return to judge and rule the world).

I believe in "original sin” (man is
born a sinner).

I believe in life after death.
I believe there is a transcendent
realm (an "other" world, not just
this world in which we live).

I believe the Bible is the unique
authority for God's will.

APPENDIXC

Frequency Distribution of Religious Denominations

at the Time of Marital Separation (N=70)

74

 

Denomination N Percentage
Unitarian Universalist l l
Congregational 1 l
Hbuse of God 1 l
Baptist 1 1
Christian Independent 1 1
Mormon 1 1
Church of God 2 3
Interdenominational 2 3
United Church of Christ 3 4
andenominational/Protestant 4 4
Episcopal 5 7
Catholic 10 14
Lutheran 12 17
Presbyterian 12 17
Methodist/United Methodist 14 20

75

Religious Denominations That Participated

in the Research

 

 

 

Number of
Number of Packets Received

Packets Requested by Separated

Denomination gby Clergy Individuals
Friends Meeting 3 O
Congregational 5 4
Unitarian Universalist 5 4
United Church 5 5
Assembly of God 5 1
Christian Church 6 2
Trinity Church 7 7
Church of God 6 6
United Church of Christ 10 4
Missionary Church 10 6
Episcopal 11 9
Catholic 15 10
Baptist 25 3
Interdenominational 20 11
Intheran 26 22
Presbyterian 25 12
Methodist 25 19
Divorce Support Group 20 15
Tbtal 229 140

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