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This book takes a bold stand: all psychology should be culturally sensitive psychology, especially when studying religious phenomena. It explains that culture is not simply to be conceived of as a variable that possibly influences behavior. Rather, it stresses that cultural patterns of acting, thinking and experiencing are created, adopted and promulgated by a number of individuals jointly. As human subjectivity is different in different cultures, cultural psychology is not interested in comparatively investigating how experiences and behavior, attitudes and social relationships present themselves within different cultural conditions. By consequence, cultural psychology does not start from Western psychological constructs, testing for their presence in other cultures, but from human acts and activities in specific cultures, analyzing them in a hermeneutical way. Like cultural psychology, psychology of religion currently enjoys more and more interest and rapid growth. But the two fields have remained rather unconnected in the recent past. Psychological research on religion has been pursued from a number of perspectives, among which a cultural psychological one has not yet become prominent. As religions, however conceptualized, are cultural entities of major importance, cultural psychology seems a natural ally to research on religion. Containing a number of studies, both theoretical and empirical, this volume takes a step towards a rapprochement of cultural psychology and psychology of religion. TOC:Introduction. 1. Introducing cultural psychology of religion.- Part I: Principles of cultural psychology of religion. 2.The need for a hermeneutical approach to the study of `religion`. 3. Cultural psychology of religion: perspectives, challenges, and possibilities. 4. The way out of contemporary debates on the object of the discipline.- Part II: Approaches to cultural psychology of religion. 5. Methodological issues: towards a new paradigm in psychology of religion. 6. When psychology turns to spirituality: recommendations for research. 7. The question of the specificity of religion: the contribution of psychology. 8. On the `Dialogical Self` as a cultural psychological promise to the study of religiosity.- Part III: Applications of cultural psychology to religion. 9. Religion as embodiment: cultural-psychological concepts and methods in the study of conversion among `bevindelijke` mystics. 10. Religion, culture and psychopathology: cultural-psychological reflections on a classic case of religious `murder`. 11. Psychopathology and religion: a psychobiographical analysis. 12. Religion and the social order: psychological factors in pillarization of society. Bibliography. Index.

Es wird argumentiert, dass die Kulturpsychologie zurzeit in unterschiedlichen Formen ein "comeback" erlebt, das gerade für die psychologische Erforschung der Religion neue Chancen bietet. Anhand des Beispiels einer religiös-kulturellen Minderheit in den Niederlanden wird gezeigt, wie die Lebensform, in die der Mensch jeweils eingebettet ist, Verhalten, Erkennen und Erfahren konstituiert und konstruiert. Verwendete Perspektiven sind unter anderem die rhetorisch-responsive Version des Sozialkonstruktionismus und der Habitusbegriff von P. Bourdieu.

Nach einer kurzen Schilderung des Auflebens der Religionspsychologie in jüngster Zeit wird eine Orientierung auf die hermeneutischen Psychologien als diejenigen Ansätze in der Psychologie, die dem Forschungsobjekt am adäquatesten sind, vorgeschlagen. Da Religiosität ein kulturell konstituiertes Phänomen ist, das von der Psychologie in einer individualisierenden historischen Perspektive zu verstehen ist, wird eine kulturpsychologische Perspektive vorgestellt, deren diachrone Variante und deren Beziehungen zur Religionspsychologie näher dargestellt werden. Als Beispiel interdisziplinärer Forschung wird die psychohistorisch arbeitende Religionspsychologie ausgeführt. Abschließend wird kurz auf weitere Möglichkeiten eines Ausbaus der Religionspsychologie hingewiesen.

This paper focuses on how young Protestant believers thematize their own lives and themselves in the mode of story-telling. Particular attention is paid to the psychologically relevant functions of story-telling. Narrative biographies are used to explain and analyze
the meanings of actions of persons who are involved in doing missionary work, following a tradition influenced by the symbolic action theory and cultural psychology. In addition, because "mission" can mean very different things, the concept and reality of mission in a culturally diverse world – liberated, pluralized, and open to very individualistic life-styles – is addressed in short, revealing an ambiguous picture of the existence and development
of religions and worldviews. Subsequently, first rather tentative results of an empirical research
project are presented. Some possible meanings of experiences and actions, practices and symbolic representations of those doing missionary work within intercultural contexts are presented and how important their experiences, hopes etc. are for their life
stories and their selves. The paper ends with a discussion on the relationship between the activities in question and the concept of "intercultural competence".