Christian Meaning Making through Suffering in Theology and Psychology of Religion

Abstract

Meaning making has risen to prominence as a critical process by which those who experience suffering achieve positive results. When empirically testing meaning-making processes during and subsequent to painful life circumstances, psychologists often use religion as the means for operationalizing global beliefs, since religions comprise comprehensive meaning-making frameworks. Very little has been done, however, to consider the role of the specific content of religions in meaning-making from suffering. The purpose of this paper is to take a first step toward constructing an interface between empirical research on suffering in the psychology of religion and Christian theology. Psychologist Crystal Park developed a model to synthesize the empirical findings on growth and positive outcomes in the process of suffering. This paper extends and elaborates Park’s meaning-making model using Christian-specific resources. Following a brief overview of Park’s theory, the paper builds out each of the components of her model using Christian theological concepts. The paper concludes by providing future research trajectories and questions.