The maintenance of religious faith

Abstract

This study is aimed to elicit the factors that allowed individuals to maintain their religious faith. This study was based on a narrative approach whereby three participants, one from Roman Catholicism, Islam, and Protestantism were interviewed for the purpose of this research. These were chosen by means of convenience sampling. These participants divulged their religious story and how had their religious journey developed throughout their lifespan. This methodology was chosen due to my belief that the factors that allowed religious maintenance were obtained throughout the lifespan and thus was not an isolated incident that can be studied with the IPA approach. Four major themes were found, three of which contributed directly to the maintenance of religious faith whereas the last one was what caused the participants to doubt their faith. These super-ordinate themes are: Family Reinforcement, Social Reinforcement, Personal Reinforcement, and Suffering. The last master theme dealt with doubts and reconciliation of those doubts.