Joyful Disaster
An Ambivalence-Religion Hypothesis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4264780 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andrew J Weigert (University of Notre Dame, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1989 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 73 |
| Publication date | 1989-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociological Analysis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-0210 • E-ISSN: 2325-7873 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/3710919 |
| OpenAlex | W2274577734 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 7 |
Ambivalence is a rather recent and important concept for analyzing human emotions. Understood as both a generic experience and the result of sociohistorical forces, it is often an anxiety-producing condition that persons seek to resolve. Analysts of religion find ambivalence at the heart of the religious experience. Religion may function to resolve ambivalence by including contradictory expectations or emotions within a larger system of meaning. This leads to a new definition of religion illustrated in a brief historical review of Western Christianity. The modern situation, furthermore, presents a totally new source of ambivalence, namely, possible nuclear destruction. It is hypothesized that fundamentalist apocalyptic eschatology can be interpreted as a contemporary instance of religion's ambivalence-resolving function
Ambivalence · Christianity · Epistemology · Function (biology · Meaning (existential · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious studies · Social Psychology · Religious Studies
| Citations per year | 0.36 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2012 - 2025 (14) |
| Highly cited | No |