What Would I Know About Mercy? Faith and Optimistic Expectancies Among African Americans.

A small body of research has begun to explore the association between faith and optimism among African Americans. However, missing from the extant work is an examination of the extent to which traditional indices of religious commitment work together with beliefs about God to shape optimism. The present study examines the utility of indices of social location, religious commitment (i.e., early and current religious service attendance, subjective religiosity), belief about the quality of one's relationship with God (i.e., a belief that one is connected to a loving God), and beliefs about being the recipient of divine forgiveness for predicting dispositional optimism among a sample of community residing African American adults (N = 241). Age, subjective religiosity, and organizational religiosity were positively related to optimism in bivariate analyses. Hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated a significant association between age, subjective religiosity, and optimism; however, those associations were eliminated once relationship with God and belief in one's forgiveness by God were entered into the model. Only belief in God's love predicted optimism in multivariate analyses. Serial mediation analyses revealed that beliefs about the quality of one's relationship with God and belief in divine forgiveness fully mediated the relationship between subjective religiosity and optimism, but that the relationship is driven largely by relationship with God. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Use of ministers for a serious personal problem among African Americans: findings from the national survey of American life.

This study examined use of ministers for assistance with a serious personal problem within a nationally representative sample of African Americans (National Survey of American Life-2001-2003). Different perspectives on the use of ministers-social stratification, religious socialization, and problem-oriented approach-were proposed and tested using logistic regression analyses with demographic, religious involvement, and problem type factors as predictors. Study findings supported religious socialization and problem-oriented explanations indicating that persons who are heavily invested in religious pursuits and organizations (i.e., women, frequent attenders) are more likely than their counterparts to use ministerial assistance. Contrary to expectations from the social stratification perspective, positive income and education effects indicated that higher status individuals were more likely to report use of ministers. Finally, problems involving bereavement are especially suited for assistance from ministers owing to their inherent nature (e.g., questions of ultimate meaning) and the extensive array of ministerial support and church resources that are available to address the issue.

Uses of ministerial support by African Americans: a focus group study.

This focus group study examines the use of ministerial support among African American adults with regard to (1) the issues taken to ministers by church members, (2) the issues not taken to ministers by church members, and (3) the factors that inform people's decisions about whether or not to seek ministerial support. Content analysis of narratives from 13 focus groups revealed significant overlap in the range of concerns for which people seek support and those issues for which they will not seek ministerial help. The factors that influence peoples' decisions included shame as well as evaluations of minister character, sincerity, and skill set. Narrative examples are used to elucidate each theme, and the implications of the findings for theory, research, and practice are discussed.