More than a thousand empirical studies report positive correlations between religious involvement and various aspects of psychological, relational, or physical health. Even so, there are also substantial costs, challenges, and negative aspects of religious involvement that warrant scholarly attention, including religion-related oppression and discrimination. The objective of this study was to provide an in-depth exploration and qualitative analysis of religion-related struggles experienced by religious minorities. A national sample of 198 diverse, religious families (N ϭ 476 participants) were interviewed. Of the 198 families, 131 (66%) were from religious minority communities (i.e., Jewish, Muslim, or Christian minority faiths) and serve as the sample and focus of this study. Team-based qualitative analyses indicated five recurring, religion-related sources of struggle that originated "outside the family." Core themes included (1) struggles related to difference and minority status, (2) struggles related to other religious people, (3) struggles related to misunderstanding and ignorance, (4) struggles related to the demands of the faith community, and (5) struggles related to animosity and rejection. Supporting primary data are presented to illustrate each of the five themes. From a research vantage, religious minorities are posited as a rich but often overlooked context for studying religious struggles. In terms of clinical practice, the vital import of awareness and sensitivity to religio-cultural context is underscored. With respect to educational application, pragmatic exercises that help students cross over the "empathy wall" with respect to religious minorities are recommended.

Qualitative family scholar Kerry Daly has called for more theory addressing understudied dimensions including religion, everyday experiences, and time. Herein we address all three of these dimensions as we empirically examine and theorize on relational struggles among religious families. We also explore what we term experiential immediacy-defined as the personal and temporal proximity to participantreported lived experience. Based on qualitative analyses of in-depth interviews with 198 highly religious families (N ϭ 476 individuals), we identified four types of relational struggles created by religious involvement: burdens, disunities, abuses, and offenses. We also offer a conceptual framework of experiential immediacy grounded in the findings and explore how personal and temporal immediacy of remembered, present, and possible experiences and quality of experience relate to relational struggles created by religious involvement. We also suggest implications for research based on our findings and concepts.

Research on the relationship between religion, spirituality, and health suggests that religious involvement can help people deal with various kinds of adversity. Although there has been a great deal of work on the influence of religious involvement and religious and spiritual practices on physical, mental, and relational health, there exists a gap in the theoretical and empirical literature about the potential benefits of transcendent religious experiences on marriage and family relationships. We report some findings from a study of in-depth interviews with 198 religious American exemplar families from diverse religious, ethnic, and geographic backgrounds. The religious-ethnic make-up of the sample included: African American Christian (13%), Asian Christian (12%), Catholic and Orthodox Christian (11%), White Evangelical Christian (12%), White Mainline Christian (10%), Latter-day Saint (LDS, Mormon), (14%), Jewish (16%), and Muslim (12%). Systematic group coding resulted in the findings that, during times of adversity, transcendent religious experiences reportedly (a) provided relational meaning, (b) increased relational depth, (c) healed relational hurt, and (d) encouraged relational action. We suggest implications for theory, research, clinical practice, and pastoral work.

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