Being Young and Strictly Religious: A Review of the Literature on the Religious Identity Development of Strictly Religious Adolescents

Abstract

Strictly religious adolescents grow up in highly religious contexts with orthodox beliefs and practices that usually contrast with those of pluralist and secularized societies that can be perceived as promoting unhealthy religious identity development. For these adolescents, religious identity development may be a challenge; however, there seems to be a lack of theoretical and empirical understanding of how these adolescents develop their religious identities. To address this, a literature review was conducted, and 15 studies were selected after the application of selection criteria. This review focuses on the characteristics of these studies to understand the religious identity development of strictly religious adolescents. Implications for theory development and further empirical research are discussed.

Influencing Contextual Factors in the Religious Identity Development of Strict Reformed-Raised Emerging Adults in The Netherlands

“…With Loveland (2016), we would state that religious identity development "is essentially social" (294). This is in line with other studies (e.g., Cohen-Malayev, Schachter, and Rich 2014;de Bruin-Wassinkmaat et al 2019;Fisherman 2011;Hemming and Madge 2012;Sherkat 2003;Visser-Vogel et al 2015) which showed that religious identity development is shaped and influenced by the context. We use the term "context" in this study of religious identity development to refer to the micro-context of an individual's family, school, church, and peers (Schachter and Ventura 2008).…”

“…As the term "identity agent" already indicates, contextual influence is often related to agency, which our systematic literature review study confirmed (de Bruin-Wassinkmaat et al 2019). In the scholarship, we observed that there is an ideal image of healthy religious identity development, whereby youth "exercise agency" (Hemming and Madge 2012) and the context honors and stimulates agency.…”

“…This implies that youth are enabled to explore, and to make an authentic, self-chosen religious identity commitment; faith is not forced and the views of youth are respected (Armet 2009;Barrow, Dollahite, and Marks 2020). The focus on agency in religious identity development involves a perception of young people as agents actively participating in their religious identity development, thereby building up and shaped by the contexts (de Bruin-Wassinkmaat et al 2019;Hemming and Madge 2012;Madge, Hemming, and Stenson 2014;Schachter and Ventura 2008). Thus, they are not perceived as "passive recipients" (Dollahite and Thatcher 2008, 615).…”

“…They hold strict beliefs about salvation: humans are sinful from birth, and only through the sovereign grace of God can people be saved (Stoffels 2008;Zwemer 2001). Likewise, they are strict in how they practice their faith, which is, apparent, for example, in their concern for appearances, including clothing (de Bruin-Wassinkmaat et al 2019). We propose that contextual influence is more powerful on children and youth who grow up in strict religious and mono-religious milieus, such as strict Reformed milieus.…”

Faith, Science, and Nonreligious Identity Formation Among Male Kenyan Youth

“…Although “youth” and “ethnicity” are important identities through which young people develop and transmit their values, religion plays an important role within societal settings of East African youth in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda (Awiti and Orwa 2019, 426–27). Religion is an important way in which adolescents can synthesize their other identities into one whole (De Bruin‐Wassinkmaat, De Kock, Visser‐Vogel, Bakker and Barnard 2019, 72). Within the literature, the concept of adolescent identity formation is grounded in Erikson's theory of development which speaks of how young people structure childhood concepts of self and world into a coherent whole (De Bruin‐Wassinkmaat, De Kock, Visser‐Vogel, Bakker, and Barnard 2019, 72), what Erikson (1968, 136) himself refers to as the “counterpointing as well as the fusing of identities.” Elsewhere, Erikson (1968, 83) observes that the rituals involved in religious life bring wholeness to people as they go through the crises of life.…”