Indonesian students’ religiousness, comfort, and anger toward God during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many religious college students have found comfort in God, while others may have developed anger toward God; however, no studies have systematically compared the multidimensional effects of religiousness on how Muslim and Christian students react to stressors such as COVID-19. This study addressed this gap in the literature by investigating which of the Four Basic Dimensions of Religiousness Scale (4-BDRS: believing, bonding, behaving, and belonging) were significant predictors for both taking comfort in and feeling anger toward God among Muslim ( n = 550) and Christian ( n = 334) college students in Indonesia, while also controlling for the influence of neuroticism, a known predictor for attitudes toward God. Muslims reported that all dimensions of the 4-BDRS were significant predictors of comfort, with bonding as a negative predictor (β = –.09, p = .04), while Christians reported that belonging (β = .07, p = .34) was the only insignificant predictor. Muslims reported that believing (β = –.22, p ⩽ .001) and behaving (β = –.19, p = .002) were negative predictors of anger, while Christians reported negative effects only for bonding (β = –.17, p = .04); however, bonding did not significantly predict anger when analyzed separately for men and women. Therefore, to decrease their anger toward and increase the comfort they find in God, Muslims must focus on their beliefs and exercise the commandments of Islam. Christians, though, must focus on increasing cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of religiousness to find comfort, while having better personal relationships with God could be key in reducing anger toward God.

Anger toward God and well-being in Ukrainian war refugees: the serial mediating influence of faith maturity and decisional forgiveness

“…In this study, we set out to assess anger toward God, one aspect of religious attitudes, and its associations with well-being among war refugees from Ukraine who arrived in Poland and Germany. As hypothesized, anger toward God was a negative predictor of faith maturity, forgiveness and well-being (psychological and spiritual) among victims of the Russian military invasion, which corresponds with the consensus in the literature (Aditya et al, 2022;Exline et al, 2013;Hui et al, 2011;Knabb & Grigorian-Routon, 2014;Mickley et al, 2017;Murray-Swank, 2003). In addition, greater exposure to war (e.g.…”

“…Many findings indicate that anger at God can have a negative impact on physical, mental and spiritual well-being (Aditya et al, 2022;Exline et al, 2013). A study by Fitchett et al (1999) found an association between anger at God and poorer recovery in medical rehabilitation inpatients.…”