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.
The way people and organisations describe or depict nature betrays their fundamental attitude towards nature. In this PhD thesis views of nature are seen as digestions of meaningful experiences of nature in which a religious depth can be identified. This PhD thesis contains both theoretical and empirical evidence to answer the question whether (implicit) religious elements play a role in the communication regarding nature in the Netherlands. The conclusion shows that the communication regarding nature is religionised to some extent, but there is no mentioning of a personal God or other reference to a supernatural reality.This PhD thesis also shows that the religious depth dimension does not explicitly come to the fore in what visitors are saying. The result is that this thesis, in addition to the question regarding the appropriateness of religious subtexts in the communication regarding nature, also questions whether these subtexts are convincing from the perspective of the visitors.
The way people or organizations describe or depict nature conveys their view of nature. In the Dutch discourse, views of nature are mostly conceived as socio-cultural constructs regarding the character, value, and appreciation of nature. Views of nature tell us how we perceive nature and how we want to relate to it. Likewise, they shape our preferences for certain types of nature. Views of nature function as frames and provide an interpretive and reflective context for our experiences with nature. Views of nature are also digestions of meaningful experiences. It is through communication that we become aware of such experiences. We argue that meaningful experiences have religious depth. On the basis of this argument any discourse on nature contains, in a sense, religious subtexts. We examine the Dutch discourse on nature.
