Calvinism And Domestic Violence

Psychology of Religion and Spirituality Religious Beliefs and Domestic Violence Myths by, Peter J. Jankowski, Steven J. Sandage, Miriam Whitney Cornell, Cheryl Bissonette, Andy J. Johnson, Sarah A. Crabtree, and Mary L. Jensen

Online First Publication, March 22, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rel0000154

I reformat the abstract, and state what I have often said here: Calvinism is not the cause of these things but there is, according to this study, a correlation between Calvinism and domestic violence. I have said this many times: it is not Calvinism per se but mostly males who use Calvinism’s hierarchical theories and sovereignty theories to perform and justify behaviors.

1. Religiousness has a long-standing presence in the research literature on intolerance. However, religiousness is minimally represented in the interpersonal violence myth (IPVM) literature. IPVMs comprise an aspect of the broader construct of intolerance.
2. We heeded the call to address research on tradition-specific religious beliefs and IPVMs. As such, we examined select Christian beliefs about Divine–human relating, hierarchical relational expectations, complementarian gender ideology, and existential defensiveness as predictors of Domestic violence myth acceptance (DVMA) using a sample of 238 students from a Protestant evangelical seminary (Mage 34.06, SD 9.33; range 22 – 62 years; 41.6% female; 80.7% White).
3. We observed positive associations among Calvinist tradition-specific religious beliefs and the 3 indicators of the latent construct of hierarchical relationality (i.e., hierarchical relational expecta- tions, gender complementarianism, and existential defensiveness).
4. We also observed (a) a positive indirect association between Calvinist beliefs and DVMA through the latent construct of hierarchical relationality, and (b) a negative indirect association between Calvinist beliefs and social justice advocacy through hierarchical relationality.
5. Last, we observed evidence of suppression as the significant positive bivariate association between Calvinist beliefs and DVMA became significant and negative.
6. Findings supported the conceptualization of domestic violence myths as comprised by nonacceptance of out-group members, hierarchical relationships, and gender inequality, and that an aspect of Calvinist ideology is similarly defined.
7. Implications included designing training programs for religious leaders and construct- ing prevention and intervention strategies that foster self-reflection on religious beliefs associated with DVMA.

We examined select tradition-specific religious beliefs (i.e., beliefs, informed by and consistent with the Calvinist tradition within Christianity) and beliefs about hierarchical relating, complementarian gender ideology, and specialness and certainty, and their association with DVMA. Findings suggested that DVMs are defined by nonacceptance of out-group members, hierarchical relationships, and gender inequality. Furthermore, given construct validation evidence for the DVMA scale, the scale may be used as a measure of the extent to which an individual holds stereotypes and prejudicial attitudes that blame the female victims of male perpetrated family violence. As such, the DVMA scale may be used to assess intolerant beliefs, which could then permit practitioners to tailor prevention and intervention strategies to target specific religious beliefs that support violence myth adherence.