Margaret M. Poloma

As part of a large scientific survey if 1,200 men and women across the United States Matthew T. Lee, Margaret M. Poloma, Stephen G. Post describe their conclusions in The Heart of Religion, Spiritual Empowerment, Benevolence, and the Experience of God's Love. Superficially an average American may chase his dream, career and money, but underneath millions are searching meaning in life in a religion. While the researches would like to compare results from Christianity with Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, the statistics only had relevance now on Christians.
Though some distinguish between religion and a relation with God, the survey didn't show a significant difference. So, both terms seem to mean still the same. And the awareness of God's love and prayer as a way of interaction with Him is very important.
Next step is to see whether religion matter as to benevolence, spiritual and physical healing and empowerment to speak in tongues, experience miracles, and care about the poor, social injustice, etc. Added to the survey, the authors interviewed 120 Christian men and women who are engaged in benevolent service, ministries and churches. Their stories not only show a living faith, but also cultural lenses to religion and spiritual experiences. Denominations like Pentecostals, Mormons, Presybyterians influence the way we raise our children and are more or less focused on internal (church) matters or the world around us
Mixing statistics with personal stories has its pros, like offering more than just tables and figures, and cons as well, like telling parts of each personal story over and over again. The book would have even more value when a comparison was made with other religions or other Christians outside the US.… (meer)