Abstract
Although biblical literalism is one of the most powerful ideological indicators of religiousness in the sociological study of religion, we know very little about its role vis-à-vis mental health. This is a surprising oversight, given the centrality of the Bible to both public and private religious practice in the USA. This study considers whether the belief in biblical literalism is associated with general mental health and anxiety, and whether this relationship is moderated by gender and two dimensions of religiosity: attendance and attachment to God. Data are drawn from the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey (N = 1360). Regression results suggest that stronger beliefs in biblical literalism are associated with better mental health and lower anxiety, but only among women who attend religious services weekly. However, women holding strong literalist views but falling short of weekly attendance norms reported worse mental health. There was no evidence that the relationship between biblical literalism and mental health differed by attachment to God. The implications of these results for the broader study of religion and health are discussed in light of prior research on the “dark side” of religion, recognizing that causal claims cannot be made due to the cross-sectional nature of the data.
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Notes
Prior work has demonstrated the effectiveness of this strategy for modelling Bible views for several outcomes, compared with treating biblical literalism as a binary or standard 5-category ordinal variable, including views toward, abortion, images of God, and same-sex marriages (e.g., see Franzen and Griebel 2013; Whitehead and Perry 2015).
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Upenieks, L. Does the Belief in Biblical Literalism Matter for Mental Health? Assessing Variations by Gender and Dimensions of Religiosity. J Relig Health 61, 175–202 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-021-01334-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-021-01334-2