Lived Religion, Conversion and Recovery

The central theme of this book is the nexus between the self, the social, and the sacred in conversion and recovery. The contributions explore the complex interactions that occur between the person, the sacred, and various recovery situations, which can include prisons, substance abuse recovery settings and domestic violence shelters.

With an interdisciplinary approach to the study of conversion, the collection provides an opportunity for a better understanding of lived religion, guilt, shame, hope, forgiveness, narrative identity reconstruction, religious coping, religious conversion and spiritual transformation. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of lived religion, religious conversion, recovery, homelessness, and substance dependence.

• Faith-based recovery
• Non-clinical recovery support
• Substance dependence
• occupational health
• spirituality

“This book breaks new ground in the field of religion and recovery. Its theme is lived religion (not merely its academic study) in people’s healing from particularly negative circumstances such as prison, domestic violence, substance dependence, and homelessness. The thru-line is not about mere beliefs, teachings, or rituals, but people’s everyday lives – as feeling & behaving manifest their religions in reparative contexts. Its research participants come from the US, Canada, Brazil, Russia, Peru; and as prisoners, homeless, and victims of domestic violence. Thus, in addition to being insightful and integrative, this book is cross-cultural and trans-religions; it contains a wealth of perspective.” — Raymond F. Paloutzian, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Westmont College, USA

“Sremac and Jindra’s new book adds fascinating new perspectives on the nature of conversion and provides illuminating theories, methods, and contexts for enriching the enterprise. The focus on lived religion in diverse settings is both provocative and innovative. I highly recommend this book as providing us with a new paradigm of how to expand the horizons in the study of the dynamics of converting processes.” — Lewis R. Rambo, Research Professor of Psychology and Religion at the San Francisco Theological Seminary, USA, and Editor of Pastoral Psychology

• Faculty of Religion and Theology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

  Srdjan Sremac

• Gordon College, Wenham, USA

  Ines W. Jindra

Srdjan Sremac is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Religion and Theology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Co-Director of the Amsterdam Center for the Study of Lived Religion, The Netherlands.

Ines W. Jindra is Associate Professor of Social Work in the Department of Sociology and Social Work at Gordon College, and also Visiting Scholar at the Boisi Center at Boston College, USA.

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