More than one psychology of religion in the house of the International Association for the Psychology of religion

© 2016 by Koninklijke Brill NV. All rights reserved. In his minutely constructed book on the history of psychology of religion, Belzen pays correct attention to the organizational and methodological contributions of Antoine Vergote in the course of the last half of this century long history. In this short article, the author highlights a few aspects of Vergote's intellectual approach in the psychology of religion that inevitably remain underexposed in Belzen's already long book. First focus is the background of Vergote's plea for a strict neutrality, be it with interest, and thus benevolent, as the basic attitude of the researcher in this domain. Despite this plea, it is quite clear how much his own approach was influenced by his personal reading of Christianism. Second, the author focuses the "Latin" (French) sources of inspiration in the work of Vergote. And he hypothesizes that this probably is the reason for the lack of a widespread influence of his work in the international world of the psychology of religion.

ISBN:9789004322004

Publication year:2016