When God’s People Hurt God’s People: Understanding Church Hurt and Its Impact on Religious Identity

Abstract

This investigation sought to identify, operationalize, and test the lay concept of church hurt as it relates to religious and spiritual struggles and its impact on deidentification from religion. Three studies were conducted. The first study employed cognitive interviews to provide preliminary construct research and to create a novel church hurt scale. The second study administered the novel scale to participants in Texas and India. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and unidimensional reliability testing provided face, construct, and item validity for each item and the total scale. Lastly, the third study explored the effects of church hurt and unforgiveness motivations on religious affiliation status. The Church Hurt Scale-40 and the TRIM-18 were administered to participants. Mann Whitney U tests and mediation modeling revealed differences in church hurt scores amongst affiliated and disaffiliated participants, with avoidance being the highest motivator for disaffiliated groups. A small amount of evidence also points to the benefit of engaging in pro-social, benevolent motivations and how they buffer against disaffiliating or being in the disaffiliated group.