Cathedrals as agents of psychological health and well-being within secular societies: Assessing the impact of the Holly Bough service in Liverpool Cathedral

Leslie J Francis,Susan H Jones

doi:10.4102/hts.v76i3.6250

Abstract

This study is designed to test the hypothesis that events like the Holly Bough service held in Liverpool Cathedral on the fourth Sunday of Advent that attracts a wide range of participants, including regular churchgoers and occasional (sometimes annual) visitors, contribute significantly to the psychological health and well-being of these participants. At the Holly Bough service held in 2019, a total of 383 participants (139 men, 229 women and 15 individuals who preferred anonymity) completed a recognised measure of psychological health and well-being (the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire) whilst they were waiting for the service to begin and again during a 5-min organ improvisation just before the close of the service. The data demonstrated a significantly higher score on the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire at time 2 than at time 1, suggesting that the experience of the service functioned as an agent of psychological health and well-being. Contribution: Situated within the science of cathedral studies, this paper confirms by means of a repeated-measure study that cathedrals promote psychological health; 383 participants at a Christmas service completed the same well-being measure before and after the service, with a significant increase in scores at time two.

Highlights

The developing science of cathedral studies draws attention to the multiple functions fulfilled by cathedrals within the local areas in which they are located. Coleman (2019:120) succinctly voiced, ‘the double identities of English cathedrals as places of religious engagement and as locations of heritage’
The first step in data analysis concerned an examination of the psychometric properties of the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire in terms of the alpha coefficient (Cronbach 1951) as an index of internal consistency reliability, the correlations between the individual items and the sum of the other 28 items as a measure of the contribution of each item towards the homogeneity of the scale and the item endorsement as an index of the variability in item discrimination
This study set out to assess the extent to which extant research findings could sustain the claim that cathedrals act as agents of psychological health and well-being within secular societies

Summary

Introduction

The developing science of cathedral studies draws attention to the multiple functions fulfilled by cathedrals within the local areas in which they are located. Coleman (2019:120) succinctly voiced, ‘the double identities of English cathedrals as places of religious engagement and as locations of heritage’. Recent studies have suggested that cathedrals may be making a positive contribution to psychological health and well-being through both of these identities. At the heart of cathedrals there is a congregation of people who meet for worship on a Sunday. The science of cathedral studies draws attention to ways in which these congregations may be reaching some people whom parish churches may be failing to reach, people who somehow just do not fit into the psychological profile of church congregations (Francis & Lankshear 2015) and who may be more motivated than many churchgoers by asking religious questions (Francis & Lankshear in press). Some commentators have speculated that people choose to worship in cathedrals to avoid commitment to richer engagement in church life. Are signs that cathedrals enhance both personal http://www.hts.org.za

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