Religion's Role in Organizing Family Relationships: Family Process in Rural, Two-Parent African American Families

Abstract

One million African American families live in the rural South (Lick, 1986). These families are at risk for unemployment, low wages, low educational levels, substandard housing, and high infant mortality rates (Coward & Smith, 1993). The challenges confronting them are especially significant because of the lack of facilities, amenities, and services to which many urban African American families commonly have access (Lick, 1986). Identifying the factors that might protect these families against the effects of the risks they face is of great importance (Luthar & Zigler, 1990). One protective factor that is of special importance to African American families is religious activity. Investigators (e.g., McAdoo, 1983; Taylor, Thornton, & Chatters, 1987) have found religious participation to be an important component of African Americans' lives. The church contributes to cohesion in the African American community by acting as an agency of moral guidance, a conservator of political leadership, and the center of community life (Taylor & Chatters, 1991). The potential benefits of African Americans' religious participation are underscored by research indicating that religious belief and activity form an important coping mechanism for negotiating life's stresses (Krause & Tran, 1989; Taylor & Chatters, 1991). As Taylor & Chatters (1991) noted, the traditional otherworldly emphasis of many churches, particularly in the rural South, was black religion's remedy for the deleterious effects of pervasive discrimination and racism, and the resulting psychological alienation and demoralization (p. 106). The importance of religion in the lives of many African Americans persists today, making the church an important source of support in the African American community.There are several means through which religiosity may organize family relationships. First, religious participation provides spiritual assistance, delineates norms for moral and interpersonal behavior, and acts as a source of social support (Taylor et al., 1987). A variety of social psychological studies have described the positive correlation of formal religiosity with measures of coping and internal control during periods of adversity (Balk, 1983; Palmer & Noble, 1986). Of particular relevance to this study is the suggestion that people who are religious cope with stress in more adaptive ways; they are more optimistic and more focused in their coping efforts (Seligman, 1991). All of these benefits of religious participation are likely to influence family interactions positively. Second, the belief system upon which the Judeo-Christian religious tradition is based promotes a prosocial orientation toward relationships in general, and family relationships in particular. The values of loving one's family and neighbors, and forgiving one's enemies, are prominent (Thomas & Henry, 1988; Wuthnow, 1991). In several studies, religiosity has been found to be positively associated with marital adjustment (Bahr & Chadwick, 1985; Wilson & Filsinger, 1986) and marital stability (Shrum, 1980).None of these investigations, however, included rural African American families. In this article we examine the links between formal religiosity and several family relationship variables--marital quality, parental co-caregiver relationships, and parent-child relationships--in a group of rural two-parent African American families with a child in early adolescence. The model we propose was constructed based on the hypothesis that parental religiosity contributes to the organization of rural African American family relationships.RELIGIOSITY AND FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS AMONG RURAL AFRICAN AMERICAN FAMILIESIn Figure 1 we present an overview of the conceptual model that guided this research. (Figure 1 omitted) Maternal and paternal religiosity were assessed separately using a measure of formal religiosity, defined as the frequency with which each parent attends church and the importance to each parent of church attendance. …