Positive Relational Transformation in Religious Families: Supports and Catalysts for Meaningful Change

• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Author: Ashley Tuft Spencer,Loren D. Marks,David C. Dollahite,Heather H. Kelley
• Date: 01 December 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12440

A T SUtah State University

L D. M, D C. D,  H H. KBrigham Young University

Positive Relational Transformation in Religious

Families: Supports and Catalysts for

Meaningful Change

Objective: The purpose of this article is to qual-

itatively explore how religion can be a cata-

lyst or support for positive, spontaneous trans-

formations in families and the timing of these

transformations.

Background: There is a paucity of empirical

literature that discusses how positive change

or transformation occurs within families inde-

pendent of professional intervention. Research

has shown that religion can have many posi-

tive inuences on family relationships, but more

research is needed that explores religion and

religiosity as a transformative agent in familial

relationships.

Method: Using interviews from 198 racially

diverse, marriage-based families (N=476 par-

ticipants) from Abrahamic faiths (Christianity,

Judaism, and Islam), we employed a team-based

methodology to code and analyze accounts of

positive relational transformation.

Results: Two themes relating to the timing of

transformation, gradual and sudden, along with

supports and catalysts for these transformations

were identied from qualitative data analysis.

Brigham Young University, School of Family Life, 2086

JFSB, Provo, UT 84602 (loren_marks@byu.edu).

Key Words: families, family relationships, grounded the-

ory, life course perspective,marital relationships, relational

transformation, qualitative, religion, spirituality, sponta-

neous transformation.

These themes are presented with supportive

illustrations.

Conclusion: For some families, religious expe-

riences did reportedly help inspire and trans-

form their marriages and family relationships.

Implications: This study suggests that reli-

gion can lead to positive transformation in

families, and thus religion may be an effective

tool families, religious leaders, and thera-

pists can use to improve and transform family

relationships.

Some struggling families can recover, improve,

and ourish without professional help. This

reality raises signicant questions for family

researchers and practitioners. Most notably, how

do these families do it—what are the processes

involved? Why are some families able to trans-

form disunity and dysfunction into synchrony

and syntropy? One possible answer relates

to faith.

Although a good deal of research has iden-

tied shared religion as having a positive

inuence on various domains of marital and

familial functioning, less is known about the

processes behind these positive outcomes

(Marks & Dollahite, 2011). More research is

needed to further our understanding regarding

how religion can lead to or support posi-

tive transformations in families, dened by

Mahoney (2010) as the “fundamental changes

1514Family Relations 70 (December 2021): 1514–1528

DOI:10.1111/fare.12440