Crisis Of Faith In Gay Christians: An Examination Using Transformational Learning Theory

This paper examines the social work practice issue of Christian, homosexual individuals facing a crisis of faith. The phrase crisis of faith, though commonly used in scholarly text and popular culture, is not clearly defined in religious, philosophical, or sociological literature. This paper, therefore, will refer to the Wikipedia (2005) definition: "Crisis of faith is a term commonly applied to periods of intense doubt and internal conflict about one's preconceived beliefs or life decisions. A crisis of faith . . . demands reconciliation or reevaluation before one can continue believing in whichever tenet is in doubt or continuing in whatever life path is in question." (Para 1) This practice issue will be examined using Mezirow’s (1991) transformational learning theory, which is particularly pertinent because it focuses on making new meanings during and after a crisis. There is relatively little scholarly research on this subject, especially from a social work perspective. Furthermore, there is almost no literature analyzing this issue using transformational learning theory.