Christian von Scheve of the Freie Universitat Berlin interviews Donovan Schaefer on religious affects at the Affective Societies Collaborative Research Centre at FUB, November 2016. http://affective-societies.de/en/2016/collective/c02/an-interview-with-donovan-schaefer-on-religious-affects/

What kind of affective phenomenon is religious zeal and how does it relate to other affective phenomena, such as moral anger, hatred, and love? In this paper, I argue that religious zeal can be both, and be presented and interpreted as both, a love-like passion and an anger-like emotion. As a passion, religious zeal consists of the loving devotion to a transcendent religious object or idea such as God. It is a relatively enduring attachment that is constitutive of who the zealot is, and it expresses itself in a distinctive set of mental and behavioral dispositions. Most importantly, it motivates uncompromising actions and involves intense, hot, and deep emotions. As an anger-like emotion, religious zeal is an occurrent affective state of mind that is intentionally directed towards a specific (immanent) object, characteristically a person or group of persons. It condemns the violation of a religious norm that is taken to be of absolute validity and general applicability. It motivates...

This article argues that religious emotions are variations of general emotions that we already know from our everyday life, which nevertheless exhibit specific features that enable us to think of them as forming a coherent subclass. The article claims that there is an experience of joy, sorrow, regret, fear, and so on that is specifically religious. The aim is to develop an account that specifies what makes them "religious." The argument is developed in three stages. The first section develops a phenomenologi-cally inspired account of the emotions by focusing on three of their moments: phenomenal quality, cognitive dependency, and intentionality. Drawing on this theory, section 2 distinguishes the class of religious emotions from similar phenomena. The third and final section examines the main features of religious emotions. keywords: religious emotion, phenomenology of the emotions, emotional depth, religious values, value sensitiviity

The recent atheism/theism debates have focuses too much on the competing beliefs of both groups. But religion is a set of feelings (affects) first, group identity second, and beliefs only last.

This paper is a call for theologians to take up the task of thinking about psychology. By "psychology" I mean the study of the soul's (and mind's) powers (or modules) and the body/soul relation (so, in the sense that the term was first used by Melanchthon). I think this is necessary largely because theologians already have psychological commitments, but these can be badly considered. This paper will illustrate the potential of theological psychology by suggesting a contribution in one area, the impasse about the nature of emotion between philosophers (and theologians) and psychologists. I will first illustrate instances of the following maxim within theological discourse: “our emotions may reveal what we truly believe.” I will argue that this is connected with a somewhat Stoic, cognitivist approach to emotions that predominates in theology. While this view enjoys some important biblical warrant, I will point out some problems with this view especially for those with mental health issues. I will contrast this with the non-cognitivist view. This view seems better suited to explain mental health, but fails to treat emotion within a moral and teleological framework. Finally, I will suggest a mediating framework from Aquinas merely to illustrate how theology can draw on its own (especially medieval) resources to sharpen its thinking about these issues.