Styles of Faith: Introduction to Theory and Research in Faith Development (Brill Research Perspectives in Religion and Psychology)

From decades of conceptual and empirical work on faith development, the authors present the current state of theory and research. The understanding of faith is advanced from James Fowler’s original Stages of Faith. With reference to Paul Tillich’s notion of faith as ultimate concern and with reference to new developments in psychology and phenomenological philosophy, however, the authors sharpen what faith and faith style development could mean in today’s jeopardized world and its rapidly changing religious landscapes. Theoretical considerations are supported by recent results about faith development based on data from two-decades-long empirical investigation in the USA and Germany.

Heinz Streib is Senior Professor at the University of Bielefeld, where he conducts research in the psychology of religion. There he established and directed the Research Center for Biographical Studies in Contemporary Religion. He received his Ph.D. from Emory University, Atlanta in 1989. He is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion. His research interests focus on biographical-reconstructive and psychometric assessment of change and faith development over the lifespan, deconversion, fundamentalism, the semantics of spirituality, and xenosophia. He was selected by the American Psychological Association Division 36 as the recipient of the 2026 William C. Bier Award.

Zhuo Job Chen is Associate Professor at the School of Nursing and an affiliate faculty at Health Psychology, University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He received early career awards from the International Association for Psychology of Religion and American Psychological Association Division 36.