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Anger Toward God Among Chinese Christians

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Indigenous Psychology of Spirituality

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Indigenous Psychology ((PASIP))

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Abstract

Anger toward God is often considered as a threat to individuals’ mental and spiritual well-being. However, we argue that, according to Sundararajan’s (Understanding Emotion in Chinese Culture. Springer, Cham, Switzerland, 2015) theoretical framework, the relational nature of Chinese culture may have impact on the meaning of anger toward God among Chinese Christians. The present study differentiates “怒” (Nu, anger), a discrete personal emotion related to attributions of unfairness to God, from “怨” (Yuan, resentment), a more relational emotion associated with concerns about whether God was personally caring and protective or not. Using our newly developed Anger toward God Scale (AGS), results of correlational analysis indicated that comparing to Nu, Yuan was a less relationally toxic emotion, and had more to do with one’s well-being among Chinese Christians.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, Beijing, China

    Yin Yang

  2. School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Alvin Dueck

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  1. Yin Yang
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  2. Alvin Dueck
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Correspondence to Yin Yang .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Alvin Dueck

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Yang, Y., Dueck, A. (2021). Anger Toward God Among Chinese Christians. In: Dueck, A. (eds) Indigenous Psychology of Spirituality. Palgrave Studies in Indigenous Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50869-2_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50869-2_12

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-50868-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-50869-2

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