Religious Commitment (RC)

The study of religion and spirituality has increased significantly both within society in general and within the field of psychology (Worthington et al., 2003). Religion involves communication with God and afterlife concerns (Allen & Spilka, 1967; Hammersla et al., 1986; Spilka et al., 1977; Worthington et al., 2003). One of the most important constructs in studying the psychology of religion is religious commitment (Wesselmann et al., 2016).

Previous studies of commitment equate it to regular attendance at the place of worship (Wesselmann et al., 2016). Religious commitment results in wellbeing and emotional coping for disturbed patients (Pfeifer & Waelty, 1995, 1999).

Religious commitment has many different meanings (Kirkpatrick & Shaver, 1990;

Williams, 1999). It refers to involvement in religious practices, supporting any religious norms, beliefs, or attitudes related to a community of faith (Craigie Jr et al., 1990; Levin & Schiller, 1987). Worthington (1988) defined religious commitment as the strength of the belief in religious values, beliefs, and practices. Family sociologists use the term ‘religious salience’

(Bahr et al., 1971; Gibbs et al., 1973; Hoge & De Zulueta, 1985). Religious commitment can

67 be defined in at least three general ways, through people’s use of symbols, observation of religious practice and reporting of religious thought (Clark & Worthington Jr, 1990). First, religious commitment can be explained by the prominence of symbols available in the family environment; second, through observing daily practice of religious behaviour such as: church attendance, bible reading or other religious behaviour; and finally, issues based on cognitive thinking (Clark & Worthington Jr, 1990; Markus, 1977, 1983). On the other hand, people with low religious commitment do not practise these thoughts and behaviours often.

Religious commitment has been operationalised and measured in many different ways (Cook & Wimberley, 1983; Hammersla et al., 1986) ranging from simple statements to complicated sets of attitudes and beliefs (Hill & Hood, 1999) as well as behaviours such as service attendance (Pfeifer & Waelty, 1995; Stack & Lester, 1991; Ullman, 1982). Most studies consider the implication of religious commitment to daily lives (Allen & Spilka, 1967; Roof &

Perkins, 1975; Worthington et al., 2003) and intrinsic religiosity (widely defined as the degree of religious belief to be central to adherents’ lives) to examine religious commitment (Burris et al., 1994; Kirkpatrick & Hood Jr, 1990; Williams, 1999).

The simple religious commitment measurement items consist of ten indicators (RCI-10) developed by (Worthington et al., 2003); these items have good reliability and validity.

However, although RCI-10 does not measure any specific religion, the measurement items are suitable for measuring the general religious commitment for any denomination. Hence, these measurement items are not applicable for this current thesis.

Other research measures religiosity using three dimensions: affiliation, participation and devotion (Ellison et al., 1989). The first dimension, affiliation, refers to membership to one of the religious denominations, and is self-reported to measure the strength of religiosity. The second dimension, participation, is regarded as the frequency of attendance at the religious services, including any religious community affairs. The third dimension, devotion, is related to (1) prayer frequency and (2) the secretiveness with God (Ellison et al., 1989). These

68 measurement items are used to measure Christianity. Thus, additional dimensions are needed to measure Muslim religiosity.

Five dimensions of religious commitment were measured and their significance to attitudes toward premarital sexual permissiveness were tested (Cardwell, 1969). Based on Glock (1962), previous research found that religious commitment is multi-dimensional and comprised: (1) the ritualistic behaviour dimension, (2) the religious knowledge, (3) the religious belief, (4) the religious self-definition and (5) the religious effects. The first dimension is the ritual which is concerned with what people “do” rather than what they

“believe” or “think”. The second dimension is the knowledge which relates to the basic knowledge about their religion. The third, religious belief, is related to something that considers to be a miraculous event that occurs to someone. The fourth, the self-definition, is how someone defines him or herself in terms of their religion. Lastly, the fifth dimension is the religious effect which relates to the impact of the first four dimensions on everyday life (Glock, 1962). These dimensions are related to Muslim religiosity.

In a later study, some of these dimensions were adopted to study Islamic religious commitment in Germany (El-Menouar & Stiftung, 2014). These authors argued that there are five dimensions in Muslim religiosity. These dimensions are (1) basic religiosity (BR), (2) central religious duties (CRD), (3) religious experience (RE), (4) religious knowledge (RK) and (5) orthopraxis (OR). Firstly, basic religiosity is related to religious belief and devotional practice. A Muslim who believes in the presence of Allah must perform the basic practice of Islam; such as, individual prayer in addition to the five daily prayers. Secondly, central religious duties consist of the five pillars of Islam. These are the declaration of faith, five times daily prayers, zakat (charity), fasting in the month of Ramadhan and the pilgrimage to Makkah or the Hajj. Thirdly is religious experience. This defined as the communication with Allah through prayers and other media. Fourthly is religious knowledge, it corresponds to the basic knowledge about Islam and its basic norms. The fifth, orthopraxis, was considered as a new

69 dimension in the previous research. Orthopraxis means the correct practice in Islam whereas orthodoxy in Christianity (El-Menouar & Stiftung, 2014) means theology, doctrine or understanding. This new dimension consists of all the practices related to the Quranic and the prophet Muhammad’s teachings; for example, whether Muslims can listen to music or not and whether hand-shaking between the opposite sex is allowed or not, and many more. However, as this dimension is still new, the author suggests that more research is needed (El-Menouar &

Stiftung, 2014).

Following the previous study, this thesis adopts the five dimensions of Muslim religiosity and applies them in the context of the Indonesian Hajj experience. The author assumes that when someone returns from the Hajj, his or her religiosity must be stronger than before undertaking the Hajj. The conceptual framework for this study will be discussed in the next section.