Adam Green – ACT Fellowship Application: Divine Hiddenness in Cross-Cultural Perspective

I was awarded a cross-training grant beginning in July of 2019 for 3 years. When I was offered and accepted a position at a new university, it became necessary to wind down the grant at my old institution a year early and apply anew for what would have been the third year through the new institution. Prior to embarking on the grant, I had become increasingly focused on divine absence and its connection to related topics like the natural knowledge of God and secularization narratives. Through the first two years of the grant, I have been able to explore evolutionary approaches to culture and gain a representative sense of the bearing of cultural anthropology upon this topic. In this transferred third year of the grant, I would build upon this foundation in three primary ways. The first would be targeted research that uses the work from the first two years to pinpoint what literatures in these disciplines would fill remaining lacunae in my understanding of these topics. For example, I have highlighted the current work of Pascal Boyer on what he calls "wild religion" and Joseph Bulbulia's work on secularization and de-secularization as highly salient and would pursue personalized tutorials with each of them. Second, under the guidance of my cross-training mentor Justin Barrett, I would conduct one to two empirical studies, which would provide me a foundation going forward to contribute to the psychological literature directly and not just by way of commenting on its philosophical implications or conceptual foundations. Third, I would get the chance to write an interdisciplinary monograph reflecting what I have learned about divine hiddenness from a scientific lens and soliciting feedback on it from a team of anthropologists, psychologists, and theologians.