Earth as a School: Finding Meaning, Relating to God, and Experiencing Growth After a Natural Disaster

This project will explore Sir John's idea that the "earth [is] a school" for building people's souls and catalyzing spiritual growth through adversity. Our focus will be on natural disasters, which are increasing in frequency and severity. Over the past 60 years, there has been a tenfold increase in the worldwide annual incidence of natural disasters, and the world’s 5 costliest natural disasters have occurred in the past 20 years, with 3 striking in the last decade. The effects of disasters on people's mental health is widely studied, but their effects on people's religious/spiritual (RS) lives is not. Therefore, there are many unanswered questions for scientific researchers to explore. Our projects are based on Sir John's belief that regardless of circumstance or challenge, people are capable of pursuing purpose and living abundantly. In particular, our projects explore answers to Big Questions such as how natural disasters affect the ways survivors find meaning, think about and relate to God, and ultimately grow and flourish from the experience of adversity. To help answer these Big Questions, we will carry out 4 Core Projects and 3 Supplemental Projects. Project 1 will take place in a lab setting as we rigorously test the predictions of our underlying theoretical model. Projects 2, 3, and 4 will take place in an actual disaster setting, as we use diverse scientific methods to study natural disaster survivors over time. In our Supplemental Projects, we will conduct Opportunity Studies and use previously collected data to help answer our Big Questions. Our project will result in 15 academic articles, 10 scholarly presentations, 6 lay-accessible resources, and 21 datasets. Ultimately, this project will advance scientific understanding and public awareness about how people can grow through adversity, in addition to catalyzing breakthroughs in the provision of evidence-based spiritual and emotional care to disaster survivors.