Religious Coping in a Religious Minority Group: A Qualitative Study among Pentecostal Danes

Religious coping in Denmark has primarily been studied among the Danish majority with whom religious practice is limited. The aim of this study is to explore a small sample of Danish Pentecostals’ experiences of religious coping. The study includes semi-structured interviews with eighteen Danish Pentecostals facing a psychological crisis. Qualitative methods are applied for generating and analyzing the data material. The theme of religious individualism ran through the participants’ talk of religious coping in relation to fellow believers, reading the Bible, and personal experiences of God. Religious individualism was characterized by: A lived expectation of having one’s specific individual needs met through one’s religiosity. The findings from this study show that having specific individual needs met was central for the religious faith of the participants. They used both individualistic and institutional religious understandings when constructing their religious lives.