Research
- Affordable Housing and Community Development
- The Child in Law, Religion, and Society
- Christian Legal Studies
- Christian Jurisprudence II
- Islamic Legal Studies
- Jewish Legal Studies
- The Pursuit of Happiness
- The Vocabulary of Happiness and Love in Christianity
- Darwinian Approaches to Understanding Social Virtues Such as Forgiveness and Gratitude
- Imagining Human Flourishing: Good and Evil in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
- Giving to Others as a Source of Happiness for the Agent from the Perspectives of Psychology, Ethics, and Theology; Unselfed Love and the Happiness Effect
- Feeling Good, Doing Good, and Living Well: Evolutionary Perspectives on Eudaimonia
- The Pursuit of Happiness in the Face of Pain: Interpersonal Forgiveness, Well-Being, and Unselfish Love at the Intersection of Science and Religion
- Law, Religion, and Human Rights
- Sex, Marriage, and Family & the Religions of the Book
The Pursuit of Happiness
Project Description
Most famously formulated in the American Declaration of Independence, "the pursuit of happiness" theme is an ancient and enduring Western ideal grounded in various Hebrew, Greco-Roman, Christian, and Enlightenment sources. Recent developments in positive psychology have brought the idea of happiness back to public attention with a flurry of books and undergraduate courses. By putting religion and science in conversation, and by focusing on the relation between altruistic love and happiness, our project will retrieve some of the rich traditional teachings captured in this ideal and reconstruct them for our day in light of the new findings of the human and social sciences and of the new liberties of constitutional democracies.
Project Accomplishments
- Roundtable, October 13-15, 2006
- Roundtable, April 20-22, 2007
- Roundtable, October 12-14, 2007
- Roundtable, April 11-13, 2008
- Roundtable, April 17-19, 2009
- Roundtable, October 16-18, 2009
- Roundtable, April 16-18, 2010
Sponsors
The John Templeton Foundation and The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love
Directors
Senior Advisors
CSLR Participants
- Julia E. Annas
- John R. Bowlin
- Michael J. Broyde
- Sidney Callahan
- Ellen T. Charry
- W. Edward Craighead
- Robyn L. Fivush
- Eric S. Gregory
- Carl R. Holladay
- Corey L.M. Keyes
- Michael E. McCullough
- Carol A. Newsom
- Stephen J. Pope
- Jeffrey P. Schloss
- Brent A. Strawn
- Charlotte vanOyen Witvliet
Project Publications
| Title | Author, Editor, or Contributor | Links |
|---|---|---|
| "An Adaptation for Altruism? The Social Causes, Social Effects, and Social Evolution of Gratitude," Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2008): 281-285 | Michael E. McCullough, M.B. Kimeldorf, A. Cohen | |
Better to Give than to Receive: Service, Virtue and Happiness in Christian Ethics  |
Stephen J. Pope | |
| Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct, Jossey-Bass, 2008 | Michael E. McCullough | |
|
The Bible and the Pursuit of Happiness, Oxford University Press, 2012 |
Brent A. Strawn | |
"The Black-White Paradox in Health: Flourishing in the Face of Inequality," Journal of Personality  |
Corey L.M. Keyes | |
|
Called to Happiness: Where Faith and Psychology Meet, Orbis Books, 2011 |
Sidney Callahan | |
| "Compassion- focused reappraisal, benefit-focused reappraisal, and rumination after an interpersonal offense: Emotion regulation implications for subjective emotion, linguistic responses, and physiology," Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol. 5 (2010): 226-242 | Charlotte vanOyen Witvliet | |
|
"Compassionate reappraisal and emotional suppression as alternatives to rumination: Implications for forgiveness and psychophysiological well-being," Journal of Positive Psychology |
Charlotte vanOyen Witvliet | |
|
Counting Virtues: The Difference that Transcendence Makes, Oxford University Press |
John R. Bowlin | |
|
"The Effects of Experiential Avoidance and Rumination on Depression," International Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy |
W. Edward Craighead, A. Bjornsson, M. Hauser, A. Karris, V. Kaufmann, E.S. Sheets |
Projects in the News
-
CSLR to host 'Pursuit of Happiness' Lecture Series in September
August 09 2010 -
New Book Proposes ‘Moral Freedom’ as Test for Controversial Laws
April 04 2010 -
CSLR's Van der Vyver Named Extraordinary Professor in South Africa
December 09 2009 -
Alexander Named Atlanta 'Housing Hero'
November 24 2009 -
Christianity and Law Book is Best Seller
October 20 2009 -
Richard Garnett Speaks about Supreme Court, Constitutional Law on YouTube
October 06 2009 -
Children get Spotlight in New Book about World Religions
October 05 2009 -
New Book Seeks to Explain Methodist's Doctrine in Experience
September 21 2009 -
New Book Explores Competing Paradigms in Children's Rights
September 21 2009 -
Broyde Receives Grant for Study on Husbands Missing Since 9/11
September 18 2009
In Their Own Words
"Pointing to the banality of evil does not make humans, nazis or others, less culpable morally. Humans are responsible for the evil they do, regardless of why they do it. They are accountable before humanity and God. ... Pointing to the banality of goodness does not diminish it in any way. An act is good when it is caring, when it protects the life and rights of others, no matter who does it, or where, or why."
–David R. Blumenthal