Religious in my own way: students’ religious relativism and self-actualizing values

The article argues about the important challenges religion is facing in the global society: the relativization of some values and practices and the privatization of its public role. Pluralist options, rationalization and overspecialization are some of the modern values who are seriously reshaped the way individuals perceive the relation with religion in general and with various religious communities in particular. Students from public Universities in five Romanian cities, all Orthodox Christian (N = 626) have been interviewed on their social, ecological and religious values using an omnibus questionnaire and filed operators. More than 70% have defined themselves as ‘religious in their own way’ and this group share also higher environmental and feminist values, compare to the group of students who declare ‘they are religious and they follow church advises’. The data suggest that ‘the religious in their own way’ group have maintained some general accepted religious values as ‘the power of prayer’ or ‘the importance of believing in God’ but they lack religious community involvement and the church attendance is limited to the main Christian celebrations.