‘It is never good. Really, it’s just never good’: A dominant theme in the life story accounts of strictly Reformed-raised emerging adults about their religious identity development

This article presents a striking finding of our research into the religious
identity commitments and process of religious identity development
of emerging adults who grew up in strictly Reformed contexts in the
Netherlands. We observed a recurrent theme in the life story accounts
we studied. Almost all the participants expressed that they feel or felt
not good enough for God or believers within strictly Reformed contexts.
In this article, we explore this theme and show how feelings of
not being good enough are related to various aspects of participants’
strictly Reformed upbringing, such as specific beliefs and specific ideal
images. In addition, we show which experiences go along with feelings
of not being good enough. Last, we discuss the findings, provide
suggestions for future research and point to directions for further
reflections by educators.