Adverse Childhood Experiences, Religious Coping, and Congregational Support among Black Clergy and Religious Leaders

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In contemporary writing generalizations can be avoided by putting a study or research into a specific context, that is what I would advise it is done in this paper. What is the target audience of the paper? I could detect few minor typological errors that can be picked up in the final re-reading of the article. 

Author Response

We are appreciative for the feedback. We added the more specific identifier of Black American Christian clergy to further contextualize the study in the abstract as well as specified that we wrote implications for religious leaders and seminary professors to signal this is our target audience. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This essay is timely and pertinent in that it addresses several key, interrelated issues regarding Black clergy in a particular setting, such as childhood "adverse experience", the function of  religious coping, and the place and role of the faith community as an ecology of care. 

The author(s) suggestion (thesis?)--adverse childhood experiences of Black religious leaders can be a significant contributor to their occupational and mental health distress--was confirmed by the results of the study.  

Further research can be reframed in terms of inersectionality and oriented to enhance ministerial formation of Black religious pastors and other leaders, and a practical ecclesiology of church as community of health and wholeness.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

In general, the quality of the English language is good. Light copyediting will be helpful in order to communicate more clearly complex research-connected descriptions and explanations along the way in the essay.

Author Response

We are thankful for your feedback. We read through the manuscript again for the sake of light copy-editing and made a few changes.