Assessment, Statistics, and Research

The Attachment to God Inventory (AGI) developed by Richard Beck and Angie McDonald (2004) consists of 28 items divided into two subscales (14 items each for Avoidant and Anxious Attachment). The AGI is based on attachment theory as applied to the study of the relationship between Christians and God commonly portrayed as a parent-child relationship and referred to in the literature as attachment to God (e.g., Kirkpatrick, 2012).  Avoidant attachment refers to a sense of distance from God. People close to God view God as protective.  Anxious attachment reflects an insecure relationship with God in contrast to a secure relationship. Participants rate each scale item from 1= disagree strongly to 7 = agree strongly . A sample item from the avoidant subscale is, “I prefer not to depend too much on God.” A sample item from the anxious subscale is, “I worry a lot about my relationship with God.” Based on two college and one community samples, Beck and McDonald ...

One way to think about the components of religion is three-dimensional, which includes  beliefs, practices, and experiences.  A few years ago, a group of us studied Christian counseling to discover what Christian counselors actually did that was different from other counselors (Sutton, Arnzen, & Kelly, 2016). We wanted to get more specific about the identity of Christian counselors--beyond a simple checklist of their affiliation with a large group such as Presbyterian or a movement such as Pentecostal. As part of our plan to be more specific about spirituality, we created a few measures.  Previously, I reported on a scale for assessing spiritual practices . This time I present a measure of beliefs, the Christian   Beliefs Index .             T he wording of the items clearly applies to the Christian faith, but the point of our measure was to be more precise about the diversity of beliefs within C...