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.
The
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
Christian cultures (i.e., groups or denominations). I’ll comment on the items
below.
The full
index used in the published article follows. It is presented by asking
respondents to rate the items using a 5-point rating scale from 1 = strongly
disagree to 5 = strongly agree.
Please
tell us a little about your Christian beliefs.
1. I have had a born-again
experience.
2. God heals some people
without human intervention.
3. All Christians are called
to share their faith with others.
4. People who do not accept
Jesus as their personal savior will spend eternity in hell.
Score the index by adding the values.
Scores can range from 4 to 20 unless you use a different metric. In our study,
the mean was 18.10 and the standard deviation was 2.19. The skew was -1.30,
which was acceptable (+/- 1.50). Kurtosis was also acceptable (1.61). Coefficient alpha for our study (Sutton et al., 2016) was adequate
(.76).
We have used the scale in other studies. Here are the alpha levels: .72 (Kelly et al., 2018) and .80 (Sutton, Kelly, & Huver, 2019).
Validity data indicate significant positive correlations with
other aspects of spirituality, which supports its use as measuring another
dimension of the construct, Christian spirituality. Following is a
table showing the Pearson Correlation Coefficients for the relationship between
the Beliefs Index and four other measures of Christian spirituality.
Index or Measure
|
Correlation
|
Personal Christian
Practices
|
.25*
|
Intratextual
Fundamentalism Items
|
.56*
|
Christian Social
Values
|
.52*
|
Christian Service
Scale
|
.22*
|
* p <
.01
Brief Discussion
We
designed the Christian Beliefs Index to obtain a more diverse view of Christian
beliefs than would be possible from reporting an affiliation with a
denomination or group. The born-again item (1) is a marker of evangelicalism
so, we would expect high scores reflecting this segment of Christianity. Although
many Christians believe in God’s healing power, the belief in divine healing (2)
without human intervention is more typical of Pentecostals and charismatics. Of
course, belief in miracles, including healing, is also a part of Catholic
teaching. The sharing of faith (3) is a Christian mandate and part of what it
means to be an evangelical Christian. Finally, the belief in Jesus as a
personal savior and the consequences of an eternity in hell is closer to
fundamentalism (4). Overall, high scores reflect a conservative type of
evangelical beliefs close to fundamentalism, which is supported by the shared
variance with the five-item Intratextual Fundamentalism Scale (Williamson,
Hood, Ahmad, Sadiq & Hill, 2010).
Note also
that these beliefs are significantly related to practices as we might expect
but the correlation is lower reflecting a difference between what people
believe and how they practice their faith.
The
Christian Beliefs Index may be used by teachers and researchers without
requesting permission. We just ask you cite either the Sutton, Arnzen, and
Kelly (2016) or Sutton (2017b) reference below, which are sources that provide the text of the scales. Of course, more recent studies will include the reliability and validity data.
References
Kelly, H.L., Sutton, G.
W, Hicks, L., Godfrey, A. & Gillihan, C. (2018). Factors predicting the
moral appraisal of sexual behavior in Christians. Journal of Psychology and
Christianity, 37, (2), 162-177.
Sutton, G. W. (2017a). Applied statistics:
Concepts for counselors, Second Edition. Springfield, MO: Sunflower. Amazon Paperback ISBN-10: 1521783926, ISBN-13:
978-1521783924
Sutton, G. W. (2017b).
Creating surveys: Evaluating programs and reading research. Springfield, MO:
Sunflower. Amazon Paperback
ISBN-10: 1522012729 ISBN-13: 978-1522012726
Sutton, G. W., Arnzen, C., & Kelly, H. (2016). Christian counseling and
psychotherapy: Components of clinician spirituality that predict type of
Christian intervention. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 35, 204-214.
Sutton,
G. W., Kelly, H. L., & Huver, M. (2019). Political identities, religious
identity, and the pattern of moral foundations among conservative Christians. Journal
of Psychology and Theology, 48, pp. 169-187. Accepted 6 September 2019. Online
October 16, 2019.
Williamson, W.P., Hood, R. W. Jr., Ahmad, A., Sadiq, M., Y Hill, P.C. (2010). The
intratextual fundamentalism scale: cross-cultural application, validity
evidence, and relationship with religious orientation and the Big 5 factor
markers. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 13, 721-747.
Read more about test and other statistics in Applied Statistics.
Read more about surveys, including assessment of
spirituality in Creating Surveys.
