University Students

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Three-fifths of UK university students claim to belong to some religion, but most do not regard themselves as particularly religious. And although three-quarters accept that there are clear ethical principles differentiating right from wrong, only one-third think they should always be applied regardless of circumstances.

These are the headline findings from a multinational survey of university students published by Spain’s BBVA Foundation on 2 December. Face-to-face interviews were conducted by Ipsos MORI between March and June 2010.

The sample comprised 3,000 students who had completed at least two years of higher education study in each of six countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. The aggregate sample of 18,000 was drawn from 35 to 50 universities per country.

The proportion of UK university students belonging to a religion (60%) was much the same as in Spain, more than in France (50%) but lower than in Germany, Italy and Sweden (70%).

On a religiosity scale ranging from 0 (not religious at all) to 10 (very religious), UK students averaged 3.5, some way behind their counterparts in Italy (5.1) but ahead of France and Germany (3.4), Spain (3.2), and Sweden (2.7).

UK students were most inclined to discern ethical guidelines about what is right and wrong, 76% compared with 71% in Spain, 66% in Sweden, 64% in Italy, 55% in Germany and 49% in France.

Italy (47%) headed the list of students thinking that ethical principles should always be applied, regardless of circumstances, followed by Germany (40%), Spain (39%), UK (33%), France (31%), and Sweden (15%).

Swedish students (76%) were most likely to argue that those principles should be applied flexibly, in accordance with the circumstances of the time. 61% of UK students took the same line, with Spain on 57%, France on 53%, Germany on 48%, and Italy on 43%.

Attitudes to seven moral situations were also assessed, with students from the UK and all other countries finding them generally acceptable. Living as a couple without getting married was regarded most tolerantly by UK students, but even abortion, which scored lowest, achieved 6.5 on an acceptability scale of 0 (totally unacceptable) to 10 (totally acceptable).

However, religious affiliation did have an impact on moral attitudes. Thus, whereas the acceptability of abortion among UK students was 7.7 for those who did not belong to a religion, it fell to 5.6 for religious affiliates. The corresponding scores for the acceptability of a homosexual couple adopting a child were 7.5 and 5.9 respectively.

A report on the survey is available on the BBVA website at:

http://www.fbbva.es/TLFU/tlfu/ing/areas/econosoc/investigacion/fichainves/index.jsp?codigo=374

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Pastor Jones Unwelcome in the UK

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Clive D. Field

According to media reports, and its own Facebook page, the English Defence League (EDL), a right-wing group opposed to so-called Muslim extremism, has apparently withdrawn its acceptance of an offer by the American Terry Jones to speak at an EDL rally in Luton (a place of growing conflict between Islamists and right-wingers) on 5 February 2011.

Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville (Florida), originally came to global prominence in late summer through his advocacy of an ‘International Burn a Koran Day’, to coincide with the ninth anniversary of 9/11.

We reported at that time (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=560) on the British public’s views about whether the US government should let Jones proceed with his plans or not (although, in practice, the US authorities were powerless to stop him). 

On learning of Jones’s intention to address an EDL rally, and potentially inciting animosity to British Muslims, Home Secretary Theresa May had been actively looking into the possibility of denying him entry to this country.

Her action prompted The Sun newspaper to commission YouGov to ask a representative online sample of 1,810 adult Britons aged 18 and over on 13 and 14 December 2010 whether Jones should or should not be allowed to enter the UK.

55% of the whole sample thought that Jones should not be permitted entry. Women (59%) were more opposed than men (50%), while hostility to Jones increased steadily with age, from 38% of 18-24s to 64% of the over-60s.

Regionally, the variation was from 50% in London and Northern England to 63% in Scotland. Those who voted Labour or Liberal Democrat in this year’s general election were slightly more inclined to want Jones banned from the country than Conservatives.

32% overall considered that Jones should be admitted to the UK, with men (42%) markedly more in favour than women (22%). Other demographic differences were much smaller, even age (the over-60s, for example, being just 8% less in favour of Jones being allowed into the UK than the 18-24s).

However, the latter age cohort was evidently not very knowledgeable about the matter since 26% were ‘don’t knows’, twice the national average for this question.

These replies do not necessarily give us clues as to the motivation of respondents. Thus, it is impossible to know whether those who supported Jones’s entry to the UK were simply upholding a generic principle of freedom of expression or actually agreed with his views.

Similarly, those who wanted him kept out of the UK may have objected to his opinions about Islam or just been concerned about the threat of civil disorder, including retaliatory protests by Muslims, in the event of Jones being granted entry.

The full data table for the survey is available at: 

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-Sun-TerryJones-141210.pdf

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‘Religious Swearwords’

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The ancient common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel, which made it illegal to insult Christianity, were abolished two and a half years ago in England and Wales by Section 79 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. This was partly because the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 had created a new offence of inciting hatred against a person on the grounds of their religion.

Notwithstanding, blaspheming, in the dictionary sense of talking impiously or profanely, remains a very common occurrence, not least in television programmes. As part of a more general study into the acceptability of swearwords, YouGov has recently gauged public reactions to the use of ‘hell’, ‘Jesus Christ’ (as an expletive) and 26 other words on television.

Fieldwork was conducted online on 7 and 8 December 2010 among a representative sample of 1,539 adults aged 18 and over, of whom 7% opted to skip the questions on swearing because they feared they would be too offensive.

‘Hell’ was widely regarded as an innocuous utterance, with 67% thinking that the word should be allowed in television programmes at any time. Indeed, from this perspective, it was the most acceptable of all 28 swearwords, being 9% ahead of ‘bloody’. Men (75%) and young persons aged 18-24 (79%) were most likely to take this line.

A further 29% of respondents (particularly women and the over-60s) were only comfortable with ‘hell’ being used after the 9 pm watershed, while a mere 2% wanted to see it banned from television altogether.

People were also fairly tolerant about the use of ‘Jesus Christ’, with 41% considering that the expression should be permitted on television at any time. Just ‘hell’, ‘bloody’, and ‘c**p’ (49%) were deemed more acceptable swearwords. Men (50%), the 18-24s (56%), the 25-39s (51%), and Liberal Democrat voters (47%) were especially relaxed about taking Christ’s name in vain in this way.

However, almost as many (37%) in the whole sample wanted ‘Jesus Christ’ solely to be allowed after 9 pm, rising to 41% with females and 42% of the over-60s. Another 19% (including 35% of the over-60s) wanted its use to be totally banned, which was a middling result, 13 words achieving a higher vote for prohibition and 14 a lower one.

Perhaps it is another mark of progressive secularization that ‘religious swearwords’ no longer seem to shock. And, in case you are wondering, it was not actually the word which has been immortalized in recent BBC Radio 4 spoonerisms which topped the list of public disapproval, although 56% certainly wanted to see that four-letter word totally banned from television. The prize dislike was a six-letter word with racial overtones (58%).

BRIN is, of course, a ‘family website’, so we will refrain from quoting more of this naughty language. The full data tables from this poll can be accessed at:  

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-YouGov-Swearing-131210.pdf

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ET

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Clive D. Field

It seems a fair bet that Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster 1982 film ET will be on the television schedules this Christmas, but how many of us actually believe in extra-terrestrials?

Some answers to the question can be found in a newly-released YouGov poll commissioned by the Royal Society as it nears the end of its 350th anniversary celebrations. The survey was conducted online on 1-4 October 2010, among a representative sample of 2,179 UK adults aged 18 and over, to gauge public attitudes to science.

Asked whether they believed extra-terrestrial life exists, 44% replied in the affirmative and 28% in the negative, with 28% uncertain. Believers were more numerous among men (55%) than women (34%). These figures actually constituted the two extremes of belief and disbelief. The next high was 51% for the 35-44s and the next low 39% in Northern Ireland.

Somewhat fewer (36%) considered that scientists should be actively searching for, and attempting to make contact with, extra-terrestrial life. Gender was again the main differentiator, the proportion rising to 46% among men and falling to 27% among women, although the lowest figure (24%) was in Northern Ireland. 46% of the whole sample disagreed with the proposition and 18% did not know.

A rather more nuanced picture of belief can be found in another YouGov study, for The Sun in July 2008. On that occasion, 42% of Britons said that there was definitely or possibly life beyond earth in our solar system, 68% in our galaxy, and 79% in the rest of the universe. Also relevant in this context is our earlier post on aliens at http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=167

The full data tables for the Royal Society poll are available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG_Archives_Life_ColmanGetty_RoyalSoc_Science_041010.pdf

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Christmas Present

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Further to our recent post on the religious meaning of Christmas in contemporary Britain, as recorded by GfK NOP/The Children’s Society (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=744), additional insights are provided in a poll released by the theological think-tank Theos on 8 December. The study was undertaken by ComRes by telephone among a representative sample of 1,005 adult Britons aged 18 and over between 3 and 5 December.

46% of respondents said that the birth of Jesus would be irrelevant to their Christmas, whereas 51% disagreed with the statement and 3% did not know what to think. These results were similar to those obtained in a previous ComRes/Theos poll in November 2008, in which 52% agreed that the birth of Jesus was significant to them personally.

There were fewer than expected variations by demographic sub-groups in this year’s survey, surprisingly, even by age cohort. The major exception was that Scots were especially prone to disagree that Jesus would be irrelevant to their Christmas (65%). Women (56%) also dissented more than men (47%).

36% stated that they would be attending a Christmas church service this year, women (43%) far more than men (29%). Adults aged under 55 were below-average attenders (especially the 35-44s), with the over-65s most dutiful (44%).

Social class also made a difference, with 44% of the AB social group planning to worship and manual workers being least inclined to turn out. 62% of all adults did not expect to go to a church service, with 2% unsure.

The 36% figure for anticipated attendance represented a drop of 8% on the ComRes/Theos 2008 statistic. However, as demonstrated by previous Christmas research, the good intentions of the majority of these would-be congregants are likely to evaporate before Christmas actually comes.

These data should therefore be taken more to illustrate the proportion thinking that they ought to go to church over Christmas rather than as a guide to those who will actually do so on the day.

Other questions not touching directly on the religious aspects of Christmas were: a) 41% intended to spend less on Christmas presents than in 2009, 41% the same and just 14% more; b) 13% were prepared to borrow money to buy decent Christmas presents and 86% not; c) 93% expected to pass Christmas Day in the company of family and/or friends and 6% to be on their own; d) 18% of people dreaded Christmas but 81% disagreed; e) 54% believed Christmas is overrated and 44% not; and f) 61% considered Christmas is mainly for children and 38% not.

The Theos press release for this poll can be found at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/What_does_Christmas_mean_to_people_in_Britain.aspx?ArticleID=4414&PageID=11&RefPageID=5

The full data tables are available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/Theoschristmaspolldecember2010.aspx

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Religious Meaning of Christmas

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Clive D. Field

A new poll, published by The Children’s Society on 1 December, suggests that the religious side of Christmas is struggling to get a hearing as Britons prepare for the festive season. The survey was conducted online by GfK NOP among a representative sample of 972 UK adults aged 16 and over on 18-23 November 2010.

Asked (Q.1) what was the most important thing about Christmas, only 10% of respondents overall said that its religious meaning was paramount for them personally. There was a marked contrast by age, with the under-55s all recording less than the mean and the 55-64s (13%) and the over-65s (20%) attaching most significance to Christmas as a religious festival. Regional highs were in London (20%), the South-West (18%) and Ulster (17%), but the sub-samples were small.

Spending time with family and friends was the priority for 67%, with all other aspects barely rating a mention: having a holiday or time off work (5%), giving or receiving presents (3%), eating, drinking or partying (2%). Just 4% said that they did not celebrate Christmas at all – much the same as in YouGov’s recent study, discussed at http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=709.

The proportion of one-tenth who regarded the religious meaning of Christmas as important was smaller than the number who identified Christmas as a primarily religious festival in a series of Gallup Polls between 1964 and 1998. In the late 1990s it stood at about one-fifth compared with one-half who thought the opportunity to meet family and friends and to enjoy oneself was the defining feature of Christmas. See Clive Field, ‘When a Child is Born: The Christian Dimension of Christmas in Britain since the 1960s’, Modern Believing, Vol. 40, No. 3, July 1999, pp. 29-40, especially tables 1 and 2.

However, replies to The Children’s Society’s Q.3[b], which asked whether people in general in 2010 still associated Christmas with its religious meaning, painted a somewhat rosier picture: 44% agreed with the suggestion against 46% who disagreed. Demographic variations were mostly relatively slight, apart from a concentration of ‘optimists’ in London (62%) and Ulster (53%) and among those working part-time (53%).

Other questions included in this GfK NOP poll were: Q.2 ‘How likely or unlikely are you to make cutbacks in your overall spending this Christmas?’ – 52% said likely and 34% unlikely; Q.3[a] ‘Christmas has become too commercialised’ – 86% agreed and 8% disagreed; and Q.3[c] ‘I am prepared to go into debt this Christmas so that my family enjoys and makes the most of the festive season’ – 10% agreed and 84% disagreed. It should be noted that these questions, as well as Q.3[b], were only put to those intending to celebrate Christmas.

The above post is partly based upon The Children’s Society’s press release and partly on the full unpublished data tables which the Society has very generously made available to the author, and which are quoted with its permission. The Society’s help is gratefully acknowledged. The press release will be found at:

http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/whats_happening/media_office/latest_news/22582_pr.html

The poll findings were published as The Children’s Society’s annual Christingle campaign commenced across the country, with the hope of raising more than £1 million to help vulnerable young people. Christingle is a custom of the Moravian Church and originated in 1747. It was introduced to the Anglican Church by The Children’s Society in 1968. Over half a million children take part in the celebration during the traditional period – November to February.

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YouGov’s Advent Calendar

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Last Sunday, 28 November, marked the start of Advent and thus the beginning of the ecclesiastical year in Western Christianity. Derived from the Latin Adventus, meaning coming, Advent has for Christians traditionally been a penitential season leading up to the birth of Jesus Christ on Christmas Day.

Perhaps one of the best-known manifestations of Advent today is the Advent calendar, in which doors, windows or drawers, often with a sweet (or even a toy) behind them, are opened day by day to build up the anticipation for Christmas. You might think this is a quintessentially British invention but, like many of our Christmas traditions, this practice originated in German-speaking Europe in the nineteenth century.

Initially, German Lutherans physically counted off the days until Christmas by drawing lines in chalk on their doors, lighting a candle or hanging religious images on the walls of their homes. Then came the public Advent wreath, hung for the first time in Hamburg in 1839, followed by the first hand-made Advent calendar in 1851 and by printed calendars from the 1900s. Advent calendars seem to have become common in Britain only since the Second World War.

According to today’s Daily Telegraph, ‘sales of Advent calendars have surged this year as parents try to inject a bit of tradition into Christmas’. John Lewis, one of Britain’s major retailers, reports that purchases of calendars in its stores have jumped by 150%. While some have religious themes, many are overtly secular, with a focus on excitement and pleasure.

However, the Advent calendar is being increasingly used (some might say hijacked) for other ends, including in the shape of virtual calendars on the internet. The Labour Party, for example, has just launched an Advent calendar in which each window opens to reveal what it calls a Coalition Government ‘broken promise’. Similarly, Scotland’s Violence Reduction Unit has produced a calendar in which each door leads to a fact relating to domestic abuse, which increases markedly over the festive period.

Appropriately for an online opinion polling company, YouGov has now initiated its own virtual Advent calendar for 2010, in which each daily Christmas stocking clicks through to a new piece of YouGov research into some aspect or other of Christmas. The first two stockings are now officially ‘opened’. The calendar can be found at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/advent-calendar

The research for day 1 (fieldwork on 30 November and 1 December among 1,686 adult Britons) asked respondents whether they planned to have an Advent calendar this year. 34% said they did, 60% that they did not, with 6% uncertain. Calendars are more popular with women (41%) than men (27%). Peak interest by age is with the 25-39s (46%), perhaps because many will be parents of young children, with the over-60s (20%) being least inclined to have a calendar. For more detail, see:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-YouGov-Life-Christmas-Day1AdventCalendar-011210.pdf

Day 2’s question (1,934 adults interviewed on 1 and 2 December) enquired about favourite Christmas songs. Preferences were greatly influenced by age. Thus, while Fairytale of New York by Pogues topped the list with 20%, it was most popular with the 18-24s (30%) and least with the over-60s (9%). The latter were bigger fans of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas (16%), which was in second place, with 9%, overall. Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody came third, with 8%. Cliff Richard was the best-known religious artiste, scoring 2% each with Saviour’s Day and Mistletoe and Wine. For the full list of songs, see:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-YouGov-Life-Christmas-Day2ChristmasSong-021210.pdf

Although we will not be covering each day’s question(s), we will try to post about any which are particularly pertinent to the religious aspects of Christmas.

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Dunfermline Presbytery Community Survey

Posted on December 1, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Other than statistics regularly collected by the various Christian denominations, there is only limited national data about religion in Scotland in very recent years. One has to go back to sources such as the 2001 civil census, the religion module in the 2001 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, and the census of churchgoing by Christian Research in 2002.

It is, therefore, good to note some more contemporaneous, albeit more localized, evidence in the shape of a 37-page report on the Church of Scotland Dunfermline Presbytery Community Survey, undertaken earlier this year by Rev Allan Vint, the Presbytery’s Mission Development Officer. This is available to download at:

http://www.dunfermlinepresbytery.org.uk/documents/surveyreportjuly2010.pdf

The survey was primarily designed for internal Kirk purposes, to give the Dunfermline Presbytery ‘insight’ into the factors which underlie the seemingly relentless decline in Church of Scotland membership and attendance, and ‘discernment and wisdom’ to help develop future missiological strategy. Vint has previously carried out two censuses of attendance in the Presbytery.

The community survey was conducted on a limited budget and through a hybrid methodology, which will raise some doubts about the representativeness of the three achieved samples of adults, primary school pupils and young people who completed an online or paper questionnaire.

The questions asked covered: spare-time activities, religious affiliation, attributes of a Christian, level of Christian commitment, belief in God, image of God, perception of Jesus Christ, idea of heaven, religious experience, churchgoing and reasons for it, attitudes to church services, and previous Sunday school attendance.

Particular difficulties were encountered by the researcher in reaching teenagers (who constitute a mere 3% of the Presbytery’s worshippers). Only 131 young people replied to the survey. Anybody requiring information about the attitudes to religion and the Church of Scots aged 12-17 would be advised to gain access to the Ipsos MORI study conducted for the Church of Scotland in 2008 (see http://www.brin.ac.uk/sources/1011).    

Perhaps the most interesting section of the Dunfermline report relates to the replies from 358 adults. This highlights some notable differences between sub-samples of regular (monthly or more) and irregular or non-attenders at church (of whom 69% identified as Christian, although only 11% regarded themselves as strongly committed to the faith and no more than 50% believed in God).

Especially striking differences emerged with regard to the definition of a Christian. Whereas 89% of regular churchgoers prioritized knowing Jesus as personal saviour, just 31% of irregular or non-attenders attached importance to this. The latter were far more likely than the former (63% versus 34%) to see faith in terms of leading a good life. They also attached much less significance to belief in God, belief in the truth of the Bible, being baptized and attending services. This – in effect – interchangeability of religion with ethics has been a long-standing feature of popular beliefs.

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Church and (Big) Society

Posted on November 30, 2010 by Clive D. Field

We hear a lot about David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ proposal these days. Not unnaturally, faith organizations are keen to engage with it and to demonstrate the ways in which they are already involved with local communities.

In September 2010, over forty leaders of various Christian bodies and charities met with policy advisers for the Big Society to start a conversation about Big Society and the Church. This grouping has since expanded and is now known as the Cinnamon Network. Members include the Church of England and the Salvation Army.

One early outcome of the network’s deliberations was to commission some research into the Church’s current involvement in local social action, to enhance Government and public understanding of its extent and importance. In late October and early November church leaders were asked to complete a questionnaire on the subject.

Several thousand Christian places of worship in the UK were approached, of which 284 filled in the survey. The low response rate, the bias towards larger churches (51% of those making returns had fewer than 100 worshippers compared with 70% in the 2005 English church census) and the probable disproportionately evangelical character of the sample should incline us to caution in interpreting the survey data.

Nevertheless, the results are not without interest in providing an indicative picture of the Church as provider of social capital. A 16-page analysis of the findings, apparently prepared by Geoff Knott, can be found at:

http://www.churchinsight.com/Groups/149033/ChurchandCommunity.aspx

The churches which responded estimated that they had delivered 439,000 hours of volunteer service during the past twelve months, an average of 1,925 hours each. Unsurprisingly, the larger the church, the more time and resources were devoted to social initiatives. The total went up markedly (to 8,582 hours) for churches with over 500 adults in the congregation.

A projection of the hours volunteered per annum against the England base of churches by size was 55 million for England alone. A projection against population and churchgoing for the whole UK was 72 million hours. Both figures exclude voluntary work by Christians in the community that is not initiated by a church, for instance for a charity.

The churches in the sample estimated that they directly contributed £1,234,000 to finance social action projects, an average of £7,568 per church spent on an average of 3.3 initiatives. This was scaled up to £224 million a year for all English churches and, on a full economic costing, to between £1.5 and £2 billion per annum.

68% of responding places of worship planned to increase their social initiatives in the next twelve months and only 3% to reduce them, with 29% unchanged. 81% of churches thought it essential or very important to maintain their Christian distinctiveness in social action in the face of the requirements of equality law.

The top ten social action initiatives reported by the sample churches were: youth work (apart from children’s ministry); mothers and toddlers; caring for the elderly; community improvements; marriage counselling and courses; debt counselling; parenting advice and courses; helping the homeless; street patrols; and helping with addiction.

The same list largely shaped the priorities for spending any windfall £10,000. Youth work, carried out by three-quarters of the churches which replied, represented 32% of the hours and 40% of the money expended on social initiatives. Activities with mothers and toddlers accounted for 18% of hours but just 5% of funding.

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Psychological Type and Biblical Interpretation

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Much important work in the field of religious statistics has been undertaken by psychologists of religion. In general, it is relatively little-known outside the immediate discipline of psychology, partly, perhaps, because it tends to be based upon specialized samples rather than national surveys of the whole population.

A recent example of the genre is Andrew Village, ‘Psychological Type and Biblical Interpretation among Anglican Clergy in the UK’, Journal of Empirical Theology, Vol. 23, No. 2, 2010, pp. 179-200.

Village’s research involved the completion of a questionnaire measuring psychological type preferences and biblical interpretation by 364 male and 354 female clergy ordained into the Anglican Church in the UK, mostly into the Church of England, between 2004 and 2007.

Respondents were asked to read a healing story from Mark 9:14-29 and then forced to choose between interpretative statements designed to appeal to particular psychological type preferences. Ten sensing-intuition and ten feeling-thinking pairs of statements were included.

Psychological type was measured by the Francis Psychological Type Scale. Sex was used as a control variable because of the widely reported finding that women are more likely to prefer feeling over thinking compared with men. The Village Bible Scale was also deployed to control for biblical liberalism or conservatism.

The 718 clergy showed an overall preference for introversion over extraversion, feeling over thinking, and judging over perceiving. There was no preference between sensing and intuition. The only difference between the sexes was the much stronger preference for feeling over thinking among women.

Women were found to be less biblically conservative than men. Biblical conservatism was also negatively correlated with introversion, intuition and feeling, indicating that it may have been most prevalent among clergy who preferred extraversion, sensing and thinking.

In terms of the biblical interpretative choices based on Mark 9:14-29, there were no correlations with preferences in either psychological orientation (extraversion or introversion) or attitude towards the outer world (judging or perceiving).

After allowing for sex and Bible beliefs, the number of intuitive (versus sensing) interpretative items chosen was positively correlated with a psychological preference for intuition over sensing but not with preference in the judging process. 

Similarly, the number of feeling (versus thinking) interpretative items chosen was positively correlated with a psychological preference for feeling over thinking, but not correlated with preference in the perceiving process.

The study both confirms and expands a similar project conducted in 1999-2001 by Village among a sample of 404 Anglican laity, the majority of whom had little or no theological education. This investigation is most extensively written up in his The Bible and Lay People: An Empirical Approach to Ordinary Hermeneutics (Ashgate, 2007).

While such research demonstrating a linkage between psychological type and biblical interpretation clearly has an academic purpose, it is also designed to have a practical application in the pulpit, by suggesting ways in which preaching might be shaped to allow listeners of different psychological profiles to access biblical material in their preferred styles.

The book Preaching with all our Souls, by Leslie Francis and Village (Continuum, 2008), explores this dimension further. A good general introduction to the psychology of religion is provided by Francis, Faith and Psychology: Personality, Religion and the Individual (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2005).

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