A national-scale typology of orientations to religion poses new challenges for the cultural evolutionary study of religious groups

ABSTRACT

Religious groups differ in theology, ritual, and modes of self-governance. However, the extent to which such differences capture the variation of religious individuals remains unclear. Latent Profile Analysis offers a powerful statistical method for obtaining typologies from the response profiles of religious individuals. Here, we draw on a national sample of religiously-identified New Zealanders (N = 1484) and use LPA to obtain typologies for diversity in attitudes to religion as assessed by a combination of religious orientations, fundamentalism, and religious group narcissism/humility. The most parsimonious model recovers five types. To illustrate the importance of this descriptive typology, we evaluate the predictions of a church-sect theory against it. Consistent with church-sect theory, we find a greater density of intrinsic/exclusive types (Fundamentrinsics and X-trinsics) among informal/marginal religious groups and a greater density of extrinsic/inclusive types (Moderinsics and Disaffected) among established/mainstream churches. However, the data also reveal an unexpected feature: about 50% of religious affiliates across both marginal and mainstream Christian groups present as either Questrinsics or Moderinsics. Collectively, our findings illustrate how rigorous descriptive statistical models may combine with national-scale data to evaluate classical theories of religious change, while also raising new explanatory challenges for future evolutionary scholars of religions.

KEYWORDS:

• Church
• God
• LPA
• New Zealand attitudes and values study
• religion
• schisms
• schismogenesis
• sect

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer of this manuscript for constructive advice that substantially improved the clarity of the text and inference. http://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/our-research/research-groups/new-zealand-attitudes-and-values-study/nzavs-information-for-researchers.html.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a Templeton World Charity Foundation [grant number 0077], a Royal Society of New Zealand [grant number 1321], and a Templeton Religion Trust [grant number 0196]. Funders did not play any role in this study. Mplus syntax for the models reported here will be posted on the NZAVS website upon acceptance of this article. Syntax and data are also available upon request for reviewing purposes.