Divine and terrestrial in the value system of religious people: the results of method testing

This article presents a description of a method which allows determining whether the value orientations of religious folk are in compliance with significant Christian values as components of religious culture. Presented is a short overview of empirical studies of the value field of religious people, as well as methods aimed towards analyzing various components of religious consciousness and behavior. Usually empirical studies are united by the circumstance that they typically examine universal value categories, not just specifically religious ones. The provided methodical solution highlights two dimensions when it comes to analyzing the axiosphere: “divine” (Christian values) and “terrestrial” (mundane, secular life values). The questionnaire is comprised of ten items, divided into two sub-scales. The study conducted on two groups of religious folk – those who attribute themselves to orthodox and protestant faith – revealed a high level of importance for Christian values and a relatively low level of importance for mundane values. Testing the method also allowed establishing that the importance of Christian values for the more active church-goers in the subgroup of orthodox Christians, highlighted based on the religious behavior criterion, is certainly higher, while mundane values are less important, compared to the weaker sub-group. This discovery allows asserting that values as a component of religious consciousness are affected by the degree of church-going activity. No fundamental differences in the value orientations of orthodox and protestant Christians were discovered, which is a testament to the possibility of using this method on Christians regardless of their confessional affiliation. The developed method can be used for various examination and diagnostic purposes as a scale which characterizes peculiarities in the religious consciousness of religious folk, their value orientations when it comes to the main categories of Christian life.

religious values, orthodox faith, Protestantism, church-going activity index (CGA-index), religious behavior, religious consciousness.

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