Measuring Religious Involvement

This paper critically reviews some of the more prominent typologies of religious involvement and finds that there are specific problems of definition and classification with existent schemes. An attempt is made to synthesize the work of others in a new typology of religious involvement. It is suggested that religious involvement can have four general orientations: (1) supernatural (2) communal (3) cultural (4) interpersonal. Each of these orientations can be manifested in a behavioral or ideational manner. Within this framework, nine dimensions and three subdimensions of religious involvement are proposed. A factor analysis of data gathered from a sample of Jewish adults in Chicago, Illinois lent general support for the scheme presented here. Contrary to the emphasis in much of the research on Christianity, behavioral rather than ideational dimensions accounted for most of the total variance in religious involvement.