One of the main issues in the so-called ‘secularisation debate’ is how to classify the many types of belief or non-belief in society. In the February 2019 issue of SOCIOLOGY REVIEW, Peter Brierleydiscussed some of the ways in which nominal, or notional, Christians could be categorised.
Following a recent survey (see Box 1), the Pew Research Center drew up a new typology, attempting to classify all Americans in terms of their religious (or non-religious) beliefs and behaviours, rather than simply on how people identified themselves. They found that doing this cut across many churches, denominations or other beliefs, and could unite people of different faiths or reveal divisions between those of the same religious affiliation. Rather than using the typical approach in which people are divided into categories such as Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims etc. the researchers used a statistical technique known as ‘cluster analysis’ to identify groups of people with similar religious and spiritual characteristics, regardless of their religious affiliation.
Your organisation does not have access to this article.
Sign up today to give your students the edge they need to achieve their best grades with subject expertise
Subscribe
