Tenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Three hundred and twenty two participants were surveyed using an online questionnaire to measure spirituality and meaningful life. The spirituality measure included not only traditional religious actions and beliefs, but also spiritual beliefs that people hold outside of formal religious traditions. There were four spirituality factors: core spirituality, spiritual perspective, personal spiritual application, and acceptance. The measure of meaningful life included five factors: valued life, purposeful life, principled life, accomplished life, and exciting life. Of the 322 participants, 256 said they identified with a religious group and 66 said they had no religious affiliation (nones).Those who identified with a religious group, even though they didn’t attend church, scored higher on core measures of spirituality than the nones. There were no differences between nones and those who identified with a religious group for spiritual perspective, personal spiritual application, and acceptance. We also compared the spirituality and meaningful life factors across five groups of frequency of church attendance: never, only on religious holidays, approximately once a month, once a week, and two or more times per week. The results of the spirituality factors indicate that those who attend church more frequently have significantly higher scores on core spirituality and spirituality perspective. There was no difference in spiritual application, nor acceptance. Interestingly, of the meaningful life factors, those who attend church more frequently have greater purposeful life, accomplished life, and principled life. There was no difference in valued, nor exciting life.