Liberalism and Conservatism in Relation to Psychological Type among Church of England Clergy

Abstract

Liberalism and conservatism have been important stances that have shaped doctrinal, moral and ecclesial beliefs and practices in Christianity. In the Church of England, Anglo-catholics are generally more liberal, and evangelicals more conservative, than those from broad-church congregations. This paper tests the idea that psychological preference may also partly explain liberalism or conservatism in the Church of England. Data from 1,389 clergy, collected as part of the 2013 Church Growth Research Programme, were used to categorise individuals by church tradition (Anglo-catholic, broad church or evangelical), whether or not they had an Epimethean psychological temperament, and whether or not they preferred thinking over feeling in their psychological judging process. Epimetheans and those who preferred thinking were more likely to rate themselves as conservative rather than liberal. Conservatism was associated with being Epimethean among those who were Anglo-catholic or broad-church, but with preference for thinking over feeling among evangelicals.

Shaping Attitudes toward Church in a Time of Coronavirus: Exploring the Effects of Personal, Psychological, Social, and Theological Factors among Church of England Clergy and Laity

“…-insert Table 3 about here -Other correlations are worth highlighting because they point to links between religious commitments and psychological factors. Conservative theological stances were generally associated with tendencies towards sensing, thinking and judging, associations that have be observed in other studies (see, for example, Village, 2019). Theological stance is related to church tradition in complex ways in the Church of England (Village, 2018b) and these trends were apparent in this sample.…”

“…The judging process is also associated with biblical literalism, but mainly because it tends to be a marker of general theological conservatism, with feeling types tending to be more liberal than thinking types (Village, 2019). This points to the thinking function's preference for tough-minded, logical decision-making that is based on logic and principles, even if that is upsetting to others, and the feeling function's preference for tender-minded decision-making that is based on values and that seeks for consensus, even at the risk of going against logic or principles.…”

“…These studies show that individual differences in many of the beliefs and attitudes held by English Anglicans can be predicted by a range of factors, many of which are themselves intercorrelated. Personality is known to be related to church tradition (Francis, Village, et al, 2020;Village, 2013; and to theological stance (Village, 2019) and these in turn predict some beliefs and attitudes. Statistical techniques that isolate the independent effects of predictor variables show that church tradition and theological stance tend to be the best single predictors of specific beliefs or attitudes, but personal factors and psychological factors often retain some independent predictive power.…”

Psychological type profiles and temperaments of ministers in the Baptist Union of Great Britain (BUGB)

“…The first has examined the correlations between religious dimensions and psychological type, with the aim of determining whether psychological type preferences are associated with particular expressions of faith or church life. These have shown that type the preferences of clergy and other ministers are related to many aspects of Christianity including charismatic experience (Francis & Jones, 1997), Christian conservativism (Village, 2016(Village, , 2019, tolerance for religious uncertainty (Francis & Jones, 1999), and different modes of faith expression (Francis & Louden, 2000;Francis, Craig, et al, 2008;Village, 2013).…”

Tożsamość i moralność w perspektywie psychologii pastoralnej

“…Według Village'a konserwatyzm może się okazać ważniejszy dla interpretacji Biblii niż różnice między tradycjami religijnymi, do których wierzący przynależą (Village, 2016b(Village, , 2019. Konserwatyzm w kategoriach biblijnych skłania się ku dosłowności, zatem konserwatywni mogą wykazywać tendencje do przyjmowania bardziej konkretnych interpretacji i wykazywać nieufność wobec interpretacji spekulatywnych (Village, 2019). Częścią biblijnego konserwatyzmu jest biblijny literalizm (Village, 2016a).…”