Debated issues in the Church of England: The Roles of Theology and Psychology

Abstract

This paper tests whether or not psychological type preferences predicted the extent of liberal versus conservative attitudes towards a range of controversial moral issues among 3,515 clergy and laity from the Church of England who took part in the 2013 Church Times survey. Summated rating scales were produced from Likert items related to four different issues: same-sex relationships, the ordination of women, divorce and remarriage, and cohabitation. After allowing for general theological stance, psychological type preferences for sensing over intuition and thinking over feeling were significantly associated with more conservative attitudes. For theological liberals, sensing types had slightly more conservative moral attitudes, on average, than did intuitive types, but there was no difference among theological conservatives. For theological conservatives, thinking types had slightly more conservative moral attitudes, on average, than did feeling types, but there was no difference among theological liberals.