Louis Pasteur is oft-quoted as saying that “A science is as mature as its measurement tools” (qtd. in Transforming Performance Measurement: Rethinking the Way We Measure and Drive Organizational Success, New York, 2007). By this benchmark, the essays contained in Faithful Measures detail a variety of different tools—some of which are quite new—that firmly place the social scientific study of religion in the “mature” category. The diverse chapters featured in this new volume by Roger Finke and Christopher Bader collectively cover a wide range of measurement strategies, review some of the larger controversies in the literature on the measurement of core concepts, and introduce readers to an array of tools that can be employed in the scientific study of religion. Creative readers, however, will no doubt see that the utility of these tools is not limited to the study of religion. Some examples of innovative new data-gathering or analysis tools that may not be familiar to even seasoned researchers in the field include Google Ngrams (Chapter 10, Finke and McClure), Amazon's Mechanical Turk (Chapter 4, Baker, Hill, and Porter), Smartphone-Based Experience Sampling Methods (Chapter 12, Wright and colleagues), and ARDA's Measurement Wizard (Chapter 5, Bader and Finke). While many chapters in the volume cover survey-based approach, others involve the use of mixed methods or can, in principle at least, be applied to laboratory settings. The implicit measures detailed in a contribution from Jong, Zahl, and Sharp falls into this latter category, as the employ of such items often requires the use of specialized software that is perhaps best suited to the laboratory.
Much to this volume's credit is the fact that several of its entries cover historical approaches to the scientific study of religion (Chapter 8, Bainbridge) or detail methods for culling data from government documents, newspapers, and web pages (Chapter 7, Scheitle). Bainbridge's chapter on historical research, rather than describing more traditional methods of retrieving historical materials from archives, takes advantage of the fact that massive quantities of information that were formerly locked away in various document repositories have been digitized and are now more widely available to researchers through the web. This “updated” look on how social scientists might incorporate historical materials into their work is insightful, and Bainbridge's frank treatment of the various perils and pitfalls of this type of research, as revealed through his investigation of the Oneida community, serves as a useful guide for the field.
Students of religion and politics will find several chapters to be of particular interest or utility. For instance, Brenner's contribution detailing the ways in which religious identity helps to shape survey respondents’ answers to questions about various religious behaviors (such as church attendance) stands as a cautionary tale for those of us who employ such measures in our own work. Although this chapter is more of an overview of existing work on measurement bias induced by a strong sense of religious identity than it is an original investigation of the phenomenon, the lessons contained therein are ones that researchers going forward would be wise to heed. Many scholars have long treated religious belonging or identity as distinct from religious behavior. Similarly, those who have largely eschewed the “three b's” framework still employ measures of church attendance as proxies for exposure to messages from the pulpit or access to church-based networks, even as most will readily admit that self-reports of religious behavior hardly constitute a wholly accurate or complete census. The findings detailed in Brenner's overview should, therefore, give many of us pause, particularly as the debate over the causes and consequences of the recent rise of the religious “nones” continues to heat up. A silver lining does emerge from the chapter, however, as Brenner notes that church attendance measures “may still be valid if used as a general control for religiosity” (40) (Chapter 1, Brenner, 40).
Also worthy of special note is a chapter by Baker, Hill, and Porter on crowdsourced surveys delivered through Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Recent studies have found that “MTurkers” are, on balance, less religious than the general population. Rather than being stymied by this fact, however, the authors of this chapter capitalize on it in order to study the causes of religious nonaffiliation. Their chapter reports the results of original research in which they administered a fascinating series of question-wording experiments to an MTurk sample that collectively help to illuminate some of the factors that can influence the proportion of sample respondents who identify as religiously nonaffiliated.
Finally, Evelyn Bush's contribution on the difficulties inherent in studying, or even defining, religious nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) is likely to be of interest to many students of religion and politics—comparativists and Americanists alike. Her chapter provides an excellent look under the hood of her investigation into religious NGOs and affords readers with a number of useful suggestions for studying such groups. After all, putting one's finger on what, precisely, makes a group religious is frustratingly difficult to do. As the author points out, many groups may be nominally religious, but comport themselves in much the same way as more secular organizations. The question follows: if the group in question is simply affiliated with a religious body, does that make it a religious NGO, or do its motivations and policy aims have to be religiously inspired as well? The author's answer to this, and many other definitional quandaries is to use “multiple measures, and more detailed categorization for each measure, which in turn allows for more precision and flexibility in later analyses” (283) (Chapter 9, Bush, 283). This is sage advice no matter the object of inquiry.
In short, this volume should be essential reading for those interested in the scientific study of religion. Students of religion and politics, in particular, are almost certain to find a great deal to like, and I can easily see the edited volume that Finke and Bader put together rapidly becoming a “go to” citation for many researchers in the field. I, therefore, have little doubt that Faithful Measures will find a place on many reading lists going forward.
