If you go to www.beliefnet.com on the Internet, a multi-faith spiritual site, you can take a survey of 25 questions that determines your “spiritual type.” Thousands of people have taken the survey so far, and here are the results (downloaded in 2006).
- Hardcore Skeptic: 0.5%
Not spiritual or religious “but interested or you wouldn’t be here!”
- Spiritual Dabbler: 4.3%
Open to spiritual matters but far from impressed
- Active Spiritual Seeker: 8.2%
Spiritual but turned off by organized religion
- Spiritual Straddler: 13.6%
One foot in traditional religion, one in free-form spirituality
- Old-fashioned Seeker: 19.8%
Happy with his/her religion but searching for the right expression of it
- Questioning Believer: 21.4%
Have doubts about the particulars but not the Big Stuff
- Confident Believer: 25.6%
Little doubt they’ve found the right path
- Candidate for Clergy: 6.4%
Very informed and deeply committed
From reading the types and their brief descriptions, what “spiritual type” do you think you are? Do the percentages of your group come close to the percentages above? Are these categories helpful as you think about the range of faith traditions and spiritual practices in the world today?
