Faith versus practice: different bases for religiosity judgments by Jews and Protestants

TLDR

Jewish tradition emphasizes religious practice more than belief, whereas Christian denominations give equal weight to practice and faith. The study examined whether this doctrinal difference influences how Jews and Protestants assess religiosity. Results showed that both groups rate practice as equally important for being religious, but Protestants also value belief more; Jewish self‑rated religiosity was predicted only by practice, while Protestant self‑rated religiosity was predicted by both practice and belief, with neither group’s religiosity linked to knowledge. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract

Abstract Jewish tradition is focused much more on religious practice than on religious belief, whereas various denominations of Christianity focus about equally on religious practice and on faith. We explored whether this difference in dogma affects how Jews and Protestants judge religiosity. In Study 1, we showed that Jews and Protestants rated practice equally important in being religious, while Protestants rated belief more important than did Jews. In Study 2, Jewish participants' self‐rated religiosity was predicted by their extent of practice but not knowledge of Judaism or religious beliefs. In contrast, in Study 3, Protestants' self‐rated religiosity was predicted both by their extent of practice and belief, but not knowledge. In all, the results show that Jews and Protestants view the importance of practice in being religious similarly, but that belief is more important for Protestants. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.