Who Experiences God’s Presence and How Often?

Last updated on: December 13, 2012 at 3:35 pm by Bradley Wright

Who Experiences God’s Presence and How Often? 2012-12-13T15:35:36-05:00 Bradley Wright

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Who experiences God’s presence the most often? It turns out that the General Social Survey (GSS), in 2004, included questions from the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale. Coupled with the powerful sampling procedure used by the GSS, it allows for basic analysis of the experience of God’s presence.

To start with, here’s a table of respondents’ self-reported frequency of experience God’s presence, as it varies by religious tradition. As you can see, there’s a lot of variation, with Evangelicals and Black Protestants scoring highest and Jews and the religiously unaffiliated scoring the lowest.

From here, I selected out the Christians (both Protestant and Catholic), and as a group here are their experiences:

Gender seems to matter with everything religious, so I analyzed it as well. Perhaps no surprise, Christian women score higher than Christian men.

Finally, I examined the experience of God’s presence by frequency of church attendance, and it’s good news, probably really good news, for churches in that people who attend church the most often also report experiencing God’s presence the most often. (Obviously this doesn’t tell us if church leads to experience or if people who experience God’s presence attend church more often, and so it’s far from definitive).

Thoughts?

Brad Wright

Spiritual experiences

Previous Post

April 4, 2012

Testimony from Cuba: The Pope's Visit was an Oasis

Next Post

April 6, 2012 Time to be present

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Amy Reynolds Becky Hsu Brad Wright critical realism George Yancey Gerardo Marti Jeremy Rhodes Jerry Park John Schmalzbauer Margarita Mooney Mark Regnerus Nicolette Manglos positive sociology Richard Flory Robert Woodberry Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2017 August 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz