Compare methods

	Faith Maturity Scale	Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS)
Field	Religious Studies	Religious Studies
Family	Latent structure	Latent structure
Year of origin	1993	2012
Originator	Peter L. Benson, Michael J. Donahue & Joseph A. Erickson	Stefan Huber & Odilo W. Huber
Type	Two-dimensional latent measure of mature faith	Second-order latent measure of religious centrality
Seminal source	Benson, P. L., Donahue, M. J., & Erickson, J. A. (1993). The Faith Maturity Scale: Conceptualization, measurement, and empirical validation. Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, 5, 1-26.	Huber, S., & Huber, O. W. (2012). The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS). Religions, 3(3), 710-724.
Aliases	FMS, Faith Maturity Index, Vertical-Horizontal Faith Scale, Mature Faith Measure	Huber CRS, Centrality of Religiosity Scale, Religiosity Centrality Measure, CRS-15 / CRS-10 / CRS-7
Related	3	3
Summary	The Faith Maturity Scale (FMS), developed by Peter Benson, Michael Donahue, and Joseph Erickson in 1993, measures not how much religion a person professes but how fully a vibrant, life-transforming faith is lived out. It was built on a denominationally inclusive definition of mature faith and is organized around two dimensions: vertical faith, a deepening relationship with the transcendent or divine, and horizontal faith, the translation of that relationship into service, compassion, and social concern for others. The instrument's distinctive claim is that genuine faith maturity requires both — an inward relationship with God and an outward commitment to humanity — and that a person strong on only one dimension has not reached integrated maturity. Originally developed across mainline Protestant denominations, the FMS became a standard measure of lived, mature faith.	The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS), developed by Stefan Huber and Odilo Huber and consolidated in their 2012 paper, measures how central the religious meaning system is within an individual's personality. It operationalizes five core dimensions drawn from the Glock-Stark tradition — intellect, ideology, public practice, private practice, and religious experience — and treats them as indicators of a single higher-order construct, the centrality of religiosity. The CRS comes in interchangeable 15-, 10-, and 7-item versions, yields both dimension scores and an overall centrality score, and supports a simple three-level classification of respondents as not religious, religious, or highly religious. Designed for cross-cultural and interreligious use, it has become one of the most widely applied general religiosity measures in contemporary survey research.