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	Faith Maturity Scale	Glock-Stark Religiosity Dimensions
Field	Religious Studies	Religious Studies
Family	Latent structure	Latent structure
Year of origin	1993	1965
Originator	Peter L. Benson, Michael J. Donahue & Joseph A. Erickson	Charles Y. Glock & Rodney Stark
Type	Two-dimensional latent measure of mature faith	Multidimensional latent measure of religious commitment
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.	Glock, C. Y., & Stark, R. (1965). Religion and Society in Tension. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Aliases	FMS, Faith Maturity Index, Vertical-Horizontal Faith Scale, Mature Faith Measure	Five Dimensions of Religiosity, Glock and Stark Religious Commitment Dimensions, Multidimensional Religious Commitment, Belief-Practice-Experience-Knowledge-Consequences Model
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 Glock-Stark framework, set out in Charles Glock and Rodney Stark's 1965 Religion and Society in Tension, recast religiosity from a single global trait into five analytically distinct dimensions of religious commitment: belief (ideological), practice (ritualistic), experience (experiential), knowledge (intellectual), and consequences (the effects of religion on everyday conduct). The core claim is that an individual can rank high on one dimension and low on another, so a one-number measure of 'how religious' someone is conceals more than it reveals. Operationally, each dimension is tapped by its own cluster of survey items, scaled separately, and the correlations among the dimensions are themselves an object of study. This multidimensional measurement model became the template for nearly all later psychometric work on religiousness.