Faith Maturity Scale
Also known as: FMS, Faith Maturity Index, Vertical-Horizontal Faith Scale, Mature Faith Measure
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.
Key highlights
- Measures lived, mature faith rather than mere belief or attendance.
- Two-dimensional structure distinguishes inward relationship with the divine from outward service to others.
- Denominationally inclusive design supports comparison across Christian traditions.
- Validated against prosocial and well-being criteria, grounding its claim to capture transformative faith.
Intuition
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How it works
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When to use it
Use the Faith Maturity Scale when the question is how developed and lived-out a person's faith is, rather than how religious they are by belief or attendance, and when both an inward relationship with the divine and outward service to others are theoretically relevant. It suits research and applied work in religious education, congregational studies, and faith development, especially across mainline Christian denominations for which it was developed. It is less appropriate where the construct of interest is doctrinal orthodoxy or sheer religiousness, where the population's tradition does not share the vertical-horizontal framing, or where the Christian-derived items would need substantial revalidation before being meaningful.
Strengths & limitations
- Measures lived, mature faith rather than mere belief or attendance.
- Two-dimensional structure distinguishes inward relationship with the divine from outward service to others.
- Denominationally inclusive design supports comparison across Christian traditions.
- Validated against prosocial and well-being criteria, grounding its claim to capture transformative faith.
- Developed within mainline Christian denominations, so its items and framing may not transfer to other religions.
- The vertical and horizontal dimensions are often highly correlated, raising questions about their separability.
- Defining and operationalizing 'mature' faith embeds normative assumptions about what good faith looks like.
- Self-report of socially valued spiritual and prosocial qualities is open to social-desirability bias.
Common pitfalls
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Applications
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Frequently asked
What are vertical and horizontal faith?
Vertical faith is the inward, God-ward dimension — a deepening, trusting relationship with the transcendent or divine, expressed in devotion, prayer, and a sense of the sacred. Horizontal faith is the outward, neighbor-ward dimension — the translation of faith into compassion, service, social justice, and concern for others. The Faith Maturity Scale measures both because its definition of mature faith is the integration of love of God with love of neighbor.
How is faith maturity different from religiousness?
Religiousness as usually measured concerns belief, attendance, or the centrality of religion, whereas faith maturity concerns whether faith has become a vibrant, life-transforming force that shows up both in relationship with the divine and in how one treats others. A person can be highly religious by attendance yet low in faith maturity if that religiousness does not translate into an integrated, lived faith. The FMS was designed to capture the lived, transformative quality rather than mere participation.
Can someone be high on one dimension but not mature overall?
Yes, and that is the point of the two-dimensional design. The framework holds that genuine maturity requires both vertical and horizontal faith, so a person rich in private devotion but indifferent to others, or socially engaged but spiritually disconnected, has an unbalanced rather than a mature faith. Integration approaches even define overall maturity by the weaker of the two dimensions, so that strength on one cannot fully compensate for weakness on the other.
Sources
- 1.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.
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Cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 23). Faith Maturity Scale. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/religious-studies/faith-maturity-scale