This article presents the Religious Schema Scale (RSS). Its conceptual background is the model of religious styles. After a conceptual discussion of the relation between religious styles and religious schemata, the steps of scale construction are reported. Based on 822 responses from research participants in the United States and Germany to a preliminary 78-item version, we used construct-oriented iterative and factor-analytic procedures for reducing the RSS to a 15-item version that consists of three 5-item subscales with acceptable reliabilities. Confirmatory factor analysis indicates that the RSS has a robust 3-factor structure, which is cross-culturally valid in both the United States and Germany. We report correlations of the RSS with the Big Five, Psychological Well-Being, Religious Fundamentalism, and Right-Wing Authoritarianism. We also present predictive characteristics of the RSS in regard to Fowler's stages of faith. Finally, we report results on the incremental validity of the RSS.Correspondence should be sent to

Focusing on Fowler's (1981) faith development theory (FDT), this article presents a modification of structural-developmental theory of religion. The primacy of cognitive development as motor and guideline of religious development is called into question. The new model, the typology of religious styles, is aimed at accounting more fully for the life-history-and life-world-relatedness of religion, at its principal interactive, interpersonal origin and shape. Thus the phenomenologists Merleau-Ponty (1962, 1988) and Ricoeur (1985Ricoeur ( /1988Ricoeur ( , 1990Ricoeur ( /1992) who provide philosophical perspectives, Noam's (1985Noam's ( , 1988aNoam's ( , 1988bNoam's ( , 1988cNoam's ( , 1990 developmental perspective, which is based on interpersonality, as well as Rizzuto's (1979Rizzuto's ( , 1991 view of the psychodynamic development of religion, play a significant role for the reformulation. An overview of styles is described and illustrated in a figure. References to results of empirical research are included, and an explanation of fundamentalism is outlined that follows from the religious styles perspective.In Fowler's (1981) faith development theory (FDT), we have, on the one hand, an indispensable explanatory tool for the religious diversity of modernity and postmodern times-a diversity that is becoming even more diverse, as inner (biographical) and outer (societal) religious plurality is growing-spawning from new religious and fundamentalist orientations to a deep but rather diffuse hunger for spirituality. On the other hand, the faith development paradigm, with its focus on religious cognition and its almost unquestioned adoption of the structural-develop-

This article presents an outline of historical and situational arguments which suggest a focus on deconversion, an outline of conversion research and its consequences for deconversion, and a discussion of extant empirical research on deconversion. The discussion then focuses on the conceptualization of deconversion and compiles the features from which a comprehensive concept of deconversion may emerge. The core features of the deconversion concept which is suggested in this article are complemented by dimensions of diversity which also include a developmental perspective (from the religious styles perspective). This has implications for future research. Developments in Research on Conversion and DeconversionConversion has been a prominent focus of theorizing and research in the psychology of religion from its early days on. Deconversion has not. Searching for 'deconversion' in electronic data bases results in a relatively small number of books, articles or dissertations. Various names which may be regarded as referring to the same core phenomenon, may also point to its complexity: apostasy, defection, disaffiliation, falling from the faith; exit etc. The name 'deconversion' is rather new, and, because of its potential to structure the discussion in an evolving research field, we work towards a clarification.We will outline in this text perspectives for a conceptualization of deconversion-in its common features and in its diversity. Conceptual clarification structures empirical research and has to stand the test of empirical research; therefore we strive to show the merit of the

Based on the recent proposal in this journal (Streib, 2001a) to revise James Fowler's (1981) faith development theory, the article argues for a revision of faith development research to account not only for structural diversity, but also for narrative and content diversity. Therefore, it suggests the inclusion of content-analytical and narrative-analytical procedures into faith development research. The argument develops in light of a review of 53 empirical studies that all have used Fowler's faith development instrument or a variation thereof; this review pays attention to the instruments that have been proposed for quantitative research in faith development, but especially to the empirical studies that have already included narrative-and content-analytical approaches. The article concludes with a proposal for a revised research design that integrates attention for structure, content, and narrative and suggests a coherent methodological procedure for future research in faith development.Within the relatively short time period of 20 years, James Fowler's (1981) theory of faith development has attracted attention and inspired empirical research both in the United States and worldwide. The growing reputation of faith development theory had its beginning in the Center for Faith Development at Emory University 1 -which, however, never claimed to be the sole faith development re-

Recent empirical studies demonstrate that a growing number of people contrast "spirituality" and "religion," self-identifying as "spiritual, but not religious" or as "more spiritual than religious." This shift in everyday semantic preference, from "religion" to "spirituality," has also affected the terminology of the scientific study of religion, producing some uncertainty and ambivalence regarding the conceptualization of spirituality. This is critically discussed. To inspire reflection, the article refers to some classics in philosophy, psychology and sociology of religion. The aim is twofold: first, to take the self-description "spiritual" very seriously, and inspire more thoroughgoing and sophisticated research; second, to call into question the necessity of conceptualizing 'spirituality' and to suggest that the concept of 'religion' is sufficient, because "spirituality" can be understood as privatized, experience-oriented religion.