A national-scale typology of orientations to religion poses new challenges for the cultural evolutionary study of religious groups

Religious groups differ in theology, ritual, and modes of self-governance. However, the extent to which such differences capture the variation of religious individuals remains unclear. Latent Profile Analysis offers a powerful statistical method for obtaining typologies from the response profiles of religious individuals. Here, we draw on a national sample of religiously-identified New Zealanders (N = 1484) and use LPA to obtain typologies for diversity in attitudes to religion as assessed by a combination of religious orientations, fundamentalism, and religious group narcissism/humility. The most parsimonious model recovers five types. To illustrate the importance of this descriptive typology, we evaluate the predictions of a church-sect theory against it. Consistent with church-sect theory, we find a greater density of intrinsic/exclusive types (Fundamentrinsics and X-trinsics) among informal/marginal religious groups and a greater density of extrinsic/inclusive types (Moderinsics and Disaffected) among established/mainstream churches. However, the data also reveal an unexpected feature: about 50% of religious affiliates across both marginal and mainstream Christian groups present as either Questrinsics or Moderinsics. Collectively, our findings illustrate how rigorous descriptive statistical models may combine with national-scale data to evaluate classical theories of religious change, while also raising new explanatory challenges for future evolutionary scholars of religions.