Christian Moral Values Scale

Abstract

The Christian Moral Values Scale (CMVS), developed by psychometrician Leslie J. Francis and religious educator John E. Greer (1990, 1992), is a brief, 10-item psychometric instrument designed to quantify individual variations in the moral evaluation of traditional ethical, relational, and social behaviors proscribed within the Judeo-Christian tradition. Conceptualized amidst empirical research on adolescent socialization and denominational divergence in Northern Ireland, the instrument fills a critical methodological gap by differentiating deontological moral evaluations (the perception of ethical obligation or “moral oughtness”) from generalized affective attitudes toward religion. Composed of 10 concise behavioral indicators—specifically gambling, drinking alcohol, drunkenness, stealing, drug taking, sexual intercourse before marriage, abortion, artificial birth control, suicide, and divorce—the CMVS utilizes a standardized 5-point moral response continuum ranging from 1 (“never wrong”) to 5 (“always wrong”), yielding a unidimensional composite score of Christian moral conservatism. Psychometric evaluations across diverse adolescent samples (e.g., N = 571; N = 1,177) demonstrate robust internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging between .70 and .76) and stable construct validity. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirm that despite the broad substantive range of the behaviors included, the scale operates as an internally coherent unidimensional assessment of strictness in Christian moral judgment. The CMVS has demonstrated empirical utility in differentiating practicing from non-practicing adherents, isolating distinct denominational profiles between Roman Catholic and Protestant cohorts, and predicting personal ethical decision-making beyond affective religiosity measures.

Keywords

Christian Moral Values Scale, moral evaluation, adolescent religiosity, psychometrics, deontology, Northern Ireland, Leslie J. Francis, John E. Greer, moral development, Judeo-Christian ethics

Authors

The Christian Moral Values Scale was conceived, calibrated, and validated by two prominent scholars in the psychology of religion and empirical theology:

• Leslie J. Francis, PhD, ScD, DD: An internationally recognized psychometrician and scholar in the empirical study of religion, values, and education. Professor Francis has held distinguished academic chairs, including Professor of Religions and Education at the University of Warwick and Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Wales, Bangor. He is also the originator of the widely utilized Francis Scale of Attitude towards Christianity (FSAC).
• John E. Greer, PhD: A leading researcher in religious education, adolescent socialization, and empirical theology, formerly based in the Department of Education at the University of Ulster at Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Dr. Greer dedicated decades of empirical inquiry to investigating adolescent moral orientations and faith commitments within segregated and coeducational educational systems during the conflict period known as The Troubles.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Christian Moral Values Scale is to provide an empirically sound, theoretically grounded measurement tool capable of evaluating personal adherence to traditional Christian moral prescriptions. When Francis and Greer formulated this instrument in the early 1990s, the empirical psychology of religion was disproportionately dominated by instruments assessing institutional affiliation, cognitive doctrinal belief, or affective attitudes toward divine and ecclesiastical objects. Although affective orientations toward Christianity were well documented through instruments such as the Francis Scale of Attitude towards Christianity, scholars lacked an efficient, standardized instrument tailored to assess how such affective postures translate into deontological ethical judgments.

Drawing on the theoretical critique advanced by Richard L. Gorsuch (1986), Francis and Greer noted that conventional attitude scales primarily capture emotional valence (affective evaluation) rather than the perceived normative obligation characteristic of ethical decision-making (“moral oughtness”). Research by Gorsuch and Ortberg (1983) conclusively established that moral evaluations add significant incremental variance in predicting actual behavioral intentions beyond standard affective attitude scores. Consequently, the CMVS was constructed to bridge this operational gap by presenting respondents with concrete behavioral acts and demanding an unequivocal ethical appraisal along a calibrated continuum of moral culpability.

In addition to resolving theoretical dilemmas surrounding the measurement of moral values versus attitudes, the scale served an urgent sociopolitical and educational diagnostic purpose. Developed within the context of Northern Ireland’s bifurcated educational landscape, the scale was intended to assess how denominational schooling (Catholic maintained schools versus state Protestant/integrated schools) and active versus inactive religious practice influenced adolescent moral consensus. By evaluating positions on bioethical matters (abortion, artificial birth control), interpersonal relations (premarital sex, divorce), self-preservation (suicide), and civic or personal self-control (stealing, drug taking, gambling, alcohol consumption), the CMVS provides clinicians, sociologists, educational psychologists, and empirical theologians with an indispensable tool for tracking moral shifts, secularization trajectories, and denominational divergence across adolescent and adult cohorts.

Psychological Construct

The underlying psychological construct measured by the Christian Moral Values Scale is Christian Moral Conservatism—operationalized as an individual’s propensity to categorize behaviors traditionally condemned by biblical and historical Christian ethical theology as intrinsically impermissible, inexcusable, or morally deficient. Rather than evaluating abstract moral reasoning stages (e.g., Kohlbergian stages of cognitive justice development), the CMVS assesses the evaluative *content* of moral convictions, specifically measuring the stringency with which an individual endorses traditional Judeo-Christian prohibitions.

The scale encompasses 10 behavioral indicators that reflect distinct facets of historical Christian moral pedagogy:

• Bioethical and Sanctity-of-Life Violations:
  • Abortion: Evaluates the deontological belief regarding the inviolability of human life from conception, a core tenet of Catholic moral theology and conservative Protestantism.
  • Suicide: Assesses the attribution of moral culpability to the intentional termination of one’s own life, traditionally conceptualized within Christian theology as a violation of divine sovereignty over human existence.
  • Artificial birth control: Taps into traditionalist natural-law bioethics, historically institutionalized within Roman Catholic encyclicals (e.g., Humanae Vitae), which prohibit the artificial decoupling of the unitive and procreative dimensions of sexual intercourse.
• Relational and Marital Ethics:
  • Sexual intercourse before marriage: Measures commitment to the biblical norm reserving sexual intimacy exclusively for heterosexual marital unions.
  • Divorce: Probes adherence to the indissolubility or sacred permanence of the marriage covenant, an issue characterized by historical variance between Catholic canon law and Protestant pastoral jurisprudence.
• Substance Use and Bodily Stewardship:
  • Drinking alcohol: Evaluates ascetic or temperance orientations, prevalent in conservative and non-conformist Protestant traditions.
  • Drunkenness: Assesses the proscription against loss of self-control and intoxication, widely condemned across both Catholic and mainstream Protestant doctrines.
  • Drug taking: Reflects contemporary extensions of Christian principles of bodily stewardship, sobriety, and legal obedience.
• Civic and Economic Integrity:
  • Stealing: Represents a direct transgression of the Decalogue (Eighth Commandment), evaluating consensus on civic dishonesty and violations of personal property rights.
  • Gambling: Taps into traditional Protestant and Catholic concerns regarding stewardship, covetousness, social harm, and unearned gain.

Because all 10 indicators represent proscribed behaviors without the inclusion of positively valenced prosocial duties (e.g., charitable giving, forgiveness, protecting the marginalized), high cumulative scores reflect a strict, prohibitive moral posture, often associated with traditionalist or fundamentalist religious socialization.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual foundation of the Christian Moral Values Scale is anchored at the intersection of three major psychological and theoretical frameworks: Gorsuch’s theory of moral obligation in social psychology, Fishbein and Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior, and Social Domain Theory as conceptualized by Larry Nucci and Elliot Turiel.

Within social psychology, Richard L. Gorsuch and Jeff Ortberg (1983) challenged the assumption of early attitude theorists who argued that general affective attitudes were sufficient predictors of moral action. Integrating the insights of Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen, Gorsuch demonstrated that when individuals confront ethically fraught dilemmas, affective preferences (“I like/dislike this”) are psychologically subordinate to perceived moral obligation (“I ought/ought not to do this”). Perceived moral obligation operates as an autonomous cognitive construct that directly affects behavioral intentions. The CMVS operationalizes this “moral oughtness” by discarding typical agreement-oriented response scales in favor of a wrongness evaluation continuum. By requiring participants to evaluate acts from “never wrong” to “always wrong,” the instrument invokes deontological cognitive schemas rather than mere emotional sentiment.

From the perspective of Social Domain Theory (Turiel, 1983; Nucci, 2001), human social knowledge is structured into distinct cognitive domains: the *moral* domain (involving intrinsic harm, justice, and human rights), the *societal/conventional* domain (involving context-dependent social rules, institutional etiquette, and consensus-driven traditions), and the *personal* domain (involving private autonomy and lifestyle choices). Traditional religious systems frequently elevate items from the societal and personal domains (e.g., birth control, alcohol consumption, premarital sex) into the moral domain by sacralizing behavioral codes under divine command. The CMVS empirically tracks the degree to which an individual transposes conventional or personal behavioral decisions into unalterable, deontological moral prohibitions.

Furthermore, the scale reflects theories of religious socialization (Francis, 1978, 1984). Religious traditions act as plausibility structures that transmit normative moral boundaries to adolescents through formal schooling, familial instruction, and liturgical participation. In the culturally segregated environment of late 20th-century Northern Ireland, the scale served as a psychometric mirror reflecting whether moral internalizations were primarily driven by denominational dogma (e.g., Catholic emphasis against artificial birth control and divorce) or broader puritanical-ascetic values (e.g., Protestant evangelical emphasis against gambling and alcohol consumption).

Validity

Empirical validation of the Christian Moral Values Scale encompasses content, construct, known-groups, and convergent validity evidence established across multiple peer-reviewed studies.

Content and Face Validity

The content validity of the CMVS is supported by its derivation from foundational texts of Christian dogma, historical catechisms, and ecclesiastical canons governing personal behavior. Francis and Greer selected the 10 behaviors based on their recognized salience in differentiating traditional religious adherence from secular moral autonomy. Although critics have noted that certain items (e.g., stealing) reflect universal civil and moral prohibitions rather than uniquely Christian mandates, their inclusion alongside distinctively theological proscriptions (e.g., artificial birth control, premarital sex) allows researchers to differentiate generalized societal compliance from specific Christian theological conformity.

Construct and Known-Groups Validity

Construct validity is robustly confirmed through known-groups comparisons. In their seminal 1990 and 1992 investigations, Francis and Greer administered the scale to adolescent cohorts across Northern Ireland, demonstrating that the scale discriminates sharply based on church attendance and denominational affiliation:

• Active vs. Inactive Adherents: Adolescents who regularly attended religious services (weekly or more) scored significantly higher on overall moral conservatism than nominal or non-attending peers across both Catholic and Protestant cohorts (p < .001).
• Denominational Divergence: Greer and Francis (1990) revealed pronounced, predictable item-level divergence that corroborates the construct validity of the scale. Roman Catholic adolescents exhibited significantly higher moral condemnation of artificial birth control, divorce, and abortion than their Protestant peers, consistent with the formal moral theology of the Catholic Church. Conversely, Protestant adolescents exhibited significantly higher moral condemnation of gambling and drinking alcohol, mirroring the historic evangelical and temperance traditions within British and Irish Protestant nonconformism and Presbyterianism.

Convergent and Criterion Validity

The CMVS demonstrates moderate to strong positive correlations with standardized measures of affective religiosity, notably the Francis Scale of Attitude towards Christianity (FSAC). Typically, correlations between the CMVS and FSAC range between r = .45 and r = .60, confirming that while moral values correlate with favorable attitudes toward God, Jesus, and the Church, the moral evaluation of behavior represents a distinct psychometric dimension that cannot be subsumed under general affective religiosity.

Reliability

The internal consistency of the Christian Moral Values Scale has been examined across multiple adolescent populations within coeducational, single-sex, state, and voluntary religious schools in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.

• Internal Consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha):
  • In an initial validation cohort of 571 secondary school pupils (Forms 4 to 6, ages 14–18) attending Catholic and Protestant schools, Francis and Greer (1990) reported a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .70.
  • In a subsequent expanded sample comprising 1,177 adolescent pupils across Northern Ireland, Greer and Francis (1990) reported an enhanced Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .76.
  • Subsequent administrations among post-primary students consistently confirm internal consistency estimates within the acceptable to good range of .70 to .78, which is notable given the brevity of the 10-item instrument and the substantive diversity of the behaviors evaluated (ranging from property crime to reproductive choices).
• Item-Total Correlations: Corrected item-total correlations across the validation studies generally range from .28 to .58. Items assessing substance abuse, theft, and relational dissolution exhibit robust alignment with the latent trait, whereas items heavily influenced by specific denominational dogma (such as artificial birth control) demonstrate slightly lower item-total correlations in religiously mixed samples, reflecting denominational variation rather than psychometric instability.
• Test-Retest Stability: While original publications focused primarily on cross-sectional survey architectures, subsequent longitudinal evaluations over 6- to 12-month intervals have documented moderate-to-high temporal stability coefficients (test-retest r > .72), confirming that the scale assesses enduring moral structures rather than transient emotional reactions.

Factor Analysis

The structural validity of the Christian Moral Values Scale was originally explored using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). Francis and Greer subjected the initial pool of behavioral descriptors to principal components analysis to determine whether moral evaluations of disparate behaviors shared sufficient common variance to justify a single composite score.

The EFA yielded a clear dominant general factor accounting for the primary portion of total variance. The 10 items selected demonstrated the highest factor loadings on this unrotated first principal component, indicating that adolescents perceive these disparate behavioral transgressions through a shared underlying cognitive lens of traditional moral judgment. Items such as drug taking, stealing, and drunkenness typically exhibited the highest factor loadings (often exceeding .60), acting as core indicators of moral proscription, while socio-theological items such as artificial birth control loaded somewhat lower (around .35 to .45), reflecting its contested status outside conservative Catholic doctrine.

Subsequent psychometric evaluations utilizing Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) have confirmed that while a unidimensional model provides adequate fit for brief assessment purposes (CFI > .90, RMSEA ≈ .06–.08), a bifactor or multi-factor representation frequently provides superior fit indices in large, diverse samples. In these more nuanced models, items cluster into two distinct but correlated second-order factors:

1. Personal and Civic Decorum: Comprising stealing, drug taking, drunkenness, drinking alcohol, and gambling (behaviors directly impacting bodily integrity, civic order, and social welfare).
2. Bioethical and Sexual Morality: Comprising sexual intercourse before marriage, abortion, artificial birth control, divorce, and suicide (behaviors governed by foundational doctrines regarding the sanctity of life, procreation, and matrimonial permanence).

Despite these secondary sub-dimensions, Francis and Greer recommend utilizing the total unidimensional score when evaluating broad differences in religious socialization and moral conservatism.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Christian Moral Values Scale (CMVS)
• Authors: Leslie J. Francis and John E. Greer (1990, 1992)
• Construct Assessed: Strictness of Christian moral judgment across personal, bioethical, relational, and civic domains
• Administration Format: Self-report questionnaire (pen-and-paper or digital computer-based administration)
• Target Population: Adolescents (ages 13–18) and adults; originally calibrated on post-primary pupils (Forms 4 to 6)
• Number of Items: 10 behavioral items
• Response Scale: 5-point Likert-type moral evaluation scale:
  • 1 = never wrong
  • 2 = usually excusable
  • 3 = undecided
  • 4 = usually wrong
  • 5 = always wrong
• Scoring Procedure:
  • All 10 items are positively keyed toward moral strictness/conservatism.
  • Item responses are assigned numerical values from 1 to 5.
  • Total scores are calculated by summing the ratings across all 10 items, yielding a possible score range of 10 to 50.
  • Higher cumulative scores indicate greater adherence to traditional Christian moral proscriptions; lower cumulative scores indicate moral permissiveness, situational ethics, or secular moral autonomy.
• Practical Administration Considerations:
  • Administration Time: Extremely rapid, requiring approximately 2 to 3 minutes for completion.
  • Negativistic Bias: Because all 10 items describe proscribed behaviors, researchers should be aware that respondents with a generalized negativistic or acquiescent response bias may obtain higher scores.
  • Classroom Administration: Due to the brevity of the items (single words or brief phrases), administrators in educational settings should ensure adequate physical spacing to prevent peer observation and social desirability contamination.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Christian Moral Values Scale was first introduced in empirical research published in 1990 (Francis & Greer, 1990; Greer & Francis, 1990) and formally detailed as a standardized measurement tool in 1992 (Francis & Greer, 1992). The scale is considered an open-access psychometric instrument available without commercial licensing fees for non-profit academic research, scientific inquiry, and educational evaluation.

Researchers intending to employ the CMVS in empirical investigations are expected to maintain intellectual property standards by properly citing the foundational publications authored by Leslie J. Francis and John E. Greer. For commercial applications, broad institutional testing, or inclusion in proprietary test batteries, permission should be sought through the authors or their institutional representatives.

References

• Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Addison-Wesley.
• Francis, L. J. (1978). Attitude and latitude: A psychometric approach to the study of adolescent religiosity. Research Information, Religious Education Press.
• Francis, L. J. (1984). The Christian religion and the teenage world: The church in an age of secularization. British Journal of Religious Education, 6(3), 138–140. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141620840060309
• Francis, L. J., & Greer, J. E. (1990). Catholic schools and adolescent religiosity in Northern Ireland: Shaping moral values. The Irish Journal of Education / Iris Eireannach an Leinn, 24(1/2), 40–47. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30077478
• Francis, L. J., & Greer, J. E. (1992). Measuring Christian moral values among Catholic and Protestant adolescents in Northern Ireland. Journal of Moral Education, 21(1), 59–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305724920210106
• Gorsuch, R. L. (1986). Measuring attitudes, interests, sentiments, and values. In R. B. Cattell & R. C. Johnson (Eds.), Functional psychological testing: Principles and instruments (pp. 316–333). Brunner/Mazel.
• Gorsuch, R. L., & Ortberg, J. (1983). Moral obligation and attitudes: Their relation to behavioral intentions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(5), 1025–1028. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.44.5.1025
• Greer, J. E., & Francis, L. J. (1990). The religious profile of pupils in Northern Ireland. Journal of Empirical Theology, 3(2), 35–50. https://doi.org/10.1163/157092590X00030
• Nucci, L. P. (2001). Education in the moral domain. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511605987
• Turiel, E. (1983). The development of social knowledge: Morality and convention. Cambridge University Press.

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)