Christian Spiritual Surrender Scale (CSSS)

Abstract

The Christian Spiritual Surrender Scale (CSSS) (Shannonhouse et al., 2024) is a psychometrically validated self-report instrument designed to assess the emic Christian religious coping strategy of spiritual surrender to God during experiences of adversity, suffering, and existential distress. Developed at the intersection of clinical psychology, psychometrics, and theological inquiry, the CSSS addresses a critical conceptual and measurement gap in the psychology of religion by differentiating active spiritual surrender—characterized by conscious volition, relational trust, and sustained personal agency—from passive religious deferral, fatalism, or spiritual bypass. The instrument was developed through an extensive iterative process beginning with an initial pool of 52 theoretically derived items, which was refined to 17 items via rigorous expert panel evaluations and cognitive interviewing techniques examining comprehension, retrieval, judgment, and response selection. Subsequent psychometric evaluations across multiple samples of Christian adults experiencing acute or chronic suffering within the United States resulted in a unidimensional, 10-item final measure. Exploratory factor analysis confirmed a robust single-factor structure accounting for 56.69% of the total variance, while confirmatory factor analysis verified exceptional goodness of fit ($chi^2(35) = 51.56, p < .05$;$ ext{CFI} = .995$;$ ext{RMSEA} = .04$ $[90% ext{ CI: } 0.01, 0.06]$; $ ext{SRMR} = .02$) with standardized item factor loadings ranging from .79 to .88. The scale demonstrates excellent internal consistency reliability ($lpha = .93$) alongside compelling construct validity, marked by strong positive correlations with intrinsic religiosity, moderate inverse correlations with anxious and avoidant attachment to God, and demonstrable discriminant divergence from passive religious coping models. Demonstrating incremental predictive validity for life satisfaction and positive affect, the CSSS serves as a vital clinical and empirical assessment tool for evaluating adaptive religious coping in spiritually integrated psychotherapy and health research.

Keywords

Christian Spiritual Surrender, Religious Coping, Spiritual Coping, Adversity, Suffering, Psychometrics, Factor Analysis, Attachment to God, Stress and Coping, Intrinsic Religiosity

Authors

The Christian Spiritual Surrender Scale was developed by an interdisciplinary team of clinical psychologists, psychological scientists, philosophers, and theological scholars:

• Laura Shannonhouse, Ph.D. (Corresponding Author) — Department of Counseling and Psychological Services, College of Education & Human Development, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, United States. ORCID: 0000-0001-6822-8763. Email: [email protected].
• Jason McMartin, Ph.D. — Rosemead School of Psychology and Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, La Mirada, California, United States. ORCID: 0000-0003-0075-1018.
• Shane J. Sacco, Ph.D. — Department of Allied Health Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States. ORCID: 0000-0003-4920-8219.
• M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall, Ph.D. — Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, La Mirada, California, United States. ORCID: 0000-0002-6342-4340.
• Crystal L. Park, Ph.D. — Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States. ORCID: 0000-0001-6572-7321.
• Dahee Kim, Ph.D. — Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States. ORCID: 0000-0002-4376-9536.
• Eric J. Silverman, Ph.D. — Department of Philosophy and Religion, Christopher Newport University, Newport News, Virginia, United States. ORCID: 0000-0001-7763-2100.
• Kelly M. Kapic, Ph.D. — Department of Biblical and Theological Studies, Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Georgia, United States. ORCID: 0000-0001-7442-7953.
• Jamie D. Aten, Ph.D. — Humanitarian Disaster Institute, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, United States. ORCID: 0000-0003-1340-2546.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Christian Spiritual Surrender Scale (CSSS) is to provide an empirically rigorous, theologically authentic, and clinically nuanced measurement tool for assessing spiritual surrender as an emic Christian religious coping mechanism. In the psychology of religion and coping science, spiritual surrender has historically been prone to fundamental conceptual confoundment. Standard psychometric measures have frequently conflated surrendering to the divine with passivity, fatalistic resignation, externalized locus of control, learned helplessness, or behavioral abdication. The CSSS was purposefully designed to capture spiritual surrender according to its authentic historical and theological meaning within Christian orthodoxy: an intentional, highly active cognitive and volitional relinquishment of control over outcomes to a benevolent, omnipotent God, occurring simultaneously with active human problem-solving and moral agency.

Clinically, the instrument provides mental health practitioners, clinical chaplains, and pastoral counselors with a standardized metric to assess how religious clients frame and manage existential distress, trauma, bereavement, chronic illness, and moral injury. When clients undergo acute suffering, their coping styles dictate psychological trajectories. Individuals who engage in passive religious deferral—expecting God to resolve problems without personal effort—often exhibit poorer mental health outcomes and increased vulnerability to spiritual struggles. Conversely, individuals who practice active spiritual surrender mobilize relational attachment to God to regulate autonomic distress, reduce existential rumination, and preserve secondary control. The CSSS enables clinicians to delineate these distinct phenomena, facilitating targeted clinical interventions in spiritually integrated cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and narrative therapies.

From an empirical research perspective, the CSSS addresses limitations identified in broader religious coping inventories, such as the Brief RCOPE (Pargament et al., 2000), which conceptualizes religious coping along broad positive and negative dimensions but lacks an emic scale dedicated entirely to the paradoxical coexistence of active surrender and active personal responsibility. By isolating this specific construct, researchers can examine the precise psychoneuroimmunological, affective, and relational mediators linking active faith practices with psychological resilience, post-traumatic growth, and well-being in the face of uncontrollable life crises.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct evaluated by the CSSS is Christian Spiritual Surrender. Rather than denoting passive submission, subjugation, or defeat, Christian spiritual surrender is operationalized as a multidimensional, active, dialectical coping strategy. It is rooted in an attachment-rich, relational dynamic between the individual and God, characterized by the following foundational dimensions:

1. Volitional Relinquishment (Active Choice)

Surrender is not a consequence of cognitive exhaustion, fatalistic coercion, or learned helplessness. It is an intentional, conscious decision made by the individual. The individual exercises agency precisely through the act of entrusting their vulnerability and suffering to God. This volitional aspect requires executive control, self-awareness, and intentional emotional regulation. For instance, Item 1 (“I actively chose to turn my suffering over to God because I knew God loved me”) explicitly highlights the self-determined, deliberate nature of the surrender behavior.

2. Relational Trust in Divine Benevolence

The psychological feasibility of surrender depends entirely on the internalized mental representation of the deity. In secular psychological terms, this parallels secure attachment dynamics. Surrender occurs within the context of perceived divine love, fidelity, and sovereign care. An individual cannot safely surrender control to an entity perceived as malevolent, punitive, distant, or capricious. Thus, the construct integrates cognitive appraisals of God as benevolent and supportive (e.g., Item 3: “Knowing that God is with me and for me helped me turn my troubles over to God”). This relational foundation converts what could be an anxiety-provoking loss of control into a secure, comforting relinquishment.

3. Dialectical Agency and Concurrent Action

A central defining feature of the CSSS construct is the preservation of human responsibility. The construct systematically rejects the notion of quietism—the theological error of total passivity where human effort is abandoned. Instead, the individual actively surrenders outcomes beyond their personal control while simultaneously dedicating themselves to actions within their sphere of influence. This is operationalized in Item 4 (“I actively chose to put my troubles in the hands of God while I continued to work on what I had control over”) and Item 8 (“When I was in trouble, I entrusted myself to God’s care while I continued to do all I could”). This reflects a dual-focus coping orientation: primary control is directed toward manageable pragmatic tasks, while secondary control (meaning-making, emotional acceptance) is achieved through divine entrustment.

4. Alignment of Will and Epistemic Humility

The construct captures an existential realignment wherein the individual subordinates personal desires, preferences, and need for certainty to divine purpose and wisdom. This reflects epistemic humility: acknowledging human cognitive limitations regarding the ultimate meaning of suffering. As reflected in Item 9 (“I wanted what God wanted for me more than what I wanted for myself…”) and Item 10 (“When circumstances were hard, I asked God to help me accept God’s plan for my life”), surrender involves an open-handed acceptance of reality combined with an affective reframing that aligns personal volition with a transcendent narrative.

Theoretical Framework

The CSSS is grounded in the synthesis of psychological stress and coping theories, internal attachment theory, and classical Christian theological anthropology.

1. Transactional Model of Stress and Coping

Under the transactional model formulated by Lazarus and Folkman (1984), stress arises from an evaluative appraisal that environmental demands exceed personal resources. Coping consists of constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage internal or external demands appraised as taxing. The transactional model classifies coping primarily into problem-focused (altering the stressor) and emotion-focused (regulating affective distress) efforts. Folkman and colleagues later incorporated meaning-focused coping to explain how individuals endure prolonged, uncontrollable adversity.

Spiritual surrender operates as a sophisticated form of meaning-focused and secondary-control coping (Rothbaum et al., 1982). When faced with objective loss of primary control (e.g., terminal illness, catastrophic bereavement, systemic trauma), individuals who cling rigidiy to direct primary control experience severe psychological demoralization. Spiritual surrender provides an alternative coping avenue: secondary control via alliance with a sacred other. The individual acknowledges finite control, yields the ultimate outcome to God, and thereby prevents catastrophic anxiety while preserving functional agency.

2. Pargament’s Religious Coping Typology

The conceptual framework of the CSSS is directly informed by Kenneth Pargament’s (1997, 2000) groundbreaking models of religious coping. Pargament identified three primary styles of religious problem-solving:

• Self-Directing: The individual relies on themselves rather than God to solve problems. God is viewed as having endowed humanity with resources to act independently.
• Deferring: The individual passively abdicates responsibility, waiting for God to intervene and resolve the dilemma without personal initiative.
• Collaborative: The individual and God work together as active partners in resolving life challenges.

Historically, measures of religious surrender were often misclassified as forms of the Deferring style, which empirical studies have repeatedly correlated with passive coping, lower competence, external locus of control, and poorer psychological adjustment. The authors of the CSSS posited that true Christian surrender does not equate to the deferring style. Rather, it represents an emic variant that bridges collaborative coping with profound humility—what can be termed active yielding. The CSSS was theorized to capture an approach where agency is not abandoned but redirected toward obedience, endurance, and alignment with God’s perceived will.

3. Attachment Theory to God

Drawing on Kirkpatrick’s (1992, 2005) application of attachment theory to religion, God often functions as an attachment figure—a protective haven of safety and a secure base for exploration. Secure human attachment allows individuals to confront threats courageously because they trust that their caregiver is reliable and benevolent. Similarly, individuals with a secure attachment to God can engage in spiritual surrender without the terror of abandonment or self-annihilation. In contrast, individuals characterized by attachment anxiety or attachment avoidance find surrender psychologically threatening; anxious individuals perceive God as inconsistent, while avoidant individuals reject relational vulnerability and self-reliance.

4. Theological Foundations: Kenosis and Providence

The theological framework underpinning the CSSS is rooted in historic Christian theology, specifically the doctrines of providence, grace, and Christological surrender (kenosis). In Christian orthodoxy, as exemplified in Jesus Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane (“Not my will, but yours be done”), surrender is not an expression of despair or passivity. Instead, it is the highest expression of faith, requiring immense emotional courage, conscious resolve, and dedication to God’s overarching redemptive purposes amidst severe suffering.

Validity

The psychometric evaluation of the CSSS demonstrated extensive evidence supporting face, content, construct, convergent, discriminant, and incremental validity across multiple samples of Christian adults experiencing negative life events.

Face and Content Validity

Content validity was established through an exhaustive qualitative and empirical development process. An initial pool of 52 items was developed based on extensive interdisciplinary consultations involving psychologists of religion, systematic theologians, and clinical practitioners. This pool was subjected to formal expert reviews to ensure theological fidelity to Christian dogma and psychological coherence. Subsequently, the authors performed rigorous cognitive interviewing with Christian adults representing diverse theological traditions (e.g., Evangelical, Mainline Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox). Cognitive interviewing utilized think-aloud protocols and targeted verbal probes to evaluate four stages of cognitive response: comprehension of item intent, retrieval of relevant autobiographical memories of suffering, judgment/estimation processes, and mapping responses onto Likert categories. Items demonstrating ambiguity, theological skew, or susceptibility to double-barreled cognitive processing were refined or eliminated, yielding a 17-item scale for field testing.

Construct and Factorial Validity

Construct validity was demonstrated through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The data confirmed a single, highly coherent, unidimensional latent construct representing spiritual surrender. The factor structure demonstrated stability across independent cross-validation samples of adults facing significant hardships.

Convergent Validity

The CSSS demonstrated robust, statistically significant correlations with established constructs in alignment with theoretical predictions:

• Intrinsic Religiosity: The CSSS demonstrated strong positive correlations with intrinsic religiosity (assessed via the Duke University Religion Index [DUREL]), confirming that individuals whose faith is an internalized, master motive naturally engage in active surrender during adversity.
• Attachment to God: Convergent validity was further corroborated using the Attachment to God Scale (AGS). The CSSS correlated negatively with anxious attachment to God and avoidant attachment to God. Individuals who trust God’s availability and responsiveness reported substantially higher levels of spiritual surrender, verifying the theoretical proposition that surrender is an outgrowth of secure relational attachment to the divine.

Discriminant Validity

To establish that the CSSS measures a construct distinct from passive resignation or deferral, the researchers examined its relationship with the Passive Religious Deferral subscale of the RCOPE (Pargament et al., 2000). The correlation between the CSSS and Passive Religious Deferral was small ($r < .30$), confirming that active spiritual surrender is empirically distinguishable from passive deferral. While both share a thematic focus on relinquishing problems to God, the CSSS captures the critical element of concurrent human agency and trust, whereas passive deferral reflects fatalistic abdication.

Incremental Validity

Hierarchical multiple regression analyses verified the incremental validity of the CSSS. When controlling for general religious commitment, positive religious coping, and passive religious deferral, the CSSS accounted for statistically significant unique variance in key psychological well-being metrics, specifically:

• Satisfaction with Life: As measured by the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), scores on the CSSS accounted for significant additional variance in cognitive appraisals of life satisfaction.
• Positive Affect: The CSSS significantly predicted higher positive emotional states (measured via the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule [PANAS]).
• Negative Affect: The relationship between the CSSS and negative emotional states narrowly missed conventional levels of statistical significance, suggesting that spiritual surrender functions primarily to foster positive psychological adaptation, resilience, and meaning rather than simply extinguishing distress symptoms.

Reliability

The psychometric evaluation of the 10-item Christian Spiritual Surrender Scale demonstrated exceptional internal consistency reliability across diverse community and online samples.

Internal Consistency

In the primary psychometric validation study (Shannonhouse et al., 2024), the final 10-item instrument achieved an overall Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) coefficient of .93, indicating outstanding internal consistency without redundant item overlap. Item-total correlations across all 10 items remained consistently high, ranging between .72 and .84, confirming that all items contribute substantially to the measurement of the underlying latent construct.

Structural Reliability and Composite Indices

In addition to Cronbach’s alpha, structural equation modeling verified high composite reliability (McDonald’s $\omega > .92$). Standard errors of measurement (SEM) were minimal, indicating strong precision across the upper and middle spectrum of the trait distribution. Psychometric evaluations confirmed that the high reliability of the scale remained robust across diverse Christian demographic cohorts, including variations in denominational affiliation, age cohorts, and gender.

Factor Analysis

The latent structure of the CSSS was rigorously evaluated using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) across distinct participant samples recruited via online platforms (Amazon Mechanical Turk and Prolific) involving Christian adults experiencing personal suffering.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

An initial EFA was conducted on the 17-item preliminary scale using maximum likelihood extraction and oblique rotation (promax). The sample data met all standard criteria for factorability (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy $> .90$; Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity, $p < .001$). The initial analysis revealed a dominant single factor that accounted for 53.82% of the total variance, with individual factor loadings ranging from .56 to .81.

To optimize clinical utility, reduce respondent burden, and eliminate psychometrically complex or theoretically repetitive statements, the scale was condensed. Seven items were removed based on strict psychometric criteria, including lower factor loadings, semantic redundancy, and subtle interpretative difficulties highlighted during prior cognitive interviews. A secondary EFA performed on the refined 10 items verified a clean, unidimensional structure. This single-factor model explained 56.69% of the overall variance after extraction. Every single item exhibited an extraction loading exceeding .50, with empirical loadings ranging from .68 to .85.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

To validate the unidimensional factor structure identified in the EFA, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis was estimated on an independent cross-validation sample of Christian adults ($N > 300$). The one-factor model was specified where all 10 items loaded directly onto a single latent factor representing Christian Spiritual Surrender.

The structural model demonstrated exemplary fit to the empirical data across all conventional goodness-of-fit indices:

• Chi-Square Goodness-of-Fit: $\chi^2(35) = 51.56, p = .036$ (a remarkably low $\chi^2 / df$ ratio of 1.47, well below the conservative threshold of 2.0).
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .995 (exceeding the standard cut-off of $ge .95$ for exceptional fit).
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .04 with a 90% confidence interval of $[0.01, 0.06]$ and a non-significant test of close fit ($p_{ ext{close}} > .70$).
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .02 (well beneath the standard .08 threshold).

All standardized factor loadings in the CFA model were robust and statistically significant ($p < .001$), ranging from 0.79 to 0.88:

• Item 1: $lambda = 0.82$
• Item 2: $lambda = 0.84$
• Item 3: $lambda = 0.81$
• Item 4: $lambda = 0.86$
• Item 5: $lambda = 0.80$
• Item 6: $lambda = 0.85$
• Item 7: $lambda = 0.79$
• Item 8: $lambda = 0.88$
• Item 9: $lambda = 0.83$
• Item 10: $lambda = 0.81$

The authors evaluated the potential limitation of “double-barreled” items (e.g., items combining turning troubles to God while continuing personal action). However, both EFA and CFA confirmed that this structural duality is psychometrically unified and theoretically essential: the coexistence of surrender and agency constitutes the fundamental defining core of the construct itself.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Christian Spiritual Surrender Scale is an objective, standardized psychological measurement tool designed for rapid electronic or paper-and-pencil administration.

• Test Name: Christian Spiritual Surrender Scale
• Acronym: CSSS
• Authors: Laura Shannonhouse, Jason McMartin, Shane J. Sacco, M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall, Crystal L. Park, Dahee Kim, Eric Silverman, Kelly Kapic, and Jamie Aten
• Year of Publication: 2023 (online advance publication); 2024 (print volume)
• Test Type: Original self-report psychological instrument
• Target Population: Adult individuals (aged 18 and older) identifying as Christian who have experienced or are currently experiencing adverse life events, suffering, medical illness, or psychological distress
• Administration Format: Self-administered; suitable for web-based survey software, clinical intake portals, or paper-pencil questionnaires
• Time Required: Approximately 2 to 4 minutes
• Number of Items: 10 items
• Response Format: 5-point Likert-type scale scored from 0 to 4:
  • 0 = Strongly disagree
  • 1 = Disagree
  • 2 = Neither agree nor disagree (Neutral)
  • 3 = Agree
  • 4 = Strongly agree
• Scoring Protocol:
  • All 10 items are positively keyed (no reverse-scored items).
  • Total Sum Score: Calculated by summing all 10 item ratings. Scores range from 0 to 40.
  • Mean Composite Score: Calculated by dividing the sum score by 10. Scores range from 0.0 to 4.0.
  • Higher scores reflect greater engagement in active Christian spiritual surrender as a coping strategy during suffering.
• Clinical Interpretation Guidelines:
  • Low Surrender (Sum 0–19; Mean 0.0–1.9): Minimal use of active spiritual surrender. Client may rely exclusively on secular primary control, exhibit avoidant/anxious attachment to God, or experience severe spiritual struggles regarding God’s trustworthiness.
  • Moderate Surrender (Sum 20–29; Mean 2.0–2.9): Inconsistent or emerging use of spiritual surrender. The client may cognitively endorse divine sovereignty but struggles to yield control emotionally while maintaining personal agency.
  • High Surrender (Sum 30–40; Mean 3.0–4.0): Strong, consistent utilization of active spiritual surrender. The client successfully balances personal responsibility with trust in divine benevolence, demonstrating adaptive secondary coping and resilience.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Christian Spiritual Surrender Scale was developed and published in 2023 (official journal issue publication in 2024). The measure is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association (APA). According to the instrument’s creators, the scale may be used freely without financial cost (Fee: None) for non-commercial academic research, empirical study, and clinical educational purposes. Commercial use, reproduction in for-profit proprietary software, or broad distribution without authorization is strictly prohibited. Researchers and practitioners utilizing the instrument are requested to formally cite the original primary psychometric validation paper published in Spirituality in Clinical Practice.

References

• Kirkpatrick, L. A. (1992). An attachment-theory approach to the psychology of religion. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 2(1), 3–28. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327582ijpr0201_2
• Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2005). Attachment, evolution, and the psychology of religion. Guilford Press.
• Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer Publishing Company.
• Pargament, K. I. (1997). The psychology of religion and coping: Theory, research, practice. Guilford Press.
• Pargament, K. I., Koenig, H. G., & Perez, L. M. (2000). The many methods of religious coping: Development and initial validation of the RCOPE. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 56(4), 519–543. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.42.1.5
• Shannonhouse, L., McMartin, J., Sacco, S. J., Hall, M. E. L., Park, C. L., Kim, D., Silverman, E., Kapic, K., & Aten, J. (2024). Spiritual surrender: Measurement of an emic Christian religious coping strategy. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 11(2), 173–185. https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000314

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)