Measuring religious social capital: scale properties of the modified Williams Religious Social Capital Index among Friends of cathedrals

This article evaluates a new version of the Williams Religious Social Capital Index (WRSCI), for use within Friends’ associations of Church of England cathedrals. Like the WRSCI, the modified measure (WRSCIM) takes into consideration four distinct elements: trust, and bonding, bridging and linking social capital. As part of a larger project, 923 Friends from six cathedrals responded to the 12 items concerning religious social capital. The modified index achieved satisfactory levels of internal consistency reliability; and construct validity was supported by a clear relationship between Friends’ activity and levels of religious social capital. However, in contrast to the demands on cathedral congregants (among whom the original WRSCI was developed), there is no expectation that cathedral Friends will have regular face-to-face contact with fellow members; so, a measure of social networks in the association would complement the WRSCIM to provide a more complete picture of Friends’ religious social capital.     

‘Friends’ of Anglican cathedrals: norms and values. Befriending,friending or misnomer?

Loyal supporters of Anglican cathedrals first subscribed to ‘Friends’ associations in the late 1920s. Yet, in 1937, a journalist in The Times portrayed cathedrals as a ‘queer thing to be a friend of.’ Drawing on theories of friendship from a range of disciplines, and surveys of what has been proclaimed in the public domain about cathedral Friends, then and now, this article assesses the aptness of the ‘Friends’ nomenclature, given the inherent norms and values of the relationship as portrayed. Context has a bearing upon how the concept is manifested, and behaviours in the cathedral-Friend dyad follow many rules of person–person friendships. Empirical research probing the motivations and actions of cathedral Friends may reveal whether other norms also apply. The challenge for Friends is to preserve for future generations not only cathedral fabric but also key norms and values of friendship, against the prevailing trends of an apparently increasingly individuated culture.     

Associational social capital and psychological type: an empirical enquiry among cathedral Friends in England

A sample of 1131 members of the Friends associations of six English cathedrals (616 women and 515 men) completed the Francis Psychological Type Scales (FPTS) and a modified version of the Williams Religious Social Capital Index (WRSCI). The data demonstrated that higher levels of religious social capital were found among extraverts (compared with introverts), sensing types (compared with intuitive types), and feeling types (compared with thinking types). No significant differences were found between judging types and perceiving types. The finding that extraverts displayed higher levels of religious social capital poses a challenge for the cathedrals, given that introverts outnumbered extraverts by nearly 2:1 in the Friends groups. Since religious social networks are known to influence generosity with time and money, it is suggested that cathedrals not only develop strategies to recruit more extravert Friends but also devise novel ways of encouraging introvert types to participate in associational activities where social capital will be generated.     

Measuring religious social capital: the scale properties of the Williams Religious Social Capital Index (WRSCI) among cathedral congregations

The theoretical construct of social capital remains contested in terms of conceptualisation and measurement. The present paper follows the convention of distinguishing between trust, bonding, bridging and linking social capital, to conceptualise how religious communities promote and develop social capital within a specifically religious cohort. Developing this construct of religious social capital further, this paper proposes a measure for use specifically among religious communities to assess individual‐level social capital. The Williams Religious Social Capital Index (WRSCI) provides a unidimensional construct of religious social capital taking into consideration the four elements highlighted. A sample of 720 members of six cathedral congregations in England and Wales completed a battery of items concerning social capital. Factor analysis procedures produced a 12‐item index of religious social capital. Reliability analyses demonstrated that this index achieved satisfactory levels of internal reliability consistency. Construct validity was supported by the clear association between frequency of attendance and levels of assessed religious social capital.