Thinking Creatively About Religion: Belief-Related Differences

Writers (Chisholm, 1996) and theorists (Fateux, 1995a, 1995b) have discussed the relationship between religion and creativity, however, until the present, empirical studies examining this relationship have not been done. The current study used a psychometric approach to investigate the relationships among religiosity, religious motivation and creative thought about religious issues for two different religious groups. Results showed few relationships between self-perceived religiosity, religious motivation and religious creative thought. A comparison between two religious populations showed that the Mormon group scored higher in religiosity and religious motivation, but lower in creativity than the non-Mormon group. Future studies need to expand this type of work to other religious groups, and focus more on gender and age-related differences related to religious creativity.