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Abstract

The evangelical community has seen a recent proliferation of spiritual gifts inventories. These inventories resemble personality measures developed by psychologists and are designed to help individuals identify their spiritual gifts. This study examines the psychometric properties of one such inventory designed to measure 14 spiritual gifts. Thirty-one male and 41 female evangelical college-aged students were administered the Hocking (1975) Spiritual Gifts Inventory. In general, the subscales (i.e., spiritual gifts) showed poor to moderate reliabilities. Interscale factor analysis using an oblique rotation produced a three-factor solution and does not support the ability of this inventory to measure 14 unique gifts. The hermeneutical implications of the three-factor solution and the ethical concerns in using inventories that have not been validated but appear “scientific” are discussed.

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Measuring Spiritual Giftedness: A Factor Analytic Study of a Spiritual Gifts Inventory

Abstract

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References