In his 2001 book Why Religion Matters, Huston Smith, a great scholar of world religions, proposes that there are four religious personality types that occur in every culture, regardless of the dominant religion: atheist, polytheist, monotheist, and mystic.

I have expanded on Smith's typology by adding two orientations for each type: belief-oriented, or knowledge- and experience-oriented.

This schema provides a way to explore religious differences without judgment. It suggests that religious differences are more a matter of personality type than of ideology or institution; that no type is intrinsically superior to any other type; and that the types are differentiated by the perceptual world they inhabit — they are different ways of experiencing and responding to reality.

When I give workshops on this topic, I emphasize that most of us are a combination of types, and our dominant type may change as we go through life. Workshop participants find that this way of looking at spirituality gives them fresh insights into themselves as well as others.

Click here for a chart that will help you explore this topic on your own. Or if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, contact me if you'd like to schedule a workshop.

(This topic is not related to Civilizing Sexuality.)