The Shepherd Scale: Separating the Sheep from the Goats

Abstract

This article presents an instrument designed to differentiate Christians from non-Christians. The instrument reflects the belief that published past attempts to measure Christianity have underutilized the Bible as a resource. Therefore, in the construction of this instrument, the New Testament was searched for qualities characteristic of Christians and then these were used as the basis for determining item content. When administered to a sample of college students from a small Christian liberal arts college the instrument, the Shepherd Scale, demonstrated promising reliability and validity. As a further test of the instrument's validity it was also given to a broader range of people living in the suburbs of a metropolitan area. Again, the Shepherd Scale seemed to “separate the sheep from the goats.”