Clinging to the Hands of a Distant God: Attachment to God in Protestant American Theology

This study introduces a newly developed scale assessing Protestant theological beliefs on a Theological Openness/Biblical Literalism dimension (Study 1) and examines its relationship with attachment to God (Study 2). To establish validity, we conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the Protestant Theology Scale (PTS) and assessed its convergent and discriminant validity against established religious measures. We hypothesized that anxiety about abandonment by God would predict Biblical Literalism theological beliefs, but avoidance of intimacy with God would predict Theological Openness theological beliefs. Results supported these hypotheses, with avoidance toward God predicting Theological Openness beliefs, but anxiety about abandonment by God predicted Biblical Literalism theological beliefs. The study highlights the importance of theological constructs in attachment research and emphasizes the need for further scale validation.