Protestant and Catholic: Is the Analogical Imagination Extinct?

The notion of the Protestant Ethic is reconceptualized to reflect theoretical expectations about the difference between the Dialectical Imagination and the Analogical Imagination. Protestants are expected to be individualist because of an imagination of society as sinful and God-forsaken. Catholics are expected to be communitarian because of an imagination of society as sacramental, that is, revelatory of God. The research question is whether the analogical/communitarian imagination can persist in a world of industrialization, modernization, urbanization, and homogenization. The issue was tested against data from seven nations (36 variables) with the null hypothesis that denominational background does not predict value orientation. The null hypothesis was rejected. A replication was attempted with a different data set from seven nations (36 variables) and the null hypothesis was again rejected. Further testing with data and 13 hypotheses from only the United States tested the null hypothesis that differences in religious imagery could not account for some of the variance between Protestants and Catholics on value measures. This null hypothesis was also rejected.