The Limitations of Religion/Spirituality (R/S) Measures

This article examines the category of spirituality and the ongoing challenges of defining and measuring spirituality in concrete and meaningful ways. It does so by analyzing the US military’s incorporation of spirituality as a component of Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) beginning in 2009. Following internal backlash and broader public criticism—particularly from organizations concerned with First Amendment protections—the Department of Defense modified the program. However, it remains unclear whether these revisions substantively addressed concerns related to religious freedom or meaningfully refined how spirituality was assessed. The military’s attempt to operationalize spirituality through a Spiritual Fitness Test (SFT), later renamed the Spiritual Fitness Inventory (SFI), is significant and warrants careful examination. As this article argues, the shortcomings of the SFT/SFI are not unique to the military but reflect broader methodological and conceptual challenges in how spirituality is surveyed and measured more generally. Within the specific context of the US military, the SFT/SFI raised questions related to First Amendment jurisprudence—particularly how constitutional protections for and from religion are interpreted—while also complicating claims that spirituality functions as a more inclusive or universal category than religion for capturing human experience and identity. By examining the limitations of universalist approaches to spirituality, this article invites dialogue on how scholars and institutions might refine their conceptual and methodological frameworks. Evaluating the military’s assessment tool also sheds light on how public institutions in the US participate in regulating religious freedom, including how such freedom is defined and who is granted access to it.