Chapter Nineteen — Reading a Result (1 of 2)

Drawn from The Denominational Mapping Instrument

The map gives numbers, and numbers invite misreading. These seven cards take the ways a result is most often misread, in the map's own words. Take the card that matches your question.

Read a score as weight, not nearness

Reach for it when a ranking puts one church first and you are tempted to read that as a recommendation.

What it asks that you read the score the way the page defines it. "The score adds up the differences between your answers and a church's documents. A difference counts for more when the church holds that point firmly." So "a low score therefore means two things at once: few differences, and few firm ones." Scores that differ only in the second decimal place are "effectively tied," and the top group is a cluster, not a strict order. The score also depends on direction, because "the weight comes from how firmly the church being scored holds each point."

What it prevents mistaking a church that asks little for a church that agrees with you. The appendix says it directly: "first place measures how little the church's documents require. It does not measure how near the church is to what you believe, and it is not a recommendation." The page lets you order the ranking three ways, by score, by most matches, and by agreement where the church speaks. "The orders disagree, and the disagreement is the finding."

It cannot tell you which church to join. "A church that requires little can rank high for almost any reader."

Where it lives in the results panel and in the appendix, "What was discovered from this research," Findings 12 and 14.

Grip and firmness

Reach for it when you want to know how tightly a church holds its people.

What it asks that you keep two numbers apart. Each runs from zero to one. "Grip asks how much of what these 19 questions could require the church actually requires." "Firmness asks a narrower question. When the church does speak, how firmly does it speak?" Under both lie four binding levels, Required, Expected, Taught and Left to conscience, which carry the weights 3, 2, 1 and 0.

What it prevents reading a low grip as a thin faith. "A low grip does not mean the church believes little. It means the church lets its people differ." A church that has written little can also show a low grip.

It cannot tell you how any one congregation behaves. All three numbers "describe the denomination's own documents, never one congregation, which may hold people to more or less."

Where it lives in the key facts at the head of each church profile.

Silence is not freedom

Reach for it when a profile says that a church's documents say nothing on a question that matters to you.

What it asks that you read an empty answer as the page tells you to: "Read it as 'the documents the guide read are silent.' Do not read it as 'the church is free here' or as 'the church has no view.'" There are two ways of not binding, and the page keeps them apart. "A church saying 'this is left open' is evidence of freedom. A church saying nothing is not."

What it prevents treating a gap in the record as a permission. Most gaps are real. Of the 494 answers the guide scores, 431 are answered from the church's documents, 37 are stated as left open, 7 are cases where the documents speak but no option fits, and 19 are empty.

It cannot tell you why a church is silent. "The guide records the silence but cannot say why a church is silent."

Where it lives in the appendix, Findings 4 to 7, and in the closing note on how to use an empty answer.