The relationship between moral reasoning and religious orientation of Bible college students in Singapore

This study investigated the relationship between moral reasoning and religious orientation of a sample of 41 Bible College students in Singapore. The study was based on Kohlberg's (1981, 1984) cognitive-moral development theory and Fleck's (1981) trichotomous conception of religious orientation. Two instruments that were used were the Defining Issues Test (DIT) and the Attitude About Religion Scale (AARS).;The present study indicated ambiguous results concerning the relationship between moral reasoning and religious orientation. First, it was found for the whole sample that there was no correlation between moral reasoning and religious orientation. But this result does not necessarily rule out the possibility that subjects with intrinsic religious orientation tend to reason morally at the principled level as was shown when the sample was sub-divided into high and low groups in each religious orientation subscale. It was found that there was a statistically significant difference in the means of the P % scores (the scores for principled level moral reasoning) between the high and low intrinsic sub-groups at p ;Second, the evidence showed that there were no significant gender differences in the P % scores (i.e. principled level moral reasoning) nor in the relationship between moral reasoning and religious orientation.;The evidence of this study lends limited support to one of its assumptions that moral reasoning and religious orientation are related. Implications for Bible college teaching and Christian ministry were considered. These implications dealt with ways of encouraging principled level moral reasoning and means of facilitating intrinsic religious orientation. A number of recommendations for further research were also suggested.