ABSTRACT
This chapter describes to persuade the reader in this and subsequent that "Religion as Poetry" model is a useful way for sociologists of religion to explore data. It explains a story in the world religion which can be linked to a religious story, preferably a three-variable model. The most difficult aspect of trying to operationalize the theory that religion is poetry is to find survey questionnaire items that are themselves sufficiently poetic. Catholics were also more likely to score higher on the Tracy scale, that is, more likely to think of both creation and human nature as good and religion as a manifestation of that good instead of prophetic denunciation of evil. The poetry of religion seems to relate in the predicted way to both input variables and output variables. The chapter looks for "probable cause" that would justify further examination of the theory of religion as poetry.
