ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author offers a new typology within the sociology of religion for understanding women's faith lives that accommodates diverse relationships between the religious and the spiritual. She considers new methods for examining faith lives, women's in particular, since so often it is men's faith lives that have been taken to constitute the norm when examining behaviours, belongings and beliefs. The author describes study of older women, in which it became clear that a new typology needed to be created to reflect actual findings. She then discusses the usefulness of the terms 'lived religion' and 'fuzzy fidelity' and whether they help us understand what is going on in women's faith lives. The author argues on the basis of her research, for a methodology that enables new categories to be developed for describing the faith stance/worldview of women subjects, since they are ill served by the old ones.
