ABSTRACT
One might imagine that youth religion is too complex to measure in numbers. The words we could use instead, though, refer to qualities that people possess to a greater or lesser degree. While it is true that quantification simplifies what has been observed, such methods force us to be clear about what we are studying. The act of selecting and defining variables imposes a rigour and an openness to criticism that can more easily be escaped in discursive treatments of the same phenomena.
