ABSTRACT
For centuries, religion, morality, and values were very closely linked in Western societies. To lead a morally good life was to be a good Christian, and vice versa. Only gradually, and especially with the religious wars in the seventeenth century, with the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, and with the secularists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, did people become aware that there could also be values which were not Christian. Members of the alternative type differ greatly from institutional type in terms of their values. For them, religious belief is not important, and they are progressive with regard to issues of sexuality and gender. Interestingly, members of distanced type do not talk often of values when they are questioned about religiosity and spirituality, the reason for which is quite simple: for many, the two areas are not particularly strongly linked. Finally, the secularists are characterized in many respects by very similar values as the distanced and alternative types.
