The Religious Moderation Scale: Development and Testing of A Measuring Instrument on a Cross-Religious Sample In Indonesia

Abstract

The type and character of a moderate religion not merely influences the religious concept of its adherents personally and the institutions where they gather, but also impacts human character, educational institutions, political atmosphere, investment attractiveness, cultural environment, national resilience, ecology, etc. Despite the existence of fanatical and extreme attitudes, views and actions which are the seeds for radical action, the inner religious atmosphere of the world is moving towards moderate religious attitudes, views and practices. As a country with the largest Muslim population in the world, the Indonesian government has adopted a policy to strengthen religious moderation, produce cadres and design religious moderation villages, to achieve family resilience and prosperity, increase religious literacy, tolerance, mutual respect, mutual respect so that cooperation can be built in all areas of life. Unfortunately, a tool for measuring religious moderation is not yet available, and this article presents a tool for measuring religious moderation in the Indonesian context. After carry out testing the factor structure using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) statistical analysis of empirical facts from 1,557 respondents, out of 73 items, only 48 items remained that could be declared valid. The remaining 48 items have also been proven to be valid for people using measurement invariance, starting from configural, metric, and scalar invariance. All dimensions, indicators and measuring instrument items are ready to be used for scientific research.