Incident-Specific Measurement of Divine Forgiveness: Psychometric Properties of the Christian-Sensitive Reconciliation with God Scale

A growing body of psychological research has investigated experiences of divine forgiveness and its implications for human flourishing. However, much of this existing literature tends to overlook important tradition-specific considerations in conceptualization and measurement. Building on an interdisciplinary Christian-sensitive dual process model for conceptualizing and measuring incident-specific experiences of reconciliation with God, we use cross-sectional and longitudinal data to examine the psychometric properties of the Reconciliation with God Scale (RWGS) in seven independent adult Christian samples representing a diverse range of countries, linguistic backgrounds, and denominational affiliations (N = 1,391). We present evidence for the two proposed factors—engaging in repentance with God and experiencing absolution from God—of the RWGS based on analyses of internal structure, internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminative validity. Our findings provide initial evidence supporting the utility of the measure in assessing incident-specific experiences of reconciliation with God among Christians from diverse sociocultural and denominational backgrounds.