This page describes the original long-form Christian Thought Survey project. The current front page now focuses on the 2026 weekly survey format, but the earlier project remains important background for interpreting the archive.
The 2022-2024 CTS surveys asked Christian leaders and committed believers to respond to large sets of doctrinal, practical, and sociological items. The project emphasized 0-100 credence responses so participants could register fine-grained levels of agreement rather than choose only from coarse multiple-choice categories.
What the original surveys emphasized
- Broad comparisons across denominations and traditions.
- Item-level reporting across roughly 200 survey statements.
- Correlations involving ministry experience, conservatism, age, and other participant attributes.
- Participant reports and public-facing summaries.
The weekly 2026 project keeps the same concern for precise wording and credence measurement, but it changes the rhythm: shorter weekly surveys, faster reports, and more deliberate public release of reusable data.
How the weekly cycle works
- One CTS-administered topic: 12 related survey items from the CTS topic bank.
- Three participant-vote-determined questions: 3 additional live survey items chosen based on the previous week's participant vote.
- A participant-nominated item ballot: 7 AI-polished ballot items selected from the previous week's participant nominations, with AI-created seed items added only when fewer than 7 suitable participant nominations are available.
- A text box: to suggest survey items to be voted on next week and possibly featured in the following week's survey.
- Last week's results summary and link: a brief summary and a link to the primary CTS website page containing the previous week's results and reports.
- A preview of upcoming topics: The topics for the next three weeks will be featured to allow for mental preparation.
Participant-nominated ballot rule: Participant suggestions are reviewed by CTS with AI assistance, polished for clarity, neutrality, credence-slider suitability, breadth, novelty, and pastoral or theological relevance, and reduced to a 7-item ballot. Active participants rank those 7 items; the top 3 ranked items become live participant-vote-determined survey items in the following week's survey.
The regular send rhythm is a Monday heads-up email and a Thursday SurveyOL survey-link email.
Response rule: The 15 live survey items use credence sliders. The participant-nominated item ballot and suggestion text box are administrative inputs rather than survey-item responses.