At last it is possible to return to the issue of identity. More than enough data have been collected on the culture of churchgoing today to sketch its broad outline. It is time now to set this outline into a more specifically theological and qualitative context which supplements what can be learned from purely quantitative sociological investigation.

The mass of new data shows that churchgoers are indeed distinctive in their attitudes and behaviour. Some of their attitudes do change over time, especially on issues such as sexuality, and there are obvious moral disagreements between different groups of churchgoers in a number of areas. Nonetheless, there are broad patterns of Christian beliefs, teleology and altruism which distinguish churchgoers as a whole from nonchurchgoers. It has been seen that churchgoers have, in addition to their distinctive theistic and christocentric beliefs, a strong sense of moral order and concern for other people. They are, for example, more likely than others to be involved in voluntary service and to see overseas charitable giving as important. They are more hesitant about euthanasia and capital punishment and more concerned about the family and civic order than other people. None of these differences is absolute. The values, virtues, moral attitudes and behaviour of churchgoers are shared by many other people as well. The distinctiveness of churchgoers is real but relative.

This is exactly the picture that Alasdair MacIntyre paints in After Virtue. Unlike the dichotomy, seen in chapter one, between church and society increasingly present in the writings of Stanley Hauerwas and others, MacIntyre avoids idealised depictions of churches.