{"id":4217,"date":"2024-04-27T13:34:11","date_gmt":"2024-04-27T17:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionqanda\/?p=4217"},"modified":"2024-04-30T18:54:22","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T22:54:22","slug":"is-belief-in-god-good-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionqanda\/2024\/04\/is-belief-in-god-good-for-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Is belief in God \u201cgood for you\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
<\/a>
Do benefits stem from faith, from community, or both? \/ pixabay.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
THE RELIGION GUY\u2019S ANSWER:<\/p>\n
Yes, according to a large and growing body of scientific research this past generation. But as with most things regarding religion, the following sketch of the discussion will indicate things may not be quite so simple.<\/p>\n
Three recent articles neatly focus matters: \u201cSome Mental-Health Benefits Are Linked to Going to Church\u201d (Clare Ansberry, Wall Street Journal<\/em>, April 16), \u201cThe True Cost of the Churchgoing Bust\u201d (Derek Thompson, theatlantic.com, April 3), and \u201cWhat Really Happens When Americans Stop Going to Church\u201d (Daniel K. Williams, also theatlantic.com, last September 3). Also, the best-seller \u201cBuild the Life You Want,\u201d by economist Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey, says research shows whatever life\u2019s challenges, happiness depends upon \u201cfamily, friendship, work, and faith<\/u>.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baylor University social scientist Byron R. Johnson told Ansberry \u201cthere is a mounting body of empirical evidence suggesting that people who are active in their faith tend to be the recipients of a number of important physical and mental health benefits.\u201d His book \u201cMore God, Less Crime\u201d covers one important aspect of such claims.<\/p>\n
Other studies by the dozens upon dozens, with varied populations and methodologies, have associated regular religious belief and activity with peoples\u2019 improved happiness, longer life spans, sense of well-being and of purpose, contentment with circumstances, optimism, marital satisfaction, quality of other relationships, and greater charitable giving and volunteering that in turn enhance good feelings. There are the reported reductions of heart and other medical problems, addiction, adultery, divorce, imprisonment, suicide, depression, anxiety and loneliness.<\/p>\n
Johnson works at the intersection of major projects on this at Baylor\u2019s Institute for Studies of Religion, Pepperdine University\u2019s Center for Faith and the Common Good, and Harvard University\u2019s Human Flourishing Program. The latter, founded in 2016, is a natural partner with Harvard Medical School\u2019s long-running \u00a0investigation of mind-body and spiritual influences in health, pioneered by the late cardiologist Herbert Benson. Through 2026, the Global Flourishing Study, co-directed by Johnson and sponsored by Harvard and Baylor, is investigating well-being in 22 nations.<\/p>\n
U.S. Religion\u2019s Great Depression<\/h3>\n
The context of public interest is 21st<\/sup> Century America\u2019s entry into a Great Depression of church life as measured by faltering affiliation, attendance, and belief, surveyed in the 2023 book \u201cThe Great Dechurching.\u201d This provokes consideration of how the secular rise affects the well-being of individuals and of society.<\/p>\n
One historical note. Thompson says by 2021 America\u2019s \u201cmembership in houses of worship fell below a majority for the first time on record.\u201d However, research by sociologists Roger Finke and Rodney Stark estimated that only 17% of Americans were church members at the founding in 1776, which doubled to 34% by 1850 through evangelization, but only reached a slight majority of the population early in the 20th<\/sup> Century. U.S. religion is slumping backward to long-ago status.<\/p>\n
The U.S. religious shrinkage since 2000 occurs simultaneously with notable increases in relational and emotional ills and loneliness, with particularly alarming numbers among youths. Social fragmentation was explored in e.g<\/em>. \u201cBowling Alone\u201d (2000, updated edition 2020) and \u201cComing Apart\u201d (2012). Many blame alienation on obsessive social media use, but is a religious factor at work?<\/p>\n
Pondering this, The Religion Guy turned to two past articles in the Science, Religion & Culture<\/em> journal, the first by philosophy professor Justin McBrayer at Fort Lewis College and a follow-up by psychologist Luke Galen at Grand Valley State University.<\/p>\n
McBrayer builds from a modern riff on \u201cPascal\u2019s Wager,\u201d a famous proposal from \u00a017th<\/sup> Century French philosopher-scientist Blaise Pascal. Roughly speaking, he figured it\u2019s reasonable to believe in God because while that may limit some material pleasures in this life it brings immeasurable benefits in the afterlife, whereas if it turns out that God does not exist, little has been lost.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood\u201d whether God exists or not?<\/h3>\n
For McBrayer, \u201cbelieving in God is good for you\u201d for \u201cprudential reasons\u201d due to all that accumulating scholarship on the benefits provided in this life, whatever the truth about God and our afterlife. Research shows believers \u201cdo better\u201d in life than non-believers \u201cregardless of whether or not God exists.\u201d (!) He then proceeds to scan research fundings on happiness, physical health, mental health, interpersonal relationships, and charitable activity.<\/p>\n
Galen\u2019s intriguing article responds that what\u2019s operating here is not contentment produced by religious teachings but \u201cchiefly social engagement and embeddedness in supportive groups.\u201d He agreed it\u2019s accurate that happiness is \u201cassociated with religious engagement,\u201d for instance in a local church, but so can be the case with the non-religious in secular organizations. It seems the most vulnerable population is neither devout nor strongly anti-religious but feels \u201cambivalence or uncertainty\u201d about religion and social involvements otherwise.<\/p>\n
Various pundits have posed a related question with special urgency in the Trump Era: In general, is religiosity healthy or damaging for society, whatever the benefits faith provides to individuals? Historians say even skeptics among America\u2019s founders believed widespread religious faith was essential to sustain a democratic society.<\/p>\n
Faith slump\u2019s societal impact<\/h3>\n
Many doubt that today, among them Phil Zuckerman, founder of the first U.S. \u201csecular studies\u201d department, at Pitzer College. In Religion News Service, he contended that \u201cthe best hope for our democracy may be the growing number of secular Americans\u201d for whom unbelief is freely chosen, not compelled as under Communism. He said religious shrinkage correlates with \u201chealthier democratic values and institutions\u201d and greater tolerance toward people with different beliefs and behaviors.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s disputed in the articles cited above by journalist Thompson, a religious agnostic raised in Reform Judaism, and historian Williams, who teaches at Ashland University, a Brethren Church school. Thompson deems it \u201cundeniable\u201d that \u201cnonreligious Americans are also less civically engaged\u201d and many, \u201chaving lost the scaffolding of organized religion, seem to have found no alternative method to build a sense of community.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a journalist, The Religion Guy agrees that America\u2019s innumerable local religious congregations, fellowships, and charities have (till now) provided a vast network providing healthy social outlets while there\u2019s no equivalent to engage devotedly secular people.<\/p>\n
Religion\u2019s slide has occurred alongside dangerously hostile polarization in American politics. Coincidence? Williams observes that \u201cpeople become even more entrenched in their political views\u201d when they stop attending worship. Politics \u201cbecomes their church.\u201d Though some suppose religion worsens a society\u2019s divisions, he says to the contrary that leaving churches removes religion\u2019s tgenerally moderating influence, \u201copening the door to extremism.\u201d Agree?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE RELIGION GUY\u2019S ANSWER: Yes, according to a large and growing body of scientific research this past generation. But as with most things regarding religion, the following sketch of the discussion will indicate things may not be quite so simple. Three recent articles neatly focus matters: \u201cSome Mental-Health Benefits Are Linked to Going to Church\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1275,"featured_media":4232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[374,377,176,380,383],"class_list":["post-4217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-faith-and-health","tag-faith-and-science","tag-god","tag-oprah","tag-well-being"],"yoast_head":"\nIs belief in God \u201cgood for you\u201d?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yes, according to a large and growing body of scientific research. 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Ostling was a longtime religion writer with The Associated Press and with Time\u00a0magazine, where he produced 23 cover stories, as well as a Time\u00a0senior correspondent providing field reportage for dozens of major articles. He has interviewed personalities such as Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, the late Mother Teresa, and the late Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI); ranking rabbis and Muslim leaders; and authorities on other faiths, as well as numerous ordinary believers. Ostling was the first correspondent regularly covering religion for a network TV newscast, working part-time with the PBS NewsHour\u00a0and airing CBS Radio religion reports for two decades. He and his late wife Joan coauthored Mormon America: The Power and the Promise (1999, revised 2007, HarperOne), which The New York Times Book Review praised as \"eminently fair\" and \"well-researched.\" Professional distinctions include a Pulitzer Prize nomination; \u00a0the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Religion Newswriters Association (for specialists in the general media), and religion writing honors from the American Academy of Religion, Episcopal Church, and Religion Communicators Council. In one MediaGuide edition, Ostling was the only Time staff member ranked among the nation's \"highest rated journalists.\" He is listed in Who's Who in America. 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