Religion provides what sociologists call the “three B’s”: belief, belonging, and behavior. It offers beliefs that supply answers to the tough questions of life. It gives people a place they feel they belong, a community where they are known. And it tells them how to behave, or at least what principles should guide their action. Religious institutions have spent millennia getting pretty good at offering these benefits to people.
For the last few decades, much of the world has tried to go without God. More than a billion people globally and about a third of Americans have tried to live without religion. Studies in recent years have offered insights into how that is going. The data doesn’t look good.
“There is overwhelming empirical support for the value of being at a house of worship regularly on all kinds of metrics — mental health, physical health, having more friends, being less lonely,” said Ryan Burge, a former pastor and a leading researcher on religious trends.
The Pew Research Center has data that supports the idea: Actively religious people tend to report they are happier than people who don’t practice religion. Religious Americans are healthier, too. They are significantly less likely to be depressed or to die by suicide, from alcoholism, cancer, cardiovascular illness, or other causes. In a long-term study, doctors at Harvard found that women who attended religious services once a week were 33 percent less likely to die prematurely than women who never attended. That’s because, said Tyler J. VanderWeele, an author on the Harvard study, “they had higher levels of social support, better health behaviors, and greater optimism about the future.”
Religiously affiliated Americans are more likely to feel gratitude, spiritual peace, and “a deep sense of connection with humanity than people without a religious affiliation. Positive relationships are the single most important predictor of well-being, according to worldwide studies.
On a Sunday morning, we get to be with some good people, a beautiful space, wonderful music, and receive some words to enlarge our perspective throughout the week.
See you in church,
Pastor Steve