Does religion make you happier? According to a recent study, it absolutely does.
The study composed by a team of Harvard researchers and published in JAMA Psychiatry in August pointed to the numerous health benefits of religious belief and attending religious services.
Reflecting on his research last week, Tyler VanderWeele wrote with John Siniff for USA Today about the 'miracle drug' that could save the lives of millions of Americans. He wrote: "The good news is that this miracle drug — religion, and more specifically regular church attendance — is already in reach of most Americans. In fact, there's a good chance it's just a short drive away."
The findings are based on the Nurses Health Study which ran from 1996-2010, surveying 89,708 women. The researchers found that women who reported regular attendance at religious services resulted in a "5-fold lower rate of suicide compared with [those] never attending religious services." Women with the highest rate of religious service attendance had the lowest risk of developing depression. Frequent religious observance also resulted in "significantly lower risk of all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality among women."
The article thus suggests that physicians may want to consider using the "underappreciated resource" of religion and spirituality.
The study, which doesn't discriminate between denominations or religions, elaborates on other positive effects of religious participation. Churchgoers tended to be more optimistic, had a greater sense of purpose in life, and better self-control.
In addition, "Attending religious services has been shown to increase the likelihood of a stable marriage, to elevate one's sense of meaning, and to expand one's social network. It leads to greater charitable giving and more robust volunteering and civic engagement."
Vanderwheele and Siniff suggest that, "The associations between religion and health should force us to re-evaluate religion's role in society and public life."
The study contends that the profound health benefits have "important implications for the extent to which society promotes and protects religious institutions, the maintenance of their non-profit tax-exempt status, and how the contribution of such institutions is portrayed in the media, the academy, and beyond".
It even suggests that "For the roughly half of all Americans who believe in God but do not regularly attend services, the relationship between service attendance and health might constitute an invitation back to church."
Writing about the report on Scot McKnight's Patheos blog, writer Leslie Leyland Fields says: "Those who see religion as a negative force in our culture clearly don't know their science."
She hopes the findings will encourage Christians about the positive impact they can have on the world around them, especially at a time when religion and the Church are perceived negatively.
"We need to hear it right now when politics and religion seem hopelessly intertwined, turning even us church-goers a tad cynical about our fellow believers, maybe even about our weekly attendance."
Fields says she's, "hopeful that we 'religious' people can live up to the findings: that whether we face a President Trump or a President Clinton, we remain healthy, generous, optimistic, social, and civic minded."
She adds: "More, as an optimistic churchgoer, I am even hopeful that in the surely chaotic weeks to come, that we'll live up to our biblical calling: to love God and to love our neighbor, to lay down our lives for one another, to practice mercy and forgiveness, and so, to enact the kingdom of heaven on earth."
Of course, some of the negative media surrounding religion is appropriate. Religion, and the Church in particular, has and continues to be a force of great hurt and pain for many. That doesn't mean we should become cynical, but that we must remain sensitive, repentant, and never naive.
The study was also carried out solely on women, not men. One hopes findings would be similar for men in the Church, but what about the disproportionate number of men outside it? Considering that suicide is the number one killer for men under 45 (In 2014, there were 6,109 suicides in the UK, 4,623 of these were men), the Church needs to think urgently about how it ministers to those in that struggle.
Most of all, these findings shouldn't allow Christians to become arrogant or smug about how religion benefits their health – that certainly won't encourage outsiders who already perceive Christians as self-righteous. We should remember that, in the words of Jefferson Bethke, the Church is a "hospital for the broken." It isn't a self-improvement health club aimed simply at making you happier.
Nonetheless, these findings can be a reminder that the hope that the Christian faith provides is a real and powerful one. It's also tragic that many suffer deeply in life, not knowing the hope that God brings.
The USA Today column concludes: "Where else today do we find a community with a shared moral and spiritual vision, a sense of accountability, wherein the central task of members is to love and care for one another? The combination of the teachings, the relationships and the spiritual practices — over time, week after week, taken together — gradually alters behavior, creates meaning, alleviates loneliness, and shapes a person in ways too numerous to document."
Jesus didn't come simply to make us 'happy', but he did promise abundant life in the present. So let's be encouraged that, seemingly miraculously, religion can actually be a good thing.
