Introduction2
By extolling freedom of religion in the schools, President Bill
Clinton has raised the level of debate on the importance of
religion to American life.3 The time is
ripe for a deeper dialogue on the contribution of religion to the
welfare of the nation.
America has always been a religious country. “Its first
Christian inhabitants were only too anxious to explain what they
were doing and why,” explains historian Paul Johnson. “In a way the
first American settlers were like the ancient Israelites. They saw
themselves as active agents of divine providence.”4 Today, he adds, “it is generally accepted
that more than half the American people still attend a place of
worship over a weekend, an index of religious practice unequaled
anywhere in the world, certainly in a great and populous
nation.”5
At the heart of religious practice is prayer: Americans pray
even more than they go to church. According to a composite of
surveys, 94 percent of blacks, 91 percent of women, 87 percent of
whites, and 85 percent of men regard themselves as people who pray
regularly. Some 78 percent pray at least once per week, and 57
percent pray daily. Even among the 13 percent of the population who
call themselves agnostics or atheists, some 20 percent pray
daily.6
When policymakers consider America’s grave social problems,
including violent crime and rising illegitimacy, substance abuse,
and welfare dependency, they should heed the findings in the
professional literature of the social sciences on the positive
consequences that flow from the practice of religion.7
For example, there is ample evidence that:
- The strength of the family unit is intertwined with the
practice of religion. Churchgoers8 are
more likely to be married, less likely to be divorced or single,
and more likely to manifest high levels of satisfaction in
marriage.
- Church attendance is the most important predictor of marital
stability and happiness.
- The regular practice of religion helps poor persons move out of
poverty. Regular church attendance, for example, is particularly
instrumental in helping young people to escape the poverty of
inner-city life.
- Religious belief and practice contribute substantially to the
formation of personal moral criteria and sound moral judgment.
- Regular religious practice generally inoculates individuals
against a host of social problems, including suicide, drug abuse,
out-of-wedlock births, crime, and divorce.
- The regular practice of religion also encourages such
beneficial effects on mental health as less depression (a modern
epidemic), more self-esteem, and greater family and marital
happiness.
- In repairing damage caused by alcoholism, drug addiction, and
marital breakdown, religious belief and practice are a major source
of strength and recovery.
- Regular practice of religion is good for personal physical
health: It increases longevity, improves one’s chances of recovery
from illness, and lessens the incidence of many killer
diseases.
The overall impact of religious practice is illustrated
dramatically in the three most comprehensive systematic reviews of
the field.9 Some 81 percent of the
studies showed the positive benefit of religious practice, 15
percent showed neutral effects, and only 4 percent showed
harm.10 Each of these systematic
reviews indicated more than 80 percent benefit, and none indicated
more than 10 percent harm. Even this 10 percent may be explained by
more recent social science insights into “healthy religious
practice” and “unhealthy religious practice.”11 This latter notion will be discussed later
— it is seen generally by most Americans of religious faith as a
mispractice of religion. Unfortunately, the effects of unhealthy
religious practice are used to downplay the generally positive
influence of religion.12 This both
distorts the true nature of religious belief and practice and
causes many policymakers to ignore its positive social
consequences.
Religious practice appears to have enormous potential for
addressing today’s social problems. As summarized in 1991 by Allen
Bergin, professor of psychology at Brigham Young University,
considerable evidence indicates that religious involvement reduces
“such problems as sexual permissiveness, teen pregnancy, suicide,
drug abuse, alcoholism, and to some extent deviant and delinquent
acts, and increases self esteem, family cohesiveness and general
well being…. Some religious influences have a modest impact
whereas another portion seem like the mental equivalent of nuclear
energy…. More generally, social scientists are discovering the
continuing power of religion to protect the family from the forces
that would tear it down.”13
Professor Bergin’s summary was echoed two years later by
nationally syndicated columnist William Raspberry: “Almost every
commentator on the current scene bemoans the increase of violence,
lowered ethical standards and loss of civility that mark American
society. Is the decline of religious influence part of what is
happening to us? Is it not just possible that anti-religious bias
masquerading as religious neutrality is costing more than we have
been willing to acknowledge?”14 Other
reviews15 also list the positive
effects of religious belief and practice in reducing such problems
as suicide, substance abuse, divorce, and marital dissatisfaction.
Such evidence indicates clearly that religious practice contributes
significantly to the quality of American life.
Given this evidence,
Congress should:
- Begin a new national debate to help renew the role of religion
in American life;
- Ask the General Accounting Office (GAO) to review the evidence
on the beneficial effects of religious practice in the relevant
social science literature and report its findings to a national
commission formed to promote the consideration of religious
practice among U.S. citizens;
- Fund federal experiments with school choice that include
religiously affiliated schools;
- Pass a sense-of-the-Congress resolution that data on religious
practice are useful for policymakers and researchers as part of the
public policy debate; and
- Mandate a census question on religious practice. It violates
nobody’s freedom of religion for Congress to know the level and
intensity of religious practice in America.
The President should:
- Appoint judges who are more sensitive to the role of religion
in public life, with the Senate ensuring that such is the case by
ascertaining the stand of judges on matters of religion and its
relationship to the Constitution;
- Direct the Bureau of the Census to record levels of religious
practice in the census for the year 2000 (time is running out for
preparation of the census questionnaire); and
- Issue a directive to all federal agencies making clear that
cooperation between government entities and the social, medical,
and educational services of faith-based organizations does not
violate separation of church and state.
The U.S. Supreme Court should:
- Review the decisions in which it has changed the laws of the
land by changing commonly held beliefs regarding the Constitution
and religion and send to Congress those that should have been the
object of legislative action rather than judicial
reinterpretation.
America’s religious leaders should:
- Be much more assertive in emphasizing the contribution of
religion to the health of the nation and in resisting efforts to
minimize religion in public discourse;
- Make clear to their congregations that they are contributing
not only to their own welfare, but also to the well-being of the
nation by their regular attendance at religious worship;
- Take special care of the religious formation of children,
especially during the transition period from childhood to
adolescence, when they are most likely to lose their religious
faith;
- Recognize that the church in the inner city, especially the
black church, has a vital role to play in helping its people escape
from the degrading culture of inner-city poverty; and
- Encourage education leaders, social scientists, and social
policy practitioners to rely more on religious belief and worship
to achieve social policy and social work goals.
religion and Happiness
Ever since Aristotle outlined the goal of a sound civil order in
his Politics,16 social and
political scientists and social psychologists have been
particularly interested in what makes human beings happy. Happy
people tend to be productive and law-abiding. They learn well, make
good citizens, and are invariably pleasant company. It turns out
that the practice of religion has a significant effect on happiness
and an overall sense of personal well-being. Religious affiliation
and regular church attendance are near the top of the list for most
people in explaining their own happiness17 and serve as good predictors of who is most
likely to have this sense of well-being.18 Happiness is greater and psychological
stress is lower for those who attend religious services
regularly.19 Those pursuing a personal
relationship with God tend to have improved relationships with
themselves and with others.20
A large epidemiological study conducted by the University of
California at Berkeley in 1971 found that the religiously committed
had much less psychological distress than the uncommitted.21 Rodney Stark, now of the University of
Washington, found the same in a 1970 study: The higher the level of
religious attendance, the less stress suffered when adversity had
to be endured.22 Similarly, in a
longitudinal study of 720 adults conducted by David Williams of the
University of Michigan, regular religious attendance led to much
less psychological distress.23
In 1991, David Larson, adjunct professor at the Northwestern and
Duke University Schools of Medicine and president of the National
Institute of Healthcare Research, completed a systematic review of
studies on religious commitment and personal well-being. He found
that the relationship is powerful and positive; overall,
psychological functioning improved following a resumption of
participation in religious worship for those who had
stopped.24
religion and family Stability
There is a growing consensus that America needs to pursue
policies aimed at re-strengthening the family. The beneficial
effects of religious worship on family stability clearly indicate
one way to help accomplish this. Professors Darwin L. Thomas and
Gwendolyn C. Henry of Brigham Young University’s Department of
Sociology sum up earlier research25 on
the quest by young people for meaning and love: “Research on love
clearly indicates that for many, love in the social realm cannot
clearly be separated from love that contains a vertical or a divine
element…. Young people see love as the central aspect of the
meaning of life; they believe that religion is still important in
helping form judgments and attitudes.”26 Their conclusion: “family and religious
institutions need to be studied simultaneously in our efforts to
understand the human condition better.”27
“Middletown,” one of the century’s classic sociological research
projects, studied the lives of inhabitants of a typical American
town, first in the 1920s and for the third time in the 1980s. Based
on the latest round of follow-up research, Howard Bahr and Bruce
Chadwick, professors of sociology at Brigham Young University,
concluded in 1985 that “There is a relationship between family
solidarity — family health if you will — and church affiliation
and activity. Middletown [churchgoing] members were more likely to
be married, remain married and to be highly satisfied with their
marriages and to have more children…. The great divide between
marriage status, marriage satisfaction and family size is…
between those who identify with a church or denomination and those
who do not.”28
Four years later, Professor Arland Thornton of the Institute for
Social Research at the University of Michigan likewise concluded
from a Detroit study of the same relationship that “These data
indicate strong intergenerational transmission of religious
involvement. Attendance at religious services is also very stable
within generations across time.”29
“With striking consistency, the most religious among us [as
Americans] place a greater importance on the full range of family
and friendship activities,” concluded a Connecticut Mutual Life
report in 1982.30 A group of Kansas
State University professors reached the same conclusion: “family
commitment is indeed a high priority in many American families and
it is frequently accompanied by a concomitant factor of religious
commitment.”31 In yet another study
conducted during the 1970s and 1980s, professors Nick Stinnet of
the University of Alabama and John DeFrain of the University of
Nebraska sought to identify family strengths. From their nationwide
surveys of strong families, they found that 84 percent identified
religion as an important contributor to the strength of their
families.32 It should be noted that
the same pattern appears to hold for African-American families:
Parents who attended church frequently cited the significance of
religion in rearing their children and in providing moral
guidelines.33
Marital Satisfaction
Couples with long-lasting marriages indicate that the practice
of religion is an important factor in marital happiness. Indeed,
David Larson’s systematic reviews indicate that church attendance
is the most important predictor of marital stability.34 Others have found the same result.35 Twenty years ago it was first noted that
very religious women achieve greater satisfaction in sexual
intercourse with their husbands than do moderately religious or
non-religious women.36 The Sex in
America study published in 1995, and conducted by sociologists
from the University of Chicago and the State University of New York
at Stonybrook, also showed very high sexual satisfaction among
“conservative” religious women.37 From
the standpoint of contemporary American media culture, this may
appear strange or counter-intuitive, but the empirical evidence is
consistent.
Divorce and Cohabitation
Regular church attendance is the critical factor in marital
stability across denominations and overrides effects of doctrinal
teaching on divorce. For instance, black Protestants and white
Catholics, who share similarly high church attendance rates, have
been shown to have similarly low divorce rates.38 Furthermore, when marital separation
occurs, reconciliation rates are higher among regular church
attendees, and highest when both spouses have the same high level
of church attendance.39 Findings on
the other end of the marital spectrum reinforce the point: A 1993
national survey of 3,300 men aged 20-39 found that those who switch
partners most are those with no religious convictions.40
Significantly, cohabitation before marriage poses a high risk to
later marital stability,41 and
premarital cohabitation is much less common among religious
Americans. “The cohabitation rate is seven times higher among
persons who seldom or never attend religious services compared to
persons who frequently attend,” writes David Larson of the National
Institute of Healthcare Research. “Women who attended religious
services once a week were only one-third as likely to cohabit as
those who attended church services less than once a month.”
Furthermore, “If the mother frequently attended religious services,
both sons and daughters were only 50 percent as likely to cohabit
as adult children whose mothers were not actively
religious.”42 Rockford Institute
President Allan Carlson summarizes the pattern: “Social scientists
are discovering the continuing power of religion to protect the
family from the forces that would tear it down.”43
The fact is that too many social scientists have failed to
appreciate the significance of research on the relationship between
family and religion. As another researcher of the same period
concludes, “We may have underestimated this ‘silent majority’ and
it is only fair to give them equal time.”44 The centrality of stable married family
life in avoiding such problems as crime,45 illegitimacy,46 and welfare47
has become indisputable. If such a stable family life is linked
closely to a lively religious life, as these studies indicate, then
the peace and happiness of the nation depend significantly on a
renewal of religious practice and belief.
religion and Physical Health
In public health circles, the level of educational attainment is
held to be the key demographic predictor of physical health. For
over two decades, however, the level of religious practice has been
shown convincingly to be equally important.
As early as 1972, researchers from the Johns Hopkins University
School of Public Health found that cardiovascular diseases, the
leading killers of older people, were reduced significantly in
early old age by a lifetime of regular church attendance. By
contrast, non-attendees had higher mortality rates for such other
diseases as cirrhosis of the liver, emphysema, and
arteriosclerosis, in addition to other cardiovascular diseases and
even suicide.48 Research on mortality
patterns among the poor confirmed a decade later that those who
went to church regularly lived longer.49 Since then, other studies have reinforced
this general finding.50
Blood pressure, a key factor in cardiovascular health, is
reduced significantly by regular church attendance, on average by
5mm of pressure.51 Given that reducing
blood pressure by 2 to 4 mm also reduces the mortality rate by 10
to 20 percent for any given population,52 a reduction of 5 mm is a very significant
public health achievement by any standard. For those over 55 years
of age, the average decrease was 6 mm. Among those who smoked — a
practice that increases blood pressure — regular church attendance
decreased the risk of early stroke by 700 percent.53
Nor are the health benefits of religious commitment confined to
the cardiovascular system. In 1987, a major review of 250
epidemiological health research studies — studies which examined
the relationship between health and religion and measured such
additional outcomes as colitis, cancers of many different types,
and longevity measures — concluded that, in general, religious
commitment improves health.54 A 1991
study of two national samples55 also
concluded that the degree to which people prayed and participated
in religious services significantly affected their health status,
regardless of age.56
In what must be one of the most unusual experiments in medical
history, Dr. Robert B. Byrd, a cardiologist then at the University
of California at San Francisco Medical School, conducted a
random-sample, double-blind study of the effects of prayer — not
by the patients but for the patients — on the
outcome of cardiac surgery. The study was published in 1982. None
of the patients knew they were being prayed for, none of the
attending doctors and nurses knew who was being prayed for and who
was not, and those praying had no personal contact with the
patients before or during the experiment. Outcomes for the two sets
of patients differed significantly: Those prayed for ha d
noticeably fewer post-operative congestive heart failures, fewer
cardiopulmonary arrests, less pneumonia, and less need for
antibiotics.57 To date, this study has
not been replicated, though the intriguing results challenge the
academic and medical community to verify or disprove them.
religion and Social Breakdown
The practice of religion has beneficial effects on behavior and
social relations: on illegitimacy, crime and delinquency, welfare
dependency, alcohol and drug abuse, suicide, depression, and
general self-esteem.
Illegitimacy
One of the most powerful of all factors in preventing
out-of-wedlock births is the regular practice of religious belief.
Given the growing crisis in out-of-wedlock births, their
effects,58 and the huge social and
economic costs to national and state budgets, this should be of
major interest to policymakers.
It has long been known that intensity of religious practice is
closely related to adolescent virginity and sexual restraint and
control. This general finding, replicated again and again,59 also holds true specifically for black
teenage girls,60 the group with the
highest teen pregnancy rates among all demographic
subgroups.61 Reviews of the literature
demonstrate that, nearly without exception, religious practice
sharply reduces the incidence of premarital intercourse.62 The reverse is also true: The absence of
religious practice accompanies sexual permissiveness and premarital
sex. This is confirmed in numerous studies,63 including a 1991 analysis of the federal
government’s National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.64
The impact of religious practice on teenage sexual behavior also
can be seen at the state level: States with higher levels of
aggregate religiousness have lower rates of teenage
pregnancy.65
In an important study published in 1987, a group of professors
from the Universities of Georgia, Utah, and Wyoming found that the
main cause of problematic adolescent sexual behaviors and attitudes
is not only family dynamics and processes, as previously thought,
but the absence of religious behavior and affiliation. They further
concluded that healthy family dynamics and practices are themselves
caused to a powerful degree by the presence or absence of religious
beliefs and practices.66 The same
results also hold true in international comparisons.67
As with drugs, alcohol, and crime, the religious behavior of the
mother is one of the strongest predictors of the daughter’s sexual
attitudes.68 It also has long been
known in the social sciences that daughters of single mothers are
more likely to engage in premarital sexual behavior during
adolescence.69 These mothers are more
frequently permissive in their sexual attitudes, and religion for
them has less importance than it has for mothers in two-parent
families.70 These findings also have
been replicated.71
The religious practices of parents, particularly their unity on
religious issues, powerfully influence the behavior of children.
Thus, for policymakers interested in reducing teenage (and older)
out-of-wedlock births, the lesson is clear: Religious belief and
regular worship reduce the likelihood of this form of family
breakdown. One faith-based sex education course that included both
mothers and daughters, for example, was aimed specifically at
reducing the teenage pregnancy rate. The results were notably
successful: Out-of-wedlock births among the at-risk population were
almost eliminated.72
crime and Delinquency
A review of the small amount of research done on the
relationship between crime and religion shows that states w ith
more religious populations tend to have fewer homicides and fewer
suicides.73
A four-year longitudinal, stratified, random-sample study of
high school students in the Rocky Mountain region, published in
1975, demonstrated that religious involvement significantly
decreased drug use, delinquency, and premarital sex, and also
increased self-control.74 A 1989 study
of midwestern high school students replicated these
findings.75 Similarly, young religious
adults in Canada were found in a 1979 study to be less likely to
use or sell Narcotics, to gamble, or to destroy property.76
What is true for youth is also true for adults.77 Religious behavior, as opposed to mere
attitude or affiliation, is associated with reduced crime.78 This has been known in the social science
literature for over 20 years.79
In research conducted in the late 1980s — controlling for
family, economic, and religious backgrounds — a research team from
the University of Nevada found that black men who eventually ended
up in prison and those who did not came respectively from two
different groups: those who did not go to church, or stopped going
around ten years of age, and those who went regularly.80 This failure of faith at the onset of
adolescence parallels the pattern found among those who become
alcoholics or drug addicts. Clearly, the family’s inability to
inspire regular religious worship among emerging young adults is a
sign of internal weakness.
welfare Dependency
In his classic study The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism, Max Weber, the preeminent German sociologist of the
first half of the 20th century, demonstrated the connection between
religious practice and financial well-being among Protestants.
Other work on the same theme shows that this is not confined to
Protestants, but that it applies across a longer period of history
and across denominational lines.
This link between religion and prosperity has important
implications for the poor. In 1985, for instance, Richard B.
Freeman of the National Bureau of Economic Research reported
that:
[Church attendance] is associated with substantial
differences in the behavior of [black male youths from
poverty-stricken inner-city neighborhoods] and thus in their
chances to “escape” from inner city poverty. It affects allocation
of time, school-going, work activity and the frequency of socially
deviant activity…. It is important to recognize that our analysis
has identified an important set of variables that separate
successful from unsuccessful young persons in the inner city. There
is a significant number of inner city youth, readily identifiable,
who succeed in escaping that pathology of inner-city slum
life.
81
For the sake of the nation’s future health, it is time to redirect public policy so that these two vast resources, instead of being weakened further, can be rejuvenated and encouraged. Many of the goals of social policy and social work can be attained, indirectly and powerfully, through the practice of religion. None of this invalidates education or social work, which operate at a different level of the human condition. However, as demands for social work outstrip (and give every indication of far outstripping) social work resources, it is good to know that the practice of religion is a powerful ally.
The practice of religion is good for individuals, families,
states, and the nation. It improves health, learning, economic
well-being, self-control, self-esteem, and empathy. It reduces the
incidence of social pathologies, such as out-of-wedlock births,
crime, delinquency, drug and alcohol addiction, health problems,
anxieties, and prejudices.
The Founding Fathers, in their passionate love of freedom,
promoted the freedom of all Americans to practice their religious
beliefs, but Congress and the courts have crowded religion out of
the public square. It is time to bring it back. Religious practice
can and should be factored into the planning and debate on the
nation’s urgent social problems. Americans cannot build their
future without drawing on the strengths that come to them from the
practice of their religious beliefs.
The widespread practice of religious beliefs can only benefit
the nation, and the task of reintegrating religious practice into
American life while protecting and respecting the rights of
non-practice — rights that, despite persistent demagoguery on the
subject, remain totally unthreatened — is one of the nation’s most
important tasks. Academics of good will can do much in this area,
and history will look kindly on those who help America achieve this
wonderful balance.
Endnotes:
- The author wishes to draw special
attention to the major initial source of information on the
research done on religion in the social and medical sciences: David
B. Larson and Susan S. Larson, “The Forgotten Factor in Physical
and Mental Health: What Does the Research Show?” (Rockville, Md.:
National Institute for Healthcare Research, 1994). David Larson is
one of the premier researchers in the field and serves as president
of the National Institute for Healthcare Research, as well as
adjunct faculty member at the Northwestern University and Duke
University Medical Schools.
- Office of the Press Secretary, The White
House, “Remarks by the President on Religious Liberty in America at
James Madison High School, Vienna, Virginia, July 12, 1995.”
- Paul Johnson, “God and the Americans,”
Commentary, January 1995, pp. 25-45.
- Ibid.
- Kenneth L. Woodward et al.,
“Talking to God,” Newsweek, January 6, 1992, pp. 39ff.
- Many studies cited herein are 10-20
years old. The need to go back so far reflects the paucity of
serious research in the area of religion relative to studies in the
other four major institutions: family, education, the economy, and
government. In the author’s opinion, it also reflects the tension
between religion and the social sciences. See “religion and the
Social Sciences,” infra.
- Throughout this study, “church” and
“churchgoer” are used in the generic sense to indicate church,
synagogue, or any other place of worship and an individual
attending any such institution.
- For social scientists, a “systematic
review” is one in which the robustness of the research method is
weighted when assessing the quality of the findings reported. Thus,
systematic reviews are the most useful way to assess the scientific
literature and provide a valid guide to the findings in a
particular field.
- Jeff S. Levin and Harold Y. Vanderpool,
“Is Frequent Religious Attendance Really Conducive to Better
Health?: Towards an Epidemiology of religion,” Social Science
Medicine, Vol. 24 (1987), pp. 589-600; David B. Larson, Kim A.
Sherrill, John S. Lyons, Fred C. Craigie, S. B. Thielman, M. A.
Greenwold, and Susan S. Larson, “Dimensions and Valences of
Measures of Religious Commitment Found in the American Journal of
Psychiatry and the Archives of General Psychiatry: 1978 through
1989,” American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 149 (1978), pp.
557-559; Fred C. Craigie, Jr., David B. Larson, and Ingrid Y. Liu,
“References to religion in The Journal of family Practice:
Dimensions and Valence of Spirituality,” The Journal of family
Practice, Vol. 30 (1990), pp. 477-480.
- See “religion and the Social
Sciences,” infra, on the differences between intrinsic and
extrinsic religious practice.
- Thomas Skill, James D. Robinson, John
S. Lyons, and David Larson, “The Portrayal of religion and
Spirituality on Fictional Network Television,” Review of
Religious Research, Vol. 35, No. 3 (March 1994), pp.
251-267.
- Allen E. Bergin, “Values and Religious
issues in Psychotherapy and Mental Health,” The American
Psychologist, Vol. 46 (1991), pp. 394-403, esp. p. 401.
Professor Bergin received the American Psychological Association’s
top award in 1990.
- William Raspberry: “Christmas Without
Meaning? Must the Religious Make a Secret of Their Beliefs?” The
Washington Post, December 24, 1993, p. A15.
- David B. Larson, Susan S. Larson, and
John Gartner, “Families, Relationships and Health,” in Behavior
and Medicine, ed. Danny Wedding (Baltimore: Mosby Year Book
Inc., 1990), pp. 135-147.
- The Politics of Aristotle,
trans. Ernest Barker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958),
Book VIII, “Political Ideal and Educational Principles,” Chapters
1, 2, and 3, “The Highest Goal,” pp. 279-289.
- B. Beit-Hallami, “Psychology of
religion 1880-1939: The Rise and Fall of a Psychological Movement,”
Journal of the history of the Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 10
(1974), pp. 84-90.
- Harsha N. Mookherjee, “Effects of
Religiosity and Selected Variables on the Perception of
Well-Being,” The Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 134, No.
3 (June 1994), pp. 403-405, reporting on a national sample General
Social Survey of 1,481 adults aged 18-89.
- Larson and Larson, “The Forgotten
Factor in Physical and Mental Health,” p. 76.
- David O. Moberg, “The Development of
Social Indicators of Spiritual Well-Being for Quality of Life
Research,” in Spiritual Well-Being: Sociological
Perspectives, ed. David O. Moberg (Washington, D.C.: University
Press of America, 1979).
- Rodney Stark: “Psychopathology and
Religious Commitment,” Review of Religious Research, Vol. 12
(1971), pp. 165-176.
- R. W. Williams, D. B. Larson, R. E.
Buckler, R. C. Heckman, and C. M. Pyle, “religion and Psychological
Distress in a Community Sample,” Social Science Medicine,
Vol. 32 (1991), pp. 1257-1262.
- Ibid.
- David B. Larson and Susan S. Larson,
“Does Religious Commitment Make a Clinical Difference in Health?”
Second Opinion, Vol. 17 (July 1991), pp. 26-40.
- William V. D’Antonio: “The family and
religion: Exploring a Changing Relationship,” Journal for the
Scientific Study of religion,” Vol. 19 (1980), pp. 89-104.
- Darwin L. Thomas and Gwendolyn C.
Henry, “The religion and family Connection: Increasing Dialogue in
the Social Sciences,” Journal of marriage and the family,
Vol. 47 (May 1985), pp. 369-370.
- Ibid.
- Howard M. Bahr and Bruce A. Chadwick,
“religion and family in Middletown, USA,” Journal of marriage
and the family, Vol. 47 (May 1985), pp. 407-414.
- Arland Thornton and Donald Camburn,
“Religious Participation and Adolescent Sexual Behavior and
Attitudes,” Journal of marriage and the family, Vol. 51
(August 1989), pp. 641-653.
- Research and Forecasts Inc., The
Connecticut Mutual Life Report on American Values in the 1980’s
(Hartford: Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Co., 1981).
- C. E. Kennedy, Janet Cleveland, and
Walter Schumm, “family Commitment and Religious Commitment:
Parallel Processes,” (Manhattan, Kan.: Department of family and
Child Development, Kansas State University, 1983).
- Nick Stinnet, G. Saunders, John
DeFrain, and A. Parkhurst. “A Nationwide Study of Families Who
Perceive Themselves as Strong,” family Perspectives, Vol. 16
(1982), pp. 15-22.
- Velma McBride Murry, “Incidence of
First Pregnancy Among Black Adolescent Females Over Three Decades,”
Youth & Society, Vol. 23, No. 4 (June 1992), pp.
478-506, esp. p. 483.
- Larson, Larson, and Gartner,
“Families, Relationships and Health.”
- See, for example, G. Burchinal,
“Marital Satisfaction and Religious Behavior,” American
Sociological Review, Vol. 22 (January 1957), pp. 306-310.
- C. Tavris and S. Sadd, The Redbook
Report on Female Sexuality (New York: Delacorte Press,
1977).
- Robert T. Michael, John H. Gagnon,
Edward O. Laumann, and Gina Kolata, Sex in America: A Definitive
Survey (Boston: Little Brown 1995), Chapter 6.
- Wesley Shrum, “religion and Marital
Instability: Change in the 1970s?” Review of Religious
Research, Vol. 21 (1980), pp. 135-147.
- David B. Larson: “Religious
Involvement,” in family Building, ed. G. E. Rekers (Ventura,
Cal.: Regal, 1985), pp. 121-147.
- J. O. Billy, K. Tanfer, W. R. Grady,
and D. H. Klepinger, “The Sexual Behavior of Men in the United
States,” family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 25 (1993), pp.
52-60.
- Larry L. Bumpass, James A. Sweet, and
Andrew Cherlin, “The Role of Cohabitation in Declining Rates of
marriage,” NSFH Working Paper No. 5, Center for Demography and
Ecology, University of Wisconsin, 1989.
- National Institute of Healthcare
Research May 1993 summary of: A. Thorton, W. Axxinn, and D. Hill,
“Reciprocal Effects of Religiosity, Cohabitation, and marriage,”
American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 98 (1992), pp.
628-651.
- Allan C. Carlson, “religion and the
family: The Troubled and Enduring Bond,” The family in
America, Vol. 2 (January 1988), p. 7.
- B. Schlesinger, “Functioning Families:
Focus of the 1980s,” family Perspectives, Vol. 16 (1982),
pp. 111-116.
- Patrick F. Fagan, “The Real Root
Causes of crime: The Breakdown of marriage, family, and Community,”
Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1026, March 17,
1995.
- Patrick F. Fagan, “Rising
Illegitimacy: America’s Social Catastrophe,” Heritage Foundation
F.Y.I. No. 19, June 1994. Robert Rector, “Combating family
Disintegration, crime, and Dependence: welfare Reform and Beyond,”
Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 983, April 1994.
- Robert Rector, “Combatting family
Disintegration, crime, and Dependence: welfare Reform and Beyond,”
Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1026, March 17,
1995.
- George W. Comstock and Kay B.
Partridge, “Church Attendance and Health,” Journal of Chronic
Disease, Vol. 25 (1972), pp. 665-672.
- D. M. Zuckerman, S.V. Kasl, and A. M.
Osterfield, “Psychosocial Predictors of Mortality Among the Elderly
Poor,” American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol. 119 (1984),
pp. 410-423.
- For instance, J. S. House, C. Robins,
and H. L. Metzner, “The Association of Social Relationships and
Activities with Mortality: Prospective Evidence from the Tecumseh
Community Health Study,” American Journal of Epidemiology,
Vol. 114 (1984), p. 129.
- David B. Larson, H. G. Koenig, B. H.
Kaplan, R. S. Greenberg, E. Logue, and H. A. Tyroler, “The Impact
of religion on Men’s Blood Pressure,” Journal of religion and
Health, Vol. 28 (1989), pp. 265-278.
- W. T. Maramot, “Diet, Hypertension and
Stroke,” in Nutrition and Health, ed. M. R. Turner (New
York: Alan R. Liss, 1982), p. 243.
- Ibid.
- J. S. Levin and P. L. Schiller, “Is
There a Religious Factor in Health?” Journal of religion and
Health, Vol. 26 (1987), pp. 9-35.
- The 1984 and 1987 General Social
Surveys conducted by the National Opinion Research Center, which
included questions on religious commitment and health.
- K. F. Ferraro and C. M.
Albrecht-Jensen, “Does religion Influence Adult Health?” Journal
for the Scientific Study of religion, Vol. 30 (1991), pp.
193-202.
- R. B. Byrd, “Positive Therapeutic
Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population,”
Southern Medical Journal, Vol. 75 (1982), pp.
1166-1168.
- Fagan, “Rising Illegitimacy: America’s
Social Catastrophe,” and U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, Report to Congress on Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing,
September 1995, esp. chapter on “The Consequences of Nonmarital
Childbearing for Women, Children and Society” by Sarah
McLanahan.
- Louis Harris and Associates, Inc.,
American Teens Speak: Sex, Myths, TV, and Birth Control,
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., 1986; Thornton and
Camburn, “Religious Participation and Adolescent Sexual Behavior
and Attitudes.”
- Murry, “Incidence of First Pregnancy
Among Black Adolescent Females Over Three Decades.”
- Monthly Vital Statistics
Report, Vol. 44, No. 3 (September 21, 1995), DHHS/CDC/NCHS,
Table 15.
- Bernard Spilka, Ralph W. Hood, and
Richard L. Gorsuch, The Psychology of religion: An Empirical
Approach (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1985); Cheryl
D. Hayes, ed., “Risking the Future: Adolescent Sexuality, Pregnancy
and Childbearing,” Vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: National Academic
Press, 1987); Michael J. Donahue, “Aggregate Religiousness and
Teenage Fertility Revisited: Reanalyses of Data from the Guttmacher
Institute,” paper presented at Society for the Scientific Study of
religion, Chicago, Illinois, October 1988; Catherine S. Chilman,
“Adolescent Sexuality in a Changing American Society: Social and
Psychological Perspectives,” NIH Publication No. 80-1426
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980).
- The following studies are cited in
Scott H. Beck, Bettie S. Cole, and Judith A. Hammond, “Religious
Heritage and Premarital Sex: Evidence from a National Sample of
Young Adults,” Journal for the Scientific Study of religion,
Vol. 30, No. 2 (1991), pp. 173-180: H. T. Christensen and L. B.
Johnson, “Premarital Coitus and the Southern Black: A Comparative
View,” Journal of marriage and the family, Vol. 40 (1978),
pp. 721-731; Stephen R. Jorgensen and Janet S. Sonstegard,
“Predicting Adolescent Sexual and Contraceptive Behavior: An
Application and Test of the Fishbein Model,” Journal of marriage
and the family, Vol. 46 (1984), pp. 43-55; F. L. Mott, “The
Patterning of Female Teenage Sexual Behaviors and Attitudes,” paper
presented at 1983 Annual Meeting of the American Public Health
Association, Dallas, Texas, November 1983; and J. M. Studer and A.
Thornton, “Adolescent Religiosity and Contraceptive Usage,”
Journal of marriage and the family, Vol. 47 (1985), pp.
381-395.
- Beck et al., “Religious
Heritage and Premarital Sex: Evidence from a National Sample of
Young Adults.”
- Donahue, “Aggregate Religiousness and
Teenage Fertility Revisited: Reanalyses of Data from the Guttmacher
Institute.”
- Brent C. Miller, Robert Higginson, J.
Kelly McCoy, and Terrance D. Olson, “family Configuration and
Adolescent Sexual Attitudes and Behavior,” Population and
Environment, Vol. 9 (1987), pp. 111-123.
- Elise F. Jones et al., “Teenage
Pregnancy in Developed Countries: Determinants and Policy
Implications,” family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 17, No. 2
(March/April 1985), pp. 53-63.
- Arland D. Thorton, “family and
Institutional Factors in Adolescent Sexuality,” found in HHS/Public
Health Service, “Summaries of Completed Adolescent family Life
Research Projects on Adolescent Sexual Behavior,” a 1991 internal
staff summary of HHS-funded research projects.
- See, for example, Brian C. Martinson
and Larry L. Bumpass, “The Impact of family Background on
Premarital Births among Women under 30 in the United States,” NSFH
Working Paper No. 9, Center for Demography and Ecology, University
of Wisconsin, April 1990.
- S. Newcomer and J. R. Undry, “Parental
Marital Status Effects on Adolescent Sexual Behavior,” Journal
of marriage and the family, Vol. 49 (1987), pp. 235-240.
- For example, Thornton and Camburn,
“Religious Participation and Adolescent Sexual Behavior and
Attitudes.”
- This study, “Fertility Appreciation
for Families,” involved a matched control design. Unpublished but
peer reviewed, it is available from family of the Americas, P.O.
Box 1170, Dunkirk, Maryland 20754.
- David Lester, “Religiosity and
Personal Violence: A Regional Analysis of Suicide and Homicide
Rates,” The Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 127, No. 6
(December 1987), pp. 685-686.
- John Rohrbaugh and Richard Jessor,
Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado,
“Religiosity in Youth: A Personal Control Against Deviant
Behavior,” Journal of Personality, Vol. 43, No. 1 (1975),
pp. 136-155.
- John K. Cochran, “Another Look at
Delinquency and Religiosity,” Sociological Spectrum, Vol. 9,
No. 2 (1989), pp. 147-162.
- Avtar Singh, “Note: Religious
Involvement and Anti-Social Behavior,” Perceptual and Motor
Skills, Vol. 48 (1979), pp. 1157-1158.
- For instance, see Lee Ellis,
“Religiosity and Criminality from the Perspective of Arousal
Theory,” Journal of Research in crime and Delinquency, Vol.
24, No. 3 (August 1987), pp. 215-232.
- John Gartner, David B. Larson, and
George Allen, “Religious Commitment and Mental Health: A Review of
the Empirical Literature,” Journal of Psychology and
Theology, Vol. 19 (1991), pp. 6-25.
- Beit-Hallami, “Psychology of religion
1880-1939,” pp. 84-90.
- Naida M. Parson and James K. Mikawa,
“Incarceration and Nonincarceration of African-American Men Raised
in Black Christian Churches,” The Journal of Psychology,
Vol. 125 (1990), pp. 163-173.
- Richard B. Freeman, “Who Escapes? The
Relation of Church-Going and Other Background Factors to the
Socio-Economic Performance of Black Male Youths from Inner-City
poverty Tracts,” Working Paper Series No. 1656, National Bureau of
Economic Research, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985.
- Ranald Jarrell, Department of
Education, Arizona State University West, personal communication,
October 1995.
- Analysis of NLSY data by Heritage
Foundation analyst Christine Olson.
- Fagan, “Rising Illegitimacy: America’s
Social Catastrophe,” p. 5.
- Given the significance of these
findings, which are now over 10 years old, it is telling that no
further research seems to have been conducted along these lines by
the welfare interest group in academia. In the business field,
there is considerable anecdotal literature of the testimonial genre
which recounts the effect of religious belief or conversion on work
capacity and outcomes; in the academic literature, however, there
seems to be little or none. See “religion and the Social Sciences,”
infra.
- Achaempong Yaw Amoateng and Stephen J.
Bahr, “religion, family, and Adolescent Drug Use,” Sociological
Perspectives, Vol. 29 (1986), pp. 53-73, and John K. Cochran,
Leonard Beghley, and E. Wilbur Block, “Religiosity and Alcohol
Behavior: An Exploration of Reference Group Therapy,”
Sociological Forum, Vol. 3 (1988), pp. 256-276.
- Amoateng and Bahr, “religion, family,
and Adolescent Drug Use.”
- Gartner, Larson, and Allen, “Religious
Commitment and Mental Health: A Review of the Empirical
Literature”; Steven R. Burkett and Mervin White, “Hellfire and
Delinquency: Another Look,” Journal for the Scientific Study of
religion, Vol. 13 (1974), pp. 455-462; Deborah Hasin, Jean
Endicott, and Collins Lewis, “Alcohol and Drug Abuse in Patients
with Affective Syndromes,” Comprehensive Psychiatry, Vol. 26
(1985), pp. 283-295.
- David B. Larson and William P. Wilson:
“Religious Life of Alcoholics,” Southern Medical Journal,
Vol. 73 (1980), pp. 723-727.
- Ibid.
- Robert H. Coombs, David K. Wellisch,
and Fawzy I. Fawzy, “Drinking Patterns and Problems among Female
Children and Adolescents: A Comparison of Abstainers, Past Users
and Current Users,” American Journal of Drug and Alcohol
Abuse, Vol. 11 (1985), pp. 315-348.
- Barbara R. Lorch and Robert H. Hughes,
“religion and Youth Substance Use,” Journal of religion and
Health, Vol. 24 (1985), pp. 197-208.
- Amoateng and Bahr, “religion, family,
and Adolescent Drug Use.”
- Lorch and Hughes, “religion and Youth
Substance Use.”
- Coombs, Wellisch, and Fawzy, “Drinking
Patterns and Problems among Female Children and Adolescents: A
Comparison of Abstainers, Past Users and Current Users.”
- Orville S. Walters, “The Religious
Background of Fifty Alcoholics,” Quarterly Journal of Studies on
Alcohol, Vol. 18 (1957), pp. 405-413.
- F. Lemere, “What Happens to
Alcoholics?” American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 22 (1953),
pp. 674-676.
- Walters, “The Religious Background of
Fifty Alcoholics.”
- H. M. Tiebaut, “Psychological Factors
Operating in Alcoholics Anonymous,” in Current Therapies of
Personality Disorders, ed. B. Glueck (New York: Grune and
Stratton, 1946).
- Larson and Larson, “The Forgotten
Factor in Physical and Mental Health,” p. 71.
- Richard L. Gorsuch and M. C. Butler,
“Initial Drug Abuse: A View of Predisposing Social Psychological
Factors,” Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 3 (1976), pp.
120-137.
- For example, Ron D. Hays, Alan W.
Stacy, Keith F. Widaman, M. Robin DiMatteo, and Ralph Downey,
“Multistage Path Models of Adolescent Alcohol and Drug Use: A
Reanalysis,” Journal of Drug issues, Vol. 16 (1986), pp.
357-369; Hasin, Endicott, and Lewis, “Alcohol and Drug Abuse in
Patients with Affective Syndromes”; Steven R. Burkett, “religion,
Parental Influence and Adolescent Alcohol and Marijuana Use,”
Journal of Drug issues, Vol. 7 (1977), pp. 263-273; Lorch
and Hughes, “religion and Youth Substance Use”; and Edward M. Adalf
and Reginald G. Smart, “Drug Use and Religious Affiliation,
Feelings and Behavior,” British Journal of Addiction, Vol.
80 (1985), pp. 163-171.
- Adalf and Smart, “Drug Use and
Religious Affiliation, Feelings and Behavior.”
- Jerald G. Bachman, Lloyd D. Johnson,
and Patrick M. O’Malley, “Explaining the Recent Decline in Cocaine
Use Among Young Adults: Further Evidence That Perceived Risks and
Disapproval Lead to Reduced Drug Use,” Journal of Health and
Social Behavior, Vol. 31 (1990), pp. 173-184, and Hasin,
Endicott, and Lewis, “Alcohol and Drug Abuse in Patients With
Affective Syndromes.” The findings of this NIMH-supported study
were replicated in the above-cited study by Bachman, Johnson, and
O’Malley.
- Adalf and Smart, “Drug Use and
Religious Affiliation, Feelings and Behavior.”
- M. Daum and M. A. Lavenhar,
“Religiosity and Drug Use,” National Institute of Drug Abuse, DHEW
Publication No. (ADM) 80-939, 1980.
- Louis A. Cancellaro, David B.
Larson, and William P. Wilson, “Religious Life of Narcotics
Addicts,” Southern Medical Journal, Vol. 75, No. 10 (October
1992), pp. 1166-1168.
- John Muffler, John Langrod, and
David Larson, “‘There Is a Balm in Gilead’: religion and Substance
Abuse Rehabilitation,” in Substance Abuse: A Comprehensive
Textbook, ed. J. H. Lowinson, P. Ruiz, et al. (Baltimore, Md.:
Williams and Wilkins, 1992), pp. 584-595.
- Charles E. Joubert, “Religious
Nonaffiliation in Relation to Suicide, Murder, Rape, and
Illegitimacy,” Psychological Reports, Vol. 75, No. 1, Part 1
(1994), p. 10, and Jon W. Hoelter, “Religiosity, Fear of Death and
Suicide Acceptability,” Suicide and Life Threatening
Behavior, Vol. 9 (1979), pp. 163-172.
- William T. Martin, “Religiosity and
United States Suicide Rates, 1972-1978,” Journal of Clinical
Psychology, Vol. 40 (1984), pp. 1166-1169.
- Steven Stack, “The Effect of
Domestic-Religious Individualism on Suicide, 1954-1978,” Journal
of marriage and the family, Vol. 47 (1985), pp. 431-447.
- Steven Stack, “The Effect of the
Decline in Institutionalized religion on Suicide, 1954-1978,”
Journal for the Scientific Study of religion, Vol. 22
(1983), pp. 239-252.
- Lester, “Religiosity and Personal
Violence: A Regional Analysis of Suicide and Homicide Rates.”
- Steven Stack: “The Effects of
Religious Commitment on Suicide: A Cross-National Analysis,”
Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Vol. 24 (1983), pp.
362-374.
- Williams, Larson, Buckler, Heckman,
and Pyle, “religion and Psychological Distress in a Community
Sample,” pp. 1257-1262. Religious commitment also had other
benefits. Not only were members of the group less depressed, but
they could walk a greater distance at discharge than those without
religious beliefs and practices. See Peter Pressman, John S. Lyons,
David B. Larson, and James J. Strain, “Religious Belief, Depression
and Ambulation Status in Elderly Women with Broken Hips,”
American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 147 (1990), pp.
758-760.
- Loyd S. Wright, Christopher J.
Frost, and Stephen J. Wisecarver, “Church Attendance,
Meaningfulness of religion on, and Depressive Symptomology Among
Adolescents,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 22, No.
5 (1993), pp. 559-568.
- Fagan, “The Real Root Causes of
crime: The Breakdown of marriage, family, and Community.”
- Stark, “Psychopathology and
Religious Commitment.”
- Clyde C. Mayo, Herbert B. Puryear,
and Herbert G. Richek, “MMPI Correlates of Religiousness in Late
Adolescent College Students,” Journal of Nervous and Mental
Disease, Vol. 149 (November 1969), pp. 381-385. These findings
do not hold for “ego strength.” (However, refer to the section on
measurements, where this particular finding will be looked at
again.)
- Peter L. Bensen and Bernard P.
Spilka, “God-Image as a Function of Self-Esteem and Locus of
Control” in Current Perspectives in the Psychology of
religion, ed. H. N. Maloney (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans,
1977), pp. 209-224.
- Carl Jung: “Psychotherapies on the
Clergy,” in Collected Works, Vol. 2 (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 327-347.
- Walters, “The Religious Background
of Fifty Alcoholics.”
- Larson and Larson, “The Forgotten
Factor in Physical and Mental Health,” p. 87.
- Gordon W. Allport, “The Person in
Psychology: Selected Essays” (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1968),
p. 150.
- R. D. Kahoe, “Personality and
Achievement Correlates on Intrinsic and Extrinsic Religious
Orientations,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
Vol. 29 (1974), pp. 812-818.
- Ken F. Wiebe and J. Roland Fleck,
“Personality Correlates of Intrinsic, Extrinsic and Non-Religious
Orientations,” Journal of Psychology, Vol. 105 (1980), pp.
111-117.
- Michael J. Donahue, “Intrinsic and
Extrinsic Religiousness: Review and Meta-Analysis,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 48 (1985), pp.
400-419.
- Ibid.
- Allen E. Bergin, K. S. Masters, and
P. Scott Richards, “Religiousness and Mental Health Reconsidered: A
Study of an Intrinsically Religious Sample,” Journal of
Counseling Psychology, Vol. 34 (1987), pp. 197-204.
- M. Baker and R. Gorsuch, “Trait
Anxiety and Intrinsic-Extrinsic Religiousness,” Journal for the
Scientific Study of religion, Vol. 21 (1982), pp. 119-122, and
Gordon W. Allport and J. Michael Ross, “Personal Religious
Orientation and Prejudice,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology Vol. 5 (1967), pp. 432-443.
- Kahoe, Personality and Achievement
Correlates on Intrinsic and Extrinsic Religious Orientations.”
- Wiebe and Fleck, “Personality
Correlates of Intrinsic, Extrinsic and Non-Religious
Orientations.”
- Bergin, Masters, and Richards,
“Religiousness and Mental Health Reconsidered: A Study of an
Intrinsically Religious Sample.”
- Ann M. Downey, “Relationships of
Religiosity to Death Anxiety of Middle-Aged Males,”
Psychological Reports, Vol. 54 (1984), pp. 811-822.
- The benefit of the intrinsic
practice of religion certainly be obvious to most ordinary
Americans. But in research results, many of the deleterious effects
of the extrinsic practice of religion wipe out many of the benefits
of intrinsic practice when adherents of both are mixed together in
the same piece of research. Most religious research to date does
not measure or differentiate between intrinsic and extrinsic
practice of religion. Despite this shortcoming, the studies cited
up to now do not distinguish between these types of religious
practice, yet show a very positive outcome. This poses a number of
important research issues, chief among them whether this is because
there are only a few extrinsics among those who go to church most
frequently. For researchers and those who commission research,
there is an obvious need to measure whether the person’s practice
of religion, when it is present, is more intrinsic or extrinsic.
Fortunately, a simple validated scale has been developed to measure
the person’s religious motivation. See Dean R. Hoge, “A Validated
Intrinsic Religious Motivation Scale,” Journal for Scientific
Study of religion, Vol. 11 (1972), pp. 369-376.
- In the view of this author, that
tension arises from the effort of the social sciences to contain
religion within the canons of the social sciences. However the
canons of religion transcend these canons, and therefore cannot be
reduced to the dimensions of any of the social sciences, though
every social science can describe some facets of religious
behavior.
- Thomas and Henry, “The religion and
family Connection: Increasing Dialogue in the Social
Sciences.”
- The Gallup survey (religion in
America 1985) continues to indicate that religious commitment is
avowed by one-third of Americans as the most important dimension in
their lives and that, for another third, religion is considered to
be very important (but not the single most dominant) factor.
religion in America: The Gallup Report, Report No. 236, 1985
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton religion Research Center, 1985) quoted
in Alan E. Bergin and Jay P. Stevens, “Religiosity of
Psychotherapists: A National Survey,” Psychotherapy, Vol. 27
(1990), pp. 3-7.
- Stephen L. Carter, The Culture of
Disbelief (New York: Anchor Books, 1994), pp. 6-7.
- Larson and Larson, “The Forgotten
Factor in Physical and Mental Health.”
- Patrick McNamara, “The New rights
View of the family and Its Social Science Critics: A Study in
Differing Presuppositions,” Journal of marriage and the
family, Vol. 47 (1985), pp. 449-458.
- Ibid.
- religion in America.
- Henry Steele Commager, ed.,
Documents of American History, 9th ed. (NJ: Prentice Hall,
1973), p. 175.
- George Washington, Farewell Address,
September 19, 1796, in George Washington: A Collection, ed.
W. B. Allen (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Classics, 1988), p.
521.
- For instance, Congress has been
funding only research projects that ignore or bury the effects of
religion while scrupulously trying to avoid any initiative that in
some way might advance religious belief or practice. This
essentially is what has happened in the vast areas of social
science research financed by the federal government that is among
the work covered in this study.
- William Raspberry, “Prevent the
Abuse, Preserve the Privilege,” The Washington Post, April
7, 1993, p. A27.
- Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S.
306, 72 S. Ct. 679, 96 L.Ed 954 (1952).
- See Patrick F. Fagan “Social
Breakdown in America,” in issues ’96 (Washington, D.C.: The
Heritage Foundation, forthcoming 1996).
- The author would like to thank Dr.
David Larson, President of the National Institute for Healthcare
Research, for his generous guidance and assistance in providing
much resource material. Robert Klassen, while interning at the
Heritage Foundation, was of immense help as my research
assistant.
Ongoing studies by Professor Ranald Jarrell of the Department of
Education at Arizona State University West show the power of
religious belief and practice in encouraging a spirit of optimism
among socially at-risk but advancing children. The subjects are
students at the De La Salle Academy, an independent school in the
upper west side of Manhattan serving primarily poor inner-city
black and Hispanic middle school children who show substantial
academic promise. Within this group, the highest concentration of
pessimists is found among students with the lowest attendance at
church. Those who attend church weekly or more frequently, on the
other hand, exhibit the following profiles:
- They are more optimistic about their futures;
- They have better relationships with their parents;
- They are more likely to dismiss racism as an obstacle to
reaching their goals;
- They are more likely to have serious and realistic goals for
their futures;
- They are more likely to see the world as a friendly place in
which they can achieve, rather than as a hostile world with
powerful forces arrayed against them; and
- They are more likely to see themselves as in control of their
own futures, whereas those who do not attend church are more likely
to see themselves as victims of oppression.82
Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), the
best national sample for tracking the development of America’s
youth from the late 1970s, clearly indicate the difference regular
religious practice makes for those who grew up in poverty in the
1970s and 1980s. Among those who attended church weekly in both
1979 and 1982, average family income in 1993 was $37,021; among
those who never attended church in 1979 or 1982, however, average
family income in 1993 was $24,361 — a difference of
$12,660.83
Other studies also show that growing up in an intact family
correlates significantly and positively with future
earnings.84 However, the NLSY data
show that regular religious practice benefits both those who grow
up in intact families and those who grow up in broken
families. The other differences remain, but the positive impact of
religion on both groups is evident.85
Alcohol and Drug Abuse
The relationship between religious practice and the moderate
use or avoidance of alcohol is well documented,86 regardless of whether denominational
beliefs prohibit the use of alcohol.87
According to general studies, the higher the level of religious
involvement, the less likely the use or abuse of alcohol.88
Persons who abuse alcohol rarely have a strong religious
commitment.89 In their study of the
development of alcohol abuse, David Larson and William P. Wilson,
professors of psychiatry at Northwestern University School of
Medicine, found that nine out of ten alcoholics had lost interest
in religion in their teenage years, in sharp contrast to teenagers
generally, among whom interest in religion increased by almost 50
percent and declined by only 14 percent.90 Robert Coombs and his colleagues at the
University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine found
that alcohol abuse is 300 percent higher among those who do not
attend church.91
Drug and alcohol use is lowest in the most conservative
religious denominations and highest in non-religious groups, while
liberal church groups have use rates just slightly lower than those
for non-religious groups. But for all groups, religious commitment
correlates with absence of drug abuse.92
Significantly, involvement in any religious denomination or
group generally decreases the level of drug use regardless of
whether the denomination teaches against the use of alcohol,
although denominations that teach against any use of drugs or
alcohol exhibit the highest rates of drug avoidance. Among
traditional American religions, Mormons have the highest
denominational association between religious doctrine and drug
avoidance; they also have the most restrictive proscriptions
against drug use. On the other hand, Roman Catholics have the
highest alcohol use rate; their religion condemns the abuse of
alcohol but does not proscribe its use.93
Attendance at church and related religious activities has
special significance for drug use among teenagers. In a 1985 study
of young girls aged between 9 and 17, less than 10 percent of those
who reported attending religious services weekl y or more often
indicated any drug or alcohol use, compared with 38 percent of all
those studied.94
The parental attitude to religion also is important in dealing
with alcohol use. A 1985 study indicated that if the mother and
father have deep, competing differences toward religious belief and
practice, their children are more likely to use or abuse alcohol
than are children whose parents do not differ on matters of
religion. Conversely, if their parents’ religious beliefs and
practices are similar, children are far more likely to abstain from
alcohol or to drink with moderation.95
Almost three decades before these findings, Orville Walters, then a
research fellow at the Menninger School of Psychiatry in Topeka,
Kansas, found that alcoholics who came from religious backgrounds
tended to have mothers who were highly religious but fathers who
were more non-religious.96
For over four decades it has been known,97 and replicated,98 that alcoholics with a religious background
or strong religious beliefs are much more likely to seek help and
treatment. Indeed, Alcoholics Anonymous, the major organization
combating alcoholism in America, has known for over half a century
that the most effective element in its program is its religious or
spiritual component.99 David Larson of
the National Institute for Healthcare Research notes: “Even after
alcoholism has been established, religion is often a powerful force
in achieving abstinence. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) uses religion,
invoking a Higher Power to help alcoholics recover from
addiction.”100
Paralleling the research on alcohol addiction, an early review
of studies of drug addiction found a lack of religious commitment
to be a predictor of who abuses drugs.101 Many more recent studies replicate this
finding.102 As in so many other
research studies, the best measurement of religious commitment is
frequency of church attendance: “Overall church attendance was more
strongly related to [less] drug use than was intensity of religious
feelings.”103 This is true for both
males and females. According to Jerald G. Bachman of the Institute
for Social Research at the University of Michigan, “Factors we
found to be most important in predicting use of marijuana and other
drugs during the late 1970’s remained most important during the
early 1980’s. Drug use is below average among those with strong
religious commitments.”104 The more
powerfully addictive the drug being considered, the more powerful
is the impact of church attendance in preventing its use.105
In results almost identical to those for alcoholics, researchers
at the National Institute of Drug Abuse, a section of the National
Institutes of Health and the nation’s premier drug abuse research
facility, found in their interviews of narcotic addicts that “the
addict had neither current religious preference nor a history of
attending religious services…. In addition… the addicts’
fathers were much less involved in regular or frequent religious
practices, than were a parallel group of control fathers….
Religiously, the mother was far more involved than her husband, the
difference in regular religious participation between the addict’s
parents being twice that for the control’s parents…. Religiously,
the addicts were significantly less involved in reading the Bible,
and praying.” They also had far more frequent loss of interest in
religion during adolescence.106
Louis A. Cancellaro of the Department of Psychiatry at the
Veterans Administration in Johnson City, Tennessee, writes that,
“Like their fathers, addicts are less religiously involved than
their normal peers, and during adolescence, less frequently make
decisions either to become more interested in religion or to commit
themselves to a re ligious philosophy to live by.”107
In reviewing the religious treatment of addicts, research
psychiatrists at the Duke University Department of Psychiatry
concluded in 1992: “[The] role of religious commitment and
religiously oriented treatment programs can be significant factors
which ought to be considered and included when planning a mix of
appropriate treatment alternatives…. Perhaps the greatest
advantage of religious programs is their recourse to churches as a
support system…. Religious treatment programs are not suitable
for everyone. For those men and women who can accept the creeds,
rituals, and commitments required of such programs there seem to be
certain advantages.”108
Suicide
The practice of religion reduces the rate of suicide, both in
the United States and abroad.109 In
fact, the rate of church attendance predicts the suicide rate
better than any other factor (including unemployment, traditionally
regarded as the most powerful variable). Those who attend church
frequently are four times less likely to commit suicide than those
who never attend. Conversely, the national decline in church
attendance is associated with a heightened suicide rate;
fluctuations in church attendance rates in the 1970s paralleled the
suicide rates for different subgroups: whites, blacks, men, and
women.110
Steven Stack, professor of sociology at Pennsylvania State
University, in a landmark 1985 study on the demography of suicide
has found that “Families and religion change together over time….
As the importance of the domestic-religious institutional complex
declines, the study finds a rise in the rate of suicide, both for
the general population and for the age cohort at the center of the
decline, the youth cohort.”111 In
another, earlier study, Stack broke new ground in finding that the
effect of unemployment in causing suicide is greatl y diminished
when religious behavior is factored into the equation.112
In inter-state comparisons, higher levels of church attendance
are associated with lower rates of suicide.113 The same holds true in international
comparisons.114
Depression
religion appears to reduce the incidence of depression among
those with medical problems. For instance, University of Michigan
Professor of Sociology David Williams conducted a randomized survey
of 720 adults suffering from leg and hip injuries in New Haven,
Connecticut, in 1990. Those who attended religious services
regularly were less depressed and less distressed by life events
than those who did not. This finding held across age, race,
socioeconomic status, educational attainment, and religious
affiliation. Religious affiliation alone did not have these
effects, but religious behavior did.115
Younger people also tend to experience fewer of the anxieties of
growing up if they are religious. For instance, both male and
female Texas high-schoolers found that religious beliefs gave
meaning to their lives and reduced the incidence of depression
among them.116
Self-esteem
The absence of self-esteem weakens the personality and puts the
person at greater risk for crime, addictions, and other social
maladies.117 In all religious
denominations, psychological weaknesses decrease as religious
orthodoxy increases.118 Among college
students, for instance, the practice of religion was shown in 1969
to have a positive effect on mental health;119 students involved with campus ministries
were much healthier and made much less use of mental health
services.
Significantly, self-esteem is linked to a person’s image of God.
Those with high self-esteem think of God primarily as loving, while
those with low self-esteem think of God primarily as
punitive.120 This was observed by
Carl Jung, one of the most influential pioneers of modern
psychology and psychotherapy: “Among all my patients in the second
half of my life… there has not been one whose problem in the last
resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is
safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost
that which the living religions of every age have given their
followers and none of them has been really healed who did not
regain his religious outlook.”121
Other evidence exists that people with a religious commitment,
whether young or old, who become emotionally or psychologically
distressed are much more likely to seek help.122
Understanding “Intrinsic” and
“Extrinsic” Religious Behavior
Recent advances in the investigation of religious behavior have
led social scientists to distinguish between two distinct
categories or orientations: “intrinsic” and “extrinsic.” Intrinsic
practice is God-oriented and based on beliefs which transcend the
person’s own existence. Research shows this form of religious
practice to be beneficial. Extrinsic practice is self-oriented and
characterized by outward observance, not internalized as a guide to
behavior or attitudes. The evidence suggests this form of religious
practice is actually more harmful than no religion: religion
directed toward some end other than God, or the transcendent,
typically degenerates into a rationalization for the pursuit of
other ends such as status, personal security, self justification,
or sociability.
The difference between these two forms of religious practice
have implications for future research and for the interpretation of
all research on religious practice. There is a radical difference
between what religious people know to be conversion of the spirit
or heart and simply conforming external behavior for its own sake,
or for benefits derived from religious behavior.123
William James, professor of psychology at Harvard University in
the early 1900s and a pioneer in the psychological study of
religious behavior, was the first to make the social science
distinction between the two forms of religious practice. Gordon
Allport, his successor at Harvard in the late 1960s, concluded: “I
feel equally sure that mental health is facilitated by an
intrinsic, but not an extrinsic, religious orientation.”124
The two orientations lead to two very different sets of
psychological effects. For instance, “intrinsics” have a greater
sense of responsibility and greater internal control, are more
self-motivated, and do better in their studies. By contrast,
“extrinsics” are more likely to be dogmatic, authoritarian, and
less responsible, to have less internal control, to be less
self-directed, and to do less well in their studies.125 Intrinsics are more concerned with moral
standards, conscientiousness, discipline, responsibility, and
consistency than are extrinsically religious people.126 They also are more sensitive to others
and more open to their own emotions. By contrast, extrinsics are
more self-indulgent, indolent, and likely to lack dependability.
For example, the most racially prejudiced people turn out to be
those who go to church occasionally127 and those who are extrinsic in their
practice of religion.128 These
findings have been replicated129 in a
number of different forms.130
The contrasting effects show up in college students.
Intrinsically religious students tend to have internal locus of
control, intrinsic motives, and a higher grade point
average.131 By contrast, a 1980 study
indicated that extrinsically religious students were more dogmatic
and authoritarian, less responsible and less motivated, had less
internal locus of control, and had a lower grade point average.
Intrinsically religious students were found to have a greater
concern for moral standards and to be more conscientious,
disciplined, responsible, and consistent, while the extrinsic were
more self-indulgent, more indolent, and less dependable.132
In general, intrinsics are less anxious about life’s ups and
downs, while extrinsics are more anxious. Further, the religious
beliefs and practices of intrinsics are more integrated; for
instance, they are more likely to worship publicly as well as pray
privately. By contrast, those who pray privately but do not worship
publicly tend to have a higher level of general anxiety — a
characteristic of extrinsics generally.133 In an ironic set of findings on anxiety
about death, extrinsics fared worst of all: worse than intrinsics
and worse than those without religious beliefs.134 From a purely social science standpoint,
the intrinsic form of religion is thus good and desirable, and the
extrinsic form is harmful. Religious teachers, without being
utilitarian, would agree.135
religion and the Social Sciences
There is a tension between practitioners of social science and
religious belief.136 Darwin L. Thomas
and Gwendolyn C. Henry, professors of sociology at Brigham Young
University, write: “From the work of Freud and others, much of the
early history of the social sciences is characterized by the
expectation that involvement in and reliance upon the religious
institution will be associated with people who have a low sense of
personal well-being.”137
There is repeated evidence that much the same hostility to
religion — a hostility at variance with the attitude of the vast
majority of Americans — persists among members of America’s
professional elites.138
Stephen L. Carter, professor of law at Yale University, points
out that “One sees a trend in our political and legal cultures
toward treating religious beliefs as arbitrary and unimportant, a
trend supported by rhetoric that implies that there is something
wrong with religious devotion. More and more, our culture seems to
take the position that believing deeply in the tenets of one’s
faith represents a kind of mystical irrationality, something that
thoughtful, public-spirited American citizens would do better to
avoid.”139 However, the available
evidence renders such opposition unreasonable.
Professor David Larson of Duke University Medical School draws
attention to similar biases in the mental health professions.
Consider The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the standard
reference manual for the classification of mental illnesses, which
essentially defines the practice of psychiatrists, clinical
psychology, and clinical social work and is central to the
practice, research, and financing of these professions. In the
third edition, religious examples were used only as illustrations
in discussions of mental illness, such as delusions, incoherence,
and illogical thinking. The latest edition has corrected this
bias.
Consider also the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory,
one of the most widely used of all psychological tests. In the
MMPI, all the positive religion-connected traits –
self-discipline, altruism, humility, obedience to authority,
conventional morality — are weighted negatively. Thus, to choose
the self-description “I am orthodoxly religious” is to detract from
one’s mental health standing. Conversely, several traits that
religious people would regard as diminishing themselves, at least
in some situations — self-assertion, self-expression, and a high
opinion of oneself — are weighted positively.140 The latest editions of the MMPI have
removed the biased items.
Despite this general hostility among social science and mental
health professionals, the empirical evidence shows religion to be a
very powerful and positive part of everyday life. Patrick McNamara,
professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico, explains
the difference between social scientists and religiously affiliated
people generally: “Sociologists tend to see concern for personal
challenge — e.g. to get one’s own moral life in order — as
somehow secondary to social challenge or the effort to identify and
criticize those socioeconomic structures that inhibit the
individual’s own group from attaining a fuller human
existence.”141 McNamara continues:
“In [the] typical social science analysis, the demands of the inner
life are neglected and personal agency and autonomy exercised in
the choice to examine one’s own life and put it in order according
to an internalized ethic of repentance… is not
acknowledged.”142
Despite the attitude of many professionals, Gallup surveys
continue to indicate that one-third of the American people regard
religious commitment as the most important dimension in their
lives. Another third regard religion as a very important, though
not the single most dominant, factor in their lives.143
Totally secular approaches to many issues — public policy,
psychotherapy, and education — use an alien framework for this
two-thirds of the population. The plain fact is that religion plays
a powerful role in the personal and social lives of most Americans.
It is a role that should be understood clearly by the professions,
by policymakers, and by the media.
From many other areas of social science research — family
dynamics, group dynamics, marital dynamics — positive reciprocal
relationships with others are known to be powerful across a host of
areas similar to those reviewed in this paper: stress, ability to
relate with others in general, productivity, and learning, to name
just a few. The core of the religious commitment is an intention to
have a positive relationship with another Being, a transcendent and
therefore all-available Being. Viewed in this fashion, the
documented effects of religious commitment are not mysterious, but
an extension of the effects which we know arise from positive
relations between human beings. Thus, the findings on religion fit
with the general corpus of what is known about relationships from
the existing body of social science research.
Policy Implications
The evidence indicates strongly that it is a good social policy
to foster the widespread practice of religion. It is bad social
policy to block it. The widespread practice of religious beliefs is
one of America’s greatest national resources. It strengthens
individuals, families, communities, and society as a whole. It
significantly affects educational and job attainment and reduces
the incidence of such major social problems as out-of-wedlock
births, drug and alcohol addiction, crime, and delinquency. No
other dimension of the nation’s life, other than the health of the
family (which the data show also is tied powerfully to religious
practice) should be of more concern to those who guide the future
course of the United States.
The original intent of the Founding Fathers was to bar the
establishment by the federal government of a state-approved
religion, not to bar religion from the operations of the state.
Thomas Jefferson made this distinction very clear in the Virginia
Statute for Religious Freedom (January 16, 1786):
We, the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no
man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious
worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced,
restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall
otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief:
but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to
maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same
shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil
capacities.
144
George Washington summed up the importance of religion to the
new nation with particular eloquence in his farewell address:
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to
political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable
supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism
who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness
— these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere
politician, equally with the pious man ought to respect and to
cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with
private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the
security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of
religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of
investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge
the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.
Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on
minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us
to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of
religious principle.
‘Tis substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary
spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or
less force to every species of free government. Who that is a
sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to
shake the foundation of the fabric?145
A policy can be friendly to the general practice of religion,
and to the many different faiths in a pluralistic society, without
in any way implying the establishment of a particular religion.
Federal policies encourage many other institutions: the
marketplace, education, medicine, science, and the arts. Even
religion itself is explicitly encouraged by the tax treatment of
contributions to religious institutions. It makes no sense,
therefore, not to encourage the resource that most powerfully
addresses the major social problems confronting the nation.
Congress and the President can help to accomplish this by acting
decisively in at least six specific areas:
- Congress, and the Senate in particular, should lead a new
national debate on the renewed role of religion in American life.
With his recent guidance to school administrators on prayer in
school, President Clinton has opened the national discussion. The
Senate once was the chamber for debate on the great issues of the
day. It is time for it to take up that role again on the
relationship between the practice of religion and the life of the
nation, on the health of America’s families and the content of its
culture.
America needs a major national debate on the true role of
religion in a free and pluralistic society. For many decades, the
once-prominent place of religion in society has been eroded.
Religious leaders, who should be in the forefront of moral and
spiritual renewal, have been cowed into a strange timidity.
Americans of religious belief should not be bullied into believing
that in all things related to the public good, religion is to
remain off limits. The constitutional freedom of religion does not
mean the constitutional barring of religion from the public
square.
- Congress should pass a resolution affirming that data on
religious practice are important to the nation, to policymakers,
and to the research needed to inform the public debate. The
gathering of data that touch on religious practice often is blocked
in research on social issues funded by the federal
government.146 Because government
funds a huge proportion of the nation’s funded social research,
this has a chilling effect. But the relationship between religious
practice and the social issues under investigation by government,
such as out-of-wedlock births, crime and delinquency, addiction,
economic dependency, medical and psychiatric problems, and learning
capacity, should be explored. A sense-of-the-Congress resolution
would remove the excuse that it is not permissible for federally
funded research to touch on this aspect of life.
- Congress should mandate a census question on religious
practice. The census for the year 2000 ought to ask about frequency
of attendance at church or synagogue. It violates nobody’s freedom
of religion for Congress to know the level and intensity of
religious worship in the United States. Also, many of the annual
sample surveys conducted by the Bureau of the Census would be
significantly better informed if similar information were gathered
in those surveys.
- Congress should commission research on the relationship between
regular church attendance and social issues. This research should
focus on the social issues which continue to increase the burden
borne by the American taxpayer, including crime, drug use, health
of the elderly, out-of-wedlock births, and poverty.
- Congress should fund federal experiments with school choice
that include choice of religiously affiliated schools. To deny
financial support to parents who cannot afford to send their
children to religiously oriented schools is to deny such education
to those children who may need it most and confine it to those rich
enough to afford it. The United States of America and the
now-defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are the only major
modern states to deny funding to faith-based schools.
- The President should appoint, and the Senate should confirm,
judges who are sensitive to the role of religion in public life.
religion should not be crowded out of every activity in which
government is involved. And yet, this is precisely what has been
happening for the last 30 years as government has encroached more
and more on virtually every area of American life: family, school,
and marketplace. This does not make sense for any society — and it
has weakened ours.
Columnist William Raspberry has put his finger on the problem.
In his historic majority opinion in the 1947 Everson v. Board of
education case (330 U.S. 1), notes Raspberry, Justice Hugo
Black wrote that government is forbidden to “pass laws which aid
any religion, aid all religion, or prefer one religion over
another.”
The first and third elements in the Black proscription
seem to me to jibe with the “establishment” clause of the
Constitution. The middle one suggests that the only proper position
of government is hostility to religion — which seems to be the
prevailing view among civil libertarians and a majority of the
Supreme Court.
147
This calls to mind the words of the late William O. Douglas, one
of the most liberal of Supreme Court Justices, who wrote in the
1950s:
We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose
a Supreme Being. We guarantee the freedom to worship as one
chooses. [When] the state encourages religious instruction or
cooperates with religious authorities by adjusting the schedule of
public events to sectarian needs, [it] respects the religious
nature of our people and accommodates the public service to their
spiritual needs. To hold that it may not would be to find in the
Constitution a requirement that the government show a callous
indifference to religious groups. That would be preferring those
who believe in no religion over those who do believe.
148
The Senate should ask all future candidates for federal court
appointments to clarify their opinions regarding both the role of
religion in the life of the body politic and their understanding of
the Founding Fathers’ intent on this issue.
But this problem is far too important to be left to government.
America’s religious leaders and individual citizens also must
act:
- They must draw attention to the enormous and beneficial effects
on society of the true practice of religion. As leaders of the
nation’s religious communities, they should assert their right to
be regarded as critical in the nurturing of stable marriages and
healthy families. religion performs the foundational work that
ensures the success of secular society’s other four basic
institutions: family, school, marketplace, and government.
- They must emphasize the need for religious formation. While the
social works of mercy carried out by religious congregations will
be needed more and more to repair the damage from the breakdown of
the family, only a religious institution can give a religious
orientation to those who are searching for answers to the mysteries
of human life: love and suffering in birth, marriage, family life,
and death. Religious beliefs help the individual acquire central
organizing principles for life and an understanding of God. Aided
by this sense and these principles, an individual can avoid the
unnecessary suffering that stems from bad choices and attain the
benefits that flow from good choices followed steadily through
life. Today, schools are forbidden to participate in this critical
work. Only religious leaders can provide this all-important service
to society.
- They must take special care of the religious formation of
children at risk of losing their faith in God, especially during
the transition period from childhood to adolescence. The empirical
research indicates that there is a critical stage in the
development of young adults, from around ten years of age through
later adolescence, during which they decide whether they will
engage in the religious dialogue of searching for ultimate truths
and meaning. The young adolescent who turns away from religion at
this stage may well lose his anchoring in the community and is at
greater risk for a host of problems that can subvert his personal
happiness for a lifetime. Increased attention to this aspect of
religious ministry will yield great benefits to the nation. Of
particular concern to public policy leaders are the problems that
plague America’s inner cities: out-of-wedlock births, addiction,
and crime. These neighborhoods need the benefits of religious
belief and practice. They are “mission” territories that beckon
loudly.
- They must use the ability of inner-city churches, especially
black churches, to help low-income African-Americans escape from
the degrading culture of inner-city poverty. Many religious
leaders, with the best of intentions, have concentrated on the
material aspects of their work, forgetting that the most powerful
help they can give is in the spiritual dimension, and that this has
a significant effect on material well-being. Regular church
attendance will do more to help a child get out of poverty than
anything else the religious leader can provide. And it will
transform the community if most people can be persuaded to become
church members.
Conclusion
The available evidence clearly demonstrates that regular
religious practice is both an individual and social good. It is a
powerful answer to many of our most significant social problems,
some of which, including out-of-wedlock births, have reached
catastrophic proportions. Furthermore, it is available to all, and
at no cost.
America is at a crossroads. Political leaders as diverse as
President Clinton, Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, and House
Speaker Newt Gingrich all have articulated popular concerns and
fears about the level of the breakdown of American society.149 Almost simultaneously, Americans are
becoming aware of the fundamental contribution that married family
life and regular religious practice can make to preserving that
society.
For the sake of the nation’s future health, it is time to redirect public policy so that these two vast resources, instead of being weakened further, can be rejuvenated and encouraged. Many of the goals of social policy and social work can be attained, indirectly and powerfully, through the practice of religion. None of this invalidates education or social work, which operate at a different level of the human condition. However, as demands for social work outstrip (and give every indication of far outstripping) social work resources, it is good to know that the practice of religion is a powerful ally.
The practice of religion is good for individuals, families, states, and the nation. It improves health, learning, economic well-being, self-control, self-esteem, and empathy. It reduces the incidence of social pathologies, such as out-of-wedlock births, crime, delinquency, drug and alcohol addiction, health problems, anxieties, and prejudices.
The Founding Fathers, in their passionate love of freedom, promoted the freedom of all Americans to practice their religious beliefs, but Congress and the courts have crowded religion out of the public square. It is time to bring it back. Religious practice can and should be factored into the planning and debate on the nation’s urgent social problems. Americans cannot build their future without drawing on the strengths that come to them from the practice of their religious beliefs.
The widespread practice of religious beliefs can only benefit the nation, and the task of reintegrating religious practice into American life while protecting and respecting the rights of non-practice — rights that, despite persistent demagoguery on the subject, remain totally unthreatened — is one of the nation’s most important tasks. Academics of good will can do much in this area, and history will look kindly on those who help America achieve this wonderful balance.
