The article goes on to summarize an extensive body of research showing that religious participation correlates with multiple measures of mental and physical health: those who attend services have lower rates of depression, are more optimistic, are less likely to commit suicide, and are 20% to 30% less likely to die over a fifteen-year period. Flip this data on its head, and declining church attendance in the US could be termed a public health crisis.

“If one could conceive of a single elixir to improve the physical and mental health of millions of Americans — at no personal cost,” wrote Harvard professor Tyler VanderWeele and journalist John Siniff in a USA Today OpEd, “what value would our society place on it?”

The article goes on to summarize an extensive body of research showing that religious participation correlates with multiple measures of mental and physical health: those who attend services have lower rates of depression, are more optimistic, are less likely to commit suicide, and are 20% to 30% less likely to die over a fifteen-year period. Flip this data on its head, and declining church attendance in the US could be termed a public health crisis.

The Goods of Church Attendance

VanderWeele is a professor of epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health, who has devoted much of his career to research and analysis in this area. His in-depth assessment of decades of studies separates the wheat from the methodological chaff and paints a picture of substantial benefits from participating in religious services. While the effect is not exclusive to Christianity, most of the studies have been done on Christians attending church and show that weekly attendance or more yields the greatest benefits.

Reassuringly, one of the positive correlations is with lower likelihood of divorce (page 10). While people who check the box “Christian” on a census form may be no more likely to have stable marriages than those who don’t, regular church attendance does seem to make the marriage knot harder to untie.

Another area of positive correlation is forgiveness. Religiousness is associated with higher levels of forgiveness, and higher levels of forgiveness correlate with less depression, less anxiety, less likelihood of nicotine addiction or substance abuse, and fewer self-reported health symptoms (page 14). The list goes on.

What should we make of this research?

No Prosperity Gospel

For those alert to the evils of the prosperity gospel, alarm bells may be ringing. Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him (Matthew 16:24). He makes no promise of health here and now. He bids us come and die. And yet, while we should suspect any suggestion that church attendance frees us from physical or psychological suffering, at the same time we must recognize that God’s commands are intended for our good and expect that they should promote human thriving.

Take marriage, for example. Marriage is hard. No theology of marriage should claim otherwise, or suggest that dogged, lifelong commitment to another person — for better or for worse — comes without significant cost. There will be times when leaving our spouse seems to promise greater happiness, and at those times, Christians must choose commitment to Christ (and therefore their husband or wife) over the seemingly greener grass that lies outside. But because the Lord’s commands are for our good, we should expect that exclusive, lifelong marriage is overall better for human beings than other contexts for sexual intimacy.

This applies to any other area of human thriving. While we should not rest our faith in scientifically measurable benefits of church participation, we need not be anxious about them. The God who made us knows how we work. His commands should help us live well.

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