"If one could conceive of a single elixir to improve the physical and mental health of millions of Americans - at no personal cost - what value would our society place on it?"
So began a 2016 USA Today OpEd by Harvard professor Tyler VanderWeele and journalist John Siniff on the mental and physical health benefits of the thing I'm missing most right now: going to church.
For reasons of public health and neigbor love, most of us are having to sacrifice our Sunday elixir. But few of us know how well-documented that loss is, even to our physical health. The world expert on this is Harvard professor, Tyler VanderWeele.
Tyler is the consummate academic. Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, Director of Harvard's Human Flourishing Program, Co-Director of Harvard's Initiative on Health, Religion and Spirituality, and 2019-2020 George Eastman Visiting Professor at Oxford, he holds degrees from Oxford, Penn, and Harvard in mathematics, philosophy, theology, finance, applied economics, and biostatistics! For those who think serious thinkers can't be serious Christians, Tyler is a strange anomaly. And for those who believe (with the late Christopher Hitchens) that religion poisons everything, Tyler's research is a stick in the craw.
Churchgoing is good for you
Going to church once a week or more is correlated with 15-30% reduced mortality over a 15 year period. We’re all aware of the health benefits of eating more fruits and vegetables, or stopping smoking. But it turns out that going to church once a week or more has health benefits equivalent to either of these!
Weekly churchgoing also correlates with higher self-reported happiness and significantly lower rates of depression, sadness, and suicidal ideation. In fact, people who attend religious services once a week or more are 5 times less likely to kill themselves than people who never attend.
The effects aren't limited to Christianity. Folks who go to synagogue once a week or more see similar benefits. But they are specific to religious participation. Going to the golf club once a week and seeing the same people for a shared activity seems to account for no more than 30% of the effect.
Tyler's team has also shown that regular church attendance guards against risky behaviors in young people. For example, kids who regularly attend religious services are 33% less likely to use illicit drugs. They're also just flat happier than their secular peers. You may have seen the Wall Street Journal article from December 2019 with the startling title, "Don't believe in God? Lie to your children." That piece drew on Tyler's team's research on the benefits of religious participation for kids.
My non-believing friends with children are strongly committed to scientific evidence and to the happiness and well-being of their kids. They tend to assume these commitments point away from a religious upbringing. In fact, they should steer them toward it.
Of course, correlation is not causation, and the promise of the gospel is not a promise of health or even happiness here and now. And yet the God who made us knows how humans thrive. Far from being good for society, secularization in America is measurably bad for us. As Tyler and John Siniff conclude in their second USA Today OpEd:
"Simply from a public health perspective, the continuing diminution of religious upbringing in America would be bad for health. This is not proselytizing; this is science."
What about proselytizing?
Tyler is clear on the benefits of participating in religious services. But what about the exclusive truth-claims of Christianity? Can they hold up in the modern world? And is it arrogant to try to persuade someone to become a Christian?
Tyler points out that any truth claim - religious, historical, or scientific - is by nature exclusive, so there is nothing necessarily arrogant or disrespectful about preaching the gospel. What's more, in an article titled, Evidence, Knowledge and Science: How Does Christianity Measure Up? he points to the "serious historical evidence for the resurrection" and concludes,
"If the Christian faith is true, it is important; it has implications for all of life. I really do think that any educated person in America should, at some point, have critically examined the claims of Christianity and should be able to explain why he or she does, or does not, believe them. It sometimes truly does amaze me that we do not discuss these things more often."
Let's all be part of making Tyler's proposition a reality.
Let's use the insights we can gain from Tyler and the other Christian professors God has raised up in the secular university to bring about the day when every educated person - both in America and globally - is seriously challenged to consider Christ.
And let's pray for God to change hearts and transform minds with the one true lasting Elixir of Life.
