Religion, spirituality, decreasing attendance at religious services, the closing of churches and temples, all seem to be topics of little interest these days. But add the relationship of these to our culture, or their impact on our health and well-being, and it gets our attention.
An enormous amount of research scientifically connects people’s longevity with participation in organized religious activity, or at least with having a personal sense of spirituality, a belief that we are part of something larger than ourselves. That feeling, according to University of Toronto sociology professor Scott Schieman, can be tremendously comforting and supportive. He observes, “…most people want to believe that there’s a sense of order, a sense of certainty [in life] rather than a cold randomness.”
Another researcher who studied the effects of religion on one’s health, Ellen Idler from Emory University, concludes that faith, requiring adherence to “positive lifestyle behaviors,” shows among its practitioners the most dramatic health benefits of religious observance. She adds, “Some people may write it off as nothing more than the result of lifestyle issues, but my perspective is that if you want people to follow a restrictive lifestyle over their entire life, you have to have something that holds them together and perpetuates it. You could take religion out of the equation and it would fall apart.”
And then there’s the effect of spirituality and/or religion for the oldest among us, or those for whom death is known to be near. Janet Ramsey, a pastor from St. Paul, Minnesota, tells us, “Some language and beliefs and rituals are provided [by religion] that help people with their needs for forgiveness,” of others as well as themselves. And as we get older, she says, especially as people near the end of their lives, when they experience “the approach of death, coupled with the loss of control during the last days of life,” that this “can easily lead to anxiety and anger.” She suggests, “Spirituality is one pathway…that appears to mediate end-of-life anxiety by allowing older persons to remain peaceful.”
Research was conducted in the 1970s among the Amish, Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists, groups selected because they kept detailed records of genealogy. Later, more recent research of broader groups confirmed the same thing, according to Professor Idler: all these groups were, “…overall, really much healthier than the rest of us….In some of them, the mortality rate is 25 percent, 30 percent or even 50 percent lower, which is really astonishing,” with less stress and more life satisfaction.
The chairman of the L.I. Board of Rabbis, Rabbi Steven Moss, describes how parents drop off their children for religious training while they go shopping or bowling, a growing trend that sends a clear and bad signal about priorities to their children. When he succeeds with attracting parents to participate, they remark on how their lives become less stressful. Both he and the chairman of the L.I. Council of Churches, Rev. Thomas Goodhue, point out the decline in all sorts of voluntary organizations, religious and otherwise. Goodhue opines that religious institutions bear some responsibility for this trend, witness the disillusionment owing to the church’s failure to protect children in their care. But secularization, he says, and the rising worship of shopping, play quite a role.
Let’s return to contemporary life, here on the East End, or anywhere on Long Island, or most of America. An enormous study by the Pew Research of the Religious Landscape recently found that, between 2007-2014, the share of adults who identified as Christians in the U.S. fell to just below 71 percent from 78 percent – a net loss of 5 million people, most prominently among young people. In Westchester County as well as on L.I., rising numbers of churches as well as temples are closing. A massive study of adolescents and Millenials published in 2015 in PLOS One found that twice as many 12th graders and entering college students in the 2010s (vs. the 1960s and ’70s) give their religious affiliation as “None.”
What does this extraordinary change in religion and spirituality in contemporary life tell us? Has it some connection with “as long as it works, it’s good” as the new core value? Is it connected to how we can travel to the moon and back but can’t seem to cross the street to meet our new neighbor? Has it anything to do with our ability to build the best in computer technology while being unable to communicate? Or with planning more and accomplishing less, with being always ready to rush but not to wait, with fancier houses and broken homes, with talking too much, loving too little, and hating too often? Is it why there is too little reading, even too little prayer, but always plenty of TV and video games and cell phones? Is anyone accountable for anything anymore? How do grudges abound, while forgiveness seems so scarce?
Why is there so much more knowledge and far less judgment, spending recklessly and laughing little, more medicines and less wellness, more experts and yet more problems, where we have conquered the atom but not our prejudices? What really explains all the overweight bodies and all manner of pills that do such reliable magic, from cheering us, to relaxing us, to killing us? And what’s become of the “Golden Rule” in our everyday lives, or of basic courtesy or good manners? How much coarser will public discourse, from our colleges to our politics, become? Could there be a common thread to all this?
Maybe it could be argued, or at least considered, that the gradual disappearance of religion and spirituality leaves an unhealthy vacuum among us. And perhaps their restoration, in some form or another, just might be a pathway to a better home, a happier family, a better town, and a better world.
Greg Blass has spent his life in public service since he enlisted in the U.S. Navy as a teenager. He has worked in the private sector as an attorney and served six terms representing the the East End in the Suffolk County Legislature, where he was also presiding officer. Greg has worked as an adjunct professor at Suffolk County Community College, as Greenport village attorney, as N.Y. State family court judge and as Suffolk County social services commissioner. Now retired, Greg is active in volunteer work and is a member of the board of directors of several charities. A resident of Jamesport, he and his wife, Barbara, have two grown children.
Greg Blass has spent his life in public service since he enlisted in the U.S. Navy as a teenager. He has worked in the private sector as an attorney and served six terms representing the East End in the Suffolk County Legislature, where he was also presiding officer. Greg has worked as an adjunct professor at Suffolk County Community College, as Greenport village attorney, as N.Y. State family court judge and as Suffolk County social services commissioner. Now retired, Greg is active in volunteer work and is a member of the board of directors of several charities. A resident of Jamesport, he and his wife Barbara have two grown children.
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