The secularization of America continues apace.
Earlier this week, Gallup released a poll showing that belief in God, along with four other “spiritual entities,” including angels and heaven, is at a record low. In 2001, 90% believed in God, and 83% believed in heaven. Today, the proportions are 74% and 67%, respectively, a drop of more than a dozen points each.
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These findings are not necessarily surprising. After all, by almost every available metric, the public has been becoming less religious for decades at this point. Fewer people are attending religious services, fewer say religion is important to them, and, as we see here, fewer believe in God.
Some celebrate this. They look at religion as fundamentally superstitious and anachronistic. As such, a move away from religion supposedly represents both moral and intellectual advancement.
But there is reason to believe this interpretation is deeply mistaken. Research shows religion is associated with better physical and mental health, feelings of gratitude, involvement in civic society, general happiness, and charitable giving.
A Wall Street Journal essay from June outlined how significant the health benefit of religion is. The piece mentions a Mayo Clinic analysis that found higher death rates “among people who never attend religious services compared with those who attend several times a week is comparable to that associated with smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.” Another study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found “that those who attended religious services at least once a week had 33% lower mortality, from any cause, over a 16-year period.” Not to mention the finding that “attending services at least once a week or more cut the suicide rate by 80%, even when controlling for diagnoses of depression, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.”
On gratitude, a study published in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion remarkably found that while “persistent financial difficulties fail to exert a statistically significant effect on depressive symptoms over time for older individuals who are especially grateful, ... frequent church attendance and stronger God-mediated control beliefs are associated with positive changes in gratitude over time.” Many other studies support this finding. It makes sense intuitively. A Loyola Marymount philosophy professor writing in the Washington Post points out that religious believers have more to be grateful for because it means nothing, including our very existence, is the consequence of mere chance. Religion also intentionally cultivates gratitude as a virtue. The first thing Jews say every morning, for example, is a prayer translated as “I thank You, living and enduring King, for You have graciously returned my soul within me. Great is Your faithfulness.”
There is a similar story when it comes to involvement in civic society. A massive, multi-country study published in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science finds “that both religious tradition and, more important, church attendance play an important role in fostering involvement in civil society.” Tim Carney, in his book Alienated America, reveals through deep on-the-ground reporting that secularization is one of the central causes of decaying civic and community life in America today, leading people to become increasingly isolated from their neighbors and feel alienated from the society around them.
It should be no surprise, then, that religion breeds charity and general happiness as well. It gives people a sense of place within this world, a sense of meaning and direction. Those who are irreligious are certainly not precluded from any of these important characteristics, but rather I just want to point out religion’s unique position relative to them.
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This signals that there is something about religion that is equal parts essential yet also thoroughly intangible. It is not necessary to understand what precisely that something is. But it is certainly necessary to understand that it exists. The reason is simple: “When we lose religion, we lose something much deeper as well. We lose strong communities, social support, charity, and civic society involvement.” It matters because the health of society more broadly declines when we lose those things. And we’re all worse off for it.
We must realize that even though it seems there is no stopping the rising tide of secularism, it does not come without a cost.
Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.