Research from Harvard Recommends Surprising Health Hack: Go to Church

AN ARTICLE BY THE GOSPEL COALITION (WRITTEN BY REBECCA MCLAUGHLIN)

This republish has been condensed from the original version

Imagine someone hands you a box of pills. You open it, and 52 neatly laid out tablets meet your eyes. If you’re young and healthy, you might think, I don’t need these. You either throw them out or stash them in a box somewhere for future use. If you’re older or suffer from chronic physical or mental illness, you may be more intrigued. What if this is just the medication you’re looking for? 

You read the printed information in the pillbox and it claims this medication—if taken at least weekly—could elongate your life expectancy by seven years, significantly increase your chance of happiness, and substantially reduce the likelihood you’ll suffer from depression. 

Thinking this is too good to be true, you check the side effects. They’re listed as a greater sense of meaning, greater likelihood of volunteering, and more generosity toward those in need. Once again, you’re skeptical. This must be a scam. You turn to the back of the box to see where this information comes from. There you find this medication has been extensively tested by none other than the Harvard School of Public Health. 

Would you take the pills? 

Why does it work? 

In a 2016 article for USA Today, Harvard School of Public Health professor and director of the human flourishing program at Harvard, Tyler VanderWeele and journalist John Siniff posed this question: 

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? 

Going a step further, if research quite conclusively showed that when consumed just once a week, this concoction would reduce mortality by 20% to 30% over a 15-year period, how urgently would we want to make it publicly available?1 

We may think VanderWeele has conjured a health-enhancing drug. But VanderWeele goes on: “The good news is that this miracle drug—religion, and more specifically regular church attendance—is already in reach of most Americans. In fact, there’s a good chance it’s just a short drive away.”1 

The prescription: “Church. Take once a week (or more) for best effects.” Study after study has shown that people who attend religious services once a week or more are happier, healthier, and longer-lived than those who don’t. If any other practice had the same effects, it would be widely advertised in public health campaigns. 

Many today see church as outdated, unnecessary, or even harmful. The thinking is that less religion means less bigotry and more happy, psychologically healthy, socially responsible citizens. But the results of what has been called “the great dechurching” in America have been measurably bad. Less churchgoing has led to lower mental health and happiness, more loneliness, more drug abuse, more alcoholism, less volunteering, less giving to those in need, reduced life expectancy, and more suicides. Even the most skeptical experts acknowledge that declining church attendance in the United States and (over a longer time period) across the West has had devastating side effects. 

Maybe you feel less skeptical and more wistful when you hear talk of church. Perhaps you weren’t raised in church, but you’ve seen how meaningful it is to other people, and you feel a little robbed. Perhaps you used to go to church, but circumstances of life took precedence. Whatever the scenario, there are many reasons why, in the first quarter of the 21st century, 40 million Americans (around 12 percent of the population) have stopped attending church. 

The results of mental and physical health benefits of weekly church attendance can’t be explained away simply by social contact. As VanderWeele explains, “Social support is critical, yet this accounts for only about a quarter of the effect.” The religious element seems to be vital. Parents who join the same people each week to cheer for their kids’ sports team won’t see the same level of benefit. We humans seem to thrive when we worship together.  

More than just a personal benefit 

No matter your religious perspective, you likely view altruism, whether through donations or volunteering, as something that benefits society. But what is it that makes caring for the poor, the sick, and the vulnerable seem good to us? 

This may seem like a strange question. Whether we realize it or not, it turns out that the seemingly self-evident truth that all human life is equally valuable—regardless of a person’s age, sex, nationality, income level, or abilities—came to us from Christianity. If Christianity isn’t true, we aren’t left with a better secular foundation for our core belief that all humans are equal. We’re left with that ethical rug pulled out from underneath our feet. 

However healthy you and I may be by how much we work out, eat well, sleep, avoid smoking, get annual health checks, or even go to church—we’ll all end up as corpses before long. Here is Christianity’s  claim: anyone who puts his or her trust in Jesus will be carried right through death to everlasting life with Him. 

You may think this is simply not believable today. But VanderWeele is one of many world-class scholars who would challenge that assumption. Rather than dismissing Christianity, VanderWeele suggests that “any educated person should, at some point, have critically examined the claims for Christianity and should be able to explain why he or she does, or does not, believe them.” 

This isn’t a command to believe anything. It’s an invitation to consider whether a simple weekly practice might be more powerful than it seems. Look for a local church where you could find out more about who Jesus is and start attending regularly. If church is, as VanderWeele claims, something of a “miracle drug,” why not start popping that pill now? It is worth a closer look. 

thegospelcoalition.org/article/research-harvard-health-church/ 

1usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/10/28/religion-church-attendance-mortality-column/92676964/