Value of Going to Church

For John, BLUF:  Religion has an impact on its practitioners.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

Professor T. M. Luhrmann, an anthropologist at Stanford, has an OpEd in The New York Times, The Benefits of Church.♠  From the lede:

ONE of the most striking scientific discoveries about religion in recent years is that going to church weekly is good for you.  Religious attendance — at least, religiosity — boosts the immune system and decreases blood pressure.  It may add as much as two to three years to your life.  The reason for this is not entirely clear.

The article ends up trying to understand what is happening in churches, in this case evangelical churches.  It suggests the power of the "placebo" effect, but says it is real.  On the other hand, Wikipedia is not so positive about the placebo effect being real and measurable.  From the article:

Eventually, this may teach us how to harness the “placebo” effect — a terrible word, because it suggests an absence of intervention rather than the presence of a healing mechanism that depends neither on pharmaceuticals nor on surgery.  We do not understand the placebo effect, but we know it is real.  That is, we have increasingly better evidence that what anthropologists would call “symbolic healing” has real physical effects on the body.  At the heart of some of these mysterious effects may be the capacity to trust that what can only be imagined may be real, and be good.

But not everyone benefits from symbolic healing.  Earlier this month, the youngest son of the famed pastor Rick Warren took his own life.  We know few details, but the loss reminds us that to feel despair when you want to feel God’s love can worsen the sense of alienation.  We urgently need more research on the relationship between mental illness and religion, not only so that we understand that relationship more intimately — the ways in which they are linked and different — but to lower the shame for those who are religious and nonetheless need to reach out for other care.

Ms Luhrmann's experience is my experience.  Faith can make a difference in someone's life.  For example, a couple of times I have been in a group paying for someone to be physically healed, and that person has experienced physical healing.  It could have been a placebo effect, or it could have been the accidents of nature or it could have been the Flying Spaghetti Monster or it could have been the God I worship every Sunday (well, usually Saturday evening) or it could have been something totally different.  What I do know is that I would not have wanted to not be there.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  As is often the case, the OpEd is a guest column and the Professor has a book out, When God Talks Back:  Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God.