How Faith Affects Mental Health
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Studies consistently show a relationship between faith and better mental health.
But it doesn’t appear to be a simple cause-and-effect relationship, and some skeptics may acknowledge the relationship but say it’s a case of religion being an emotional crutch for believers.
Whatever the case – and we’ll come back to the observation about religion-as-crutch – the studies I’ve seen are pretty uniform, including a recent one called Attachment to God and Psychological Distress: Evidence of a Curvilinear Relationship, authored by Matthew Henderson and Blake Kent and appearing in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.
Newsweek magazine identified two important contributions of the research to the study of religion and health.
Better Psychological Well-Being
The first is
confirming that people with a secure attachment to God are predicted to have
better psychological well-being.
Says Blake Kent, the study’s co-author: "Attachment
to God has emerged as one of the most significant, powerful influences of
mental health and oftentimes more important than religious attendance."
The second contribution relates to
anxiety about one's relationship with the divine and how it consistently
predicted poorer psychological well-being. So when it comes to mental health, faith
can be a two-edged sword.
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The fruits of a faith grounded in trust
in God are peace and joy.
On the other hand, a person whose image
of God is that of a harsh judge, a scorekeeper who keeps track of all our
shortcomings, is bound to be more anxious and have a more negative attitude.
The study also showed that people in a constant state of flux about their faith
have more anxiety.
Now to the question of faith as an
emotional crutch, an issue I’ve addressed many times in these blogs.
Opium of the People?
Karl Marx, the inventor of Marxism, is said to have called
religion “the opium of the people.” For him, faith is similar to a drug that
allows people to avoid acceptance of what he believed to be the human
condition: residency in a cold, impersonal universe where a lifetime of
struggle is followed by death and oblivion.
For some believers, faith is undoubtedly a crutch. But believers who take their faith seriously, at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition, acknowledge the commitments that faith requires and attempt to fulfill them. When that’s the case, faith results in a calm and trust that may appear to be reliance on a crutch.
The point of faith is not, of course, better mental health. It’s a matter of development of a loving relationship with our Creator and other human beings. Better mental health is a bonus.
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