Why Have Faith? Health vs. Heaven
A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal (August 9, 2013) asked the question, “Does faith make you healthier?”
The author, Ari N. Schulman, raised an interesting question that is often overlooked. There are lots of studies that show the positive consequences of having faith and being a part of a faith community.
Christians are seen as more content and happier, have a higher rate of optimism, and are less likely to be depressed. They even found in one very large study that the women who attended church regularly had a 20% lower mortality rate than those with no faith. In addition, church attendance has been found to be associated with less social isolation, lower risk of substance abuse, lower rates of suicide, and greater life satisfaction.
As people of faith celebrate these findings in the research focused on faith and being done by social scientists, Schulman serves up a warning. He quotes one sociologist who did not have any faith in religion who said he would prefer to live in a society where most people do believe. He argued that religious faith would control such factors as criminality and other social ills.
The problem the writer was trying to get at is that if we are not careful, people will believe simply for the social benefits with no thought of the reality of the need for salvation and the fact that the goal is heaven. Or what about that adage that the purpose of our faith is not to foster happiness, but for us to become more holy.
Schulman noted the warning of Ross Dothan in his book “Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics,” that prominent spiritual leaders have developed a faith whose purpose is to lead to wealth, health, and inner peace. He is concerned that even such evangelical organizations like the Family Research Council have heralded the positive scientific findings as a way to make faith more popular.
I loved the quote the author gave from C. S. Lewis, who said, “Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist’s shop.” What happens when the goal of faith is oriented to this life only, And what happens when we learn to develop a better tool (faith) that is better at leading us to happiness and health–do we replace our current faith with the new one?
Question: What’s the focus of your faith–temporal or heavenly?
Dear Dr. Stoop,
This article relates to thoughts I’ve had over and over lately about the realization that I can make ANYTHING all about me, and am more able to do this with spiritual things than I like to admit. Thanks for writing about this. We need to keep asking the Lord to teach us, correct us, open our minds to things we’ve not yet considered. I think I “get” so much less of what Jesus is really about than I thought I did as a new believer 30+ years ago. But that’s part of the continuing adventure of walking with Christ!
grace & peace,
kathy
Dave: Thank you for these messages, I really appreciate them. I am finally “semi-retired” and look forward to having time to respond once in a while.
I hope you have followed the very recent story of a judge who ruled that a single mom could not name her new-born son “Messiah” and ordered his to have a new name of the judge’s choosing “because many Christians would be offended”. (I think it was a Southern judge and a black baby).
Great follow up in the Times this morning by someone asking what the judge’s problem is, considering all the people in this world who are named Jesus, Moses and Mohammed.
Dave,
The de-emphasis on heaven (and hell!) has been going on for some time and across the Christian spectrum. Just compare modern praise music to hymns written maybe 100 years ago. In the latter, references to death and heaven are frequent. In the former, almost non-existent. With modern medicine, the likelihood of early death is greatly minimized, so the reality of the end of our lives slides into the background of our thoughts and our practical theology.