NIHR: Religious Participation Fosters Sense of Community, Patriotism
Contact: John McInerney of the National Institute
for Healthcare Research, 301-984-7162, ext. 318; Web site:
http://www.nihr.org
WASHINGTON, June 23 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following was released today by the National Institute for Healthcare Research:
As communities across the country come together to celebrate our nation's birthday, we may do well to ask ourselves what exactly fosters a sense of belonging in communities throughout America.
Sociologists at Iowa State University set out to answer this question and found some interesting results -- people who participate in churches feel stronger ties to their community as a whole and are more likely to join community groups and efforts.-(1)
The study of nearly 9,000 residents living in 86 small towns in Iowa found that participating in a church helps people feel much more attached to their community. Becoming active in church groups also fosters participation in other local activities, even more so than how long one has lived in the town.
"Participation in church-related groups has the greatest impact on non-church activities," the researchers stated. "Participation in local church groups catalyzes participation in other groups," ranging from civic groups like Kiwanis, to recreational sports teams, to PTA and professional groups or politics, they found. Although living longer in a town does affect joining in local activities, it has less of an effect than participating in a church.
"Surprisingly, most recent studies on community attachment have neglected to study the impact of local church involvement," despite the fact that prominent sociologists like Emile Durkheim and Max Weber recognized churches for their role in community participation, the researchers commented.
Other studies have found similar results regarding ties to patriotism, particularly within the African-American community. For example, a survey of 544 African-Americans concerning frequency of church attendance, active membership in a church group, how often they prayed and other measures of religious commitment found that regular church attenders were more likely to be faithful voters than non-attenders. Church attendance actually had a greater impact on voting than education, often considered the most important predictor of voting by researchers. Moreover, those with a high level of internal religiousness, manifested by frequent private prayer and feelings of closeness to God, were significantly more likely than the less religious to be involved in community activity.
"Neglecting to consider the role of religious participation also has pervaded other research arenas as well," noted Dr. David B. Larson, president of the National Institute for Healthcare Research. "For instance, research on coping, social support, lifestyle change and clinical decision making have often disregarded the relevant role of a person's religious commitment. The great news is that researchers are starting to include it, as in this study."
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Notes: (1) Liu, Q.A., Ryan, V., Aurbach, H., Besser, T. "The Influence of Local Church Participation on Rural Community Attachment." Rural Sociology 1998; 63(3): 432-450. (2) Harris, F.C. "Something Within: Religion as a Mobilizer of African-American Political Activism." The Journal of Politics 1994; 56(1): 42-68.
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NIHR is a nonprofit organization committed to conducting and mobilizing research on the relationship between spirituality and physical, mental and social health. For more information, visit its Web page at http://www.nihr.org.
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/U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/
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