Some of the things that you might miss out on if you don’t go back to church when you can

It’s time for another installment of notes from Paul McFate, 52 Good Reasons to Go to Church, Besides the Obvious Ones (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2004):

• Improved Sex Life (33) — This one probably caught your attention.  A 1977 study called The Redbook Report on Female Sexuality found that very religious women were more satisfied, sexually, than were moderately religious or non-religious women.  A later study — Sex in America, carried out by researchers at the University of Chicago and the State University of New York at Stonybrook and published in 1995 — seems to have confirmed the results of the earlier effort.  [C. Travis and S. Sadd, The Redbook Report on Female Sexuality (New York: Delacorte Press, 1977); R. T. Michael, J. H. Gagnon, E. O. Laumann, and G. Kolata, Sex in America: A Definitive Survey (Boston: Little Brown, 1995), chapter 6.]
• Better Parenting Practices (35) — Some evidence shows that parents who attend church may exhibit better parenting practices than those who don’t.  [J. M. Strayhorn, C. S. Weidman, and D. Larson, “A Measure of Religiousness and Its Relation to Parent and Child Mental Health Variables,” Journal of Community Psychology 18 (1990): 34-43.
• Food, Folks and Fun (36) — A twenty-nine-year-long longitudinal study that appeared in 2001 followed subjects from 1965 to 1994, measuring their health behaviors, their social relationships, their marital stability and mental health, showing that regular attendance at religious services not only increases survival prospects but improves mental health and social relationships.  And weekly attendees showed a much stronger positive correlation than those who attended sporadically or did not attend at all.  [W. J. Strawbridge, S. J. Shema, R. D. Cohen, and G. A. Kaplan, “Religious Attendance Increases Survival by Improving and Maintaining Good Health Behaviors, Mental Health, and Social Relationships,” Annals of Behavioral Medicine 23/1 (2001): 68-74.]
• Safer Communities (37) — A 1988 study showed that the percentage of people in a community who attended church was inversely related to that community’s number of homicides.  And actual attendance at religious services is a more important factor than mere religious affiliation or even religious belief.  [D. Lester, “Religion and Personal Violence (Homicide and Suicide) in the USA,” Psychological Reports 62 (1988): 618]
• Reduced Welfare Dependency (38) — R. Jarrell, of Arizona State University, suggested in an October 1995 personal communication to author Paul McFate the welfare dependency is lower among churchgoers because churchgoers tend to be more optimistic and more goal-oriented, to enjoy better relationships with their parents, to feel more in control of their lives, and to view the world as less hostile than non-churchgoers.
• Fewer Drug Dealers (39) — A 1979 study found that young religious adults in Canada were less likely than non-religious young adults to sell narcotics, to gamble, or to destroy property.  [A. Singh, “Note: Religious Involvement and Anti-Social Behavior,” Perceptual and Motor Skills 48 (1979): 1157-1158.]
• Critical Direction for Teens (40) — A 1990 study showed that, after controlling for family, economic, and religious backgrounds, the majority of imprisoned African-American men had either never attended church services or had stopped attending by the age of ten.  [N. M. Parson and J. K. Mikawa, “Incarceration and Non-incarceration of African-American Men Raised in Black Christian Churches,” Journal of Psychology 125 (1990): 163-173]