{"id":84964,"date":"2020-05-08T10:47:37","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T16:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=84964"},"modified":"2020-05-08T15:08:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T21:08:00","slug":"when-its-available-you-should-go-back-to-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/05\/when-its-available-you-should-go-back-to-church.html","title":{"rendered":"When it&#8217;s available, you should go back to church"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_50084\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-50084\" style=\"width: 596px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2018\/04\/Wayfarers_Chapel_also_known_as_22The_Glass_Church22_is_located_in_Rancho_Palos_Verdes_California_LCCN2013634638.tif_.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-50084\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2018\/04\/Wayfarers_Chapel_also_known_as_22The_Glass_Church22_is_located_in_Rancho_Palos_Verdes_California_LCCN2013634638.tif_.jpg\" alt=\"LofC Wayfarers Chapel\" width=\"596\" height=\"459\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-50084\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">I wish that my ward building looked like Lloyd Wright\u2019s 1951 Wayfarers Chapel, in Palos Verdes, California<br>(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I continue with my notes from Paul McFate, <em>52 Good Reasons to Go to Church, Besides the Obvious Ones<\/em> (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2004). \u00a0Here are some more of the good things that might accrue to you and your family if you regularly attend religious services:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0<strong>Stronger Marriages (25):<\/strong>\u00a0 Church attendance evidently helps make for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/04\/good-reasons-to-attend-church.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">better marriages<\/a>, and a higher frequency of church attendance improves marriages even more. \u00a0A 1980 study of slightly more than 7000 adults indicated that \u2014 controlling for age, education, age of marriage, and income level \u2014 among those who attended church less than once annually, 34% were either separated or divorced. \u00a0Among those who attended church several times yearly, 27% were divorced or separated. \u00a0But among those who attended church at least monthly, only eighteen percent were separated or divorced. \u00a0That\u2019s just slightly more than half of the percentage among those who rarely or never participated in religious services. \u00a0[W. Shrum, \u201cReligion and Marital Instability: Change in the 1970\u2019s?\u201d <em>Review of Religious Research<\/em> 21 (1980): 135-147)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Greater Resistance to Cancer (26):<\/strong>\u00a0 Many studies indicate that attendance at religious services is correlated with positive health results. \u00a0Among these is a paper demonstrating a positive relationship between religious participation and the functioning of the human immune system. \u00a0The researchers looked at the religious practices of 112 women averaging fifty-three years of age who had been suffering from breast cancer for an average of two years. \u00a0They found that those who were highly religious and\/or who attended religious services frequently had stronger immune systems, as indicated by greater numbers of such beneficial disease-fighting factors as T-helper cells and lymphocytes. \u00a0[M.D. Schaal, S.E. Sephton, C. Thoreson, C. Koopman, and D. Spiegel, \u201cReligious Expression and Immune Competence in Women with Advanced Cancer,\u201d paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco, California (August 1998)]<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ability to Cope with Disaster (27):<\/strong>\u00a0 It\u2019s common to hear people tell how their faith in God helped to see them through a medical emergency, a natural disaster, or some other kind of personal crisis. \u00a0And, in fact, there is evidence to support the claim that having a religious support group or a perceived relationship with God can and does help. \u00a0A 1996 study found that having a religious support structure positively influenced neuroendocrine regulation in people who were undergoing high stress. \u00a0[T.E. Seeman and B.S. McEwen, \u201cImpact of Social Environment Characteristics on Neuroendocrine Regulation,\u201d <em>Psychosomatic Medicine<\/em> 58 (1996): 459-471.]<\/li>\n<li><strong>Decreased Underage Drinking (28):<\/strong>\u00a0 A study of 842 male and female teenagers, both Catholic and Protestant, showed that adolescents with a strong religious affiliation are less likely to be heavy drinkers \u2014 but also that boys who were religious but non-church-attending had higher rates of heavy drinking. \u00a0[R.P. Schlegel and M.D. Sanborn, \u201cReligious Affiliation and Adolescent Drinking,\u201d <em>Journal of Studies on Alcohol<\/em> 40 (1979): 693-703.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 I continue with my notes from Paul McFate, 52 Good Reasons to Go to Church, Besides the Obvious Ones (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2004). \u00a0Here are some more of the good things that might accrue to you and your family if you regularly attend religious services: \u00a0 \u00a0Stronger Marriages (25):\u00a0 Church attendance evidently helps [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10405,2145,9961,10003,8954,4735,10411,9018,11353,10873,909,10414,4949,2412,10870,10876,10879,10861,11350,1191,743,10882,243,9985,10867,10885,2749,10402,10888,9967],"class_list":["post-84964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adolescents","tag-alcohol","tag-alcoholism","tag-benefits","tag-cancer","tag-church","tag-church-going","tag-disaster","tag-drinking","tag-esteem","tag-faith","tag-going-to-church","tag-happiness","tag-health","tag-image","tag-immune","tag-immunity","tag-juvenile","tag-marital","tag-marriage","tag-religion","tag-satisfaction","tag-science","tag-self-esteem","tag-self-image","tag-stress","tag-suicide","tag-teenagers","tag-teens","tag-well-being"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>When it&#039;s available, you should go back to church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&nbsp; 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