{"id":86132,"date":"2020-06-24T23:02:31","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T05:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=86132"},"modified":"2020-06-27T00:41:05","modified_gmt":"2020-06-27T06:41:05","slug":"some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html","title":{"rendered":"Some Physical, Social, and Psychological Benefits of Religious Involvement"},"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_41574\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41574\" style=\"width: 597px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/04\/philadelphia-pennsylvania-temple-exterior-1775822-gallery.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-41574\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/04\/philadelphia-pennsylvania-temple-exterior-1775822-gallery.jpg\" alt=\"The new temple in Philadelphia\" width=\"597\" height=\"398\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-41574\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple was dedicated in September 2016.<br>(LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I offer three more items from Paul McFate, <em>52 Good Reasons to Go to Church, Besides the Obvious Ones<\/em> (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2004) \u2014 a little book or booklet that I commend to you (though <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/52-Good-Reasons-Go-Church\/dp\/087946268X\/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&amp;keywords=Paul+McFate&amp;qid=1592679670&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-1\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">it may be hard to find<\/a>). \u00a0Every single one of the three has been officially board-certified as appropriate for inclusion in your <em>Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Survival of Cardiac Surgery (page 55) \u2014<\/strong> Surviving heart surgery depends upon a number of factors, including the seriousness of the problem, the overall health and strength and age of the patient . . . and going to church. \u00a0A 1995 study of 232 people over the age of fifty-five \u201cshowed that those who took no comfort or strength in their religion were three times as likely to die within six months of surgery as those who did find comfort and strength in their religion. \u00a0More striking were the results of those who not only found comfort and strength in their religion but were also very active in participation. \u00a0They were dramatically less likely to die in the six months following surgery, suffering a mortality rate of two and a half percent, compared to a twenty-one percent mortality rate for their nonreligious counterparts.\u201d \u00a0[T. E. Oxman, D. H. Freeman, and E. D. Manheimer, \u201cLack of Social Participation or Religious Strength and Comfort as Risk Factors for Death After Cardiac Surgery in the Elderly,\u201d <em>Psychosomatic Medicine<\/em> 57 (1995): 5-15]<\/li>\n<li><strong>Reduced Delinquency (page 56) \u2014<\/strong>\u00a0A study of 817 high school students that was published in 1985 found that, as religious activity decreased, serious delinquent behavior, aggression, theft, and vandalism all increased. \u00a0Frequency of church attendance had a direct behavioral impact. \u00a0Moreover, according to a 1970 study of 21,720 junior high school and high school students, the positive effect of religious involvement may be significantly enhanced if both parents belong to the same church and both attend regularly. \u00a0[C. W. Peck, E. W. Curry, and H. P. Chalfant, \u201cReligiosity and Delinquency Over Time: Deviance Deterrence and Deviance Amplification,\u201d <em>Social Science Quarterly<\/em> 66 (1985): 120-131; A. L. Rhodes and A. J. Reiss, \u201cThe \u2018Religious Factor\u2019 and Delinquent Behavior,\u201d <em>Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency<\/em> 7 (1970): 83-98)]<\/li>\n<li><strong>A Sense of Purpose (page 57) \u2014<\/strong>\u00a0A survey of 345 members of a nondenominational prayer group that was published in 1991 indicated, as other studies also have, that people who pray find a greater sense of purpose in life. \u00a0And a large study published in 1989 correlated a sense of purpose with greater life satisfaction. \u00a0[D. G. Richards, \u201cThe Phenomenology and Psychological Correlates of Verbal Prayer,\u201d <em>Journal of Psychology and Theology<\/em> 19 (1991): 354-363; C. G. Ellison, D. A. Gay, and T. A. Glass, \u201cDoes Religious Commitment Contribute to Individual Life Satisfaction?\u201d <em>Social Forces<\/em> 68 (1989): 100-123]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 I offer three more items from Paul McFate, 52 Good Reasons to Go to Church, Besides the Obvious Ones (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2004) \u2014 a little book or booklet that I commend to you (though it may be hard to find). \u00a0Every single one of the three has been officially board-certified as appropriate [&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":[12937,3199,8963,10003,12943,4735,9994,909,2412,12940,6237,743,8669],"class_list":["post-86132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-activity","tag-attendance","tag-benefit","tag-benefits","tag-cardiac","tag-church","tag-delinquency","tag-faith","tag-health","tag-participation","tag-purpose","tag-religion","tag-religious"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Some Physical, Social, and Psychological Benefits of Religious Involvement<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&nbsp; &nbsp; I offer three more items from Paul McFate, 52 Good Reasons to Go to Church, Besides the Obvious Ones (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2004) -- a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Some Physical, Social, and Psychological Benefits of Religious Involvement\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; &nbsp; I offer three more items from Paul McFate, 52 Good Reasons to Go to Church, Besides the Obvious Ones (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2004) -- a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sic et Non\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-06-25T05:02:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-06-27T06:41:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/04\/philadelphia-pennsylvania-temple-exterior-1775822-gallery.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html\",\"name\":\"Some Physical, Social, and Psychological Benefits of Religious Involvement\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-06-25T05:02:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-06-27T06:41:05+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\"},\"description\":\"&nbsp; &nbsp; I offer three more items from Paul McFate, 52 Good Reasons to Go to Church, Besides the Obvious Ones (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2004) -- a\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Some Physical, Social, and Psychological Benefits of Religious Involvement\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/\",\"name\":\"Sic et Non\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\",\"name\":\"Dan Peterson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dan Peterson\"},\"description\":\"\\\"Life was very unsatisfying until I discovered Dan's blog, which gave me a reason to live.\\\" (gemli, 7 November 2019)\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/author\/danpeterson\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Some Physical, Social, and Psychological Benefits of Religious Involvement","description":"&nbsp; &nbsp; I offer three more items from Paul McFate, 52 Good Reasons to Go to Church, Besides the Obvious Ones (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2004) -- a","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Some Physical, Social, and Psychological Benefits of Religious Involvement","og_description":"&nbsp; &nbsp; I offer three more items from Paul McFate, 52 Good Reasons to Go to Church, Besides the Obvious Ones (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2004) -- a","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html","og_site_name":"Sic et Non","article_published_time":"2020-06-25T05:02:31+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-06-27T06:41:05+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/04\/philadelphia-pennsylvania-temple-exterior-1775822-gallery.jpg"}],"author":"Dan Peterson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dan Peterson","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html","name":"Some Physical, Social, and Psychological Benefits of Religious Involvement","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website"},"datePublished":"2020-06-25T05:02:31+00:00","dateModified":"2020-06-27T06:41:05+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045"},"description":"&nbsp; &nbsp; I offer three more items from Paul McFate, 52 Good Reasons to Go to Church, Besides the Obvious Ones (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2004) -- a","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/06\/some-physical-social-and-psychological-benefits-of-religious-involvement.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Some Physical, Social, and Psychological Benefits of Religious Involvement"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/","name":"Sic et Non","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045","name":"Dan Peterson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Dan Peterson"},"description":"\"Life was very unsatisfying until I discovered Dan's blog, which gave me a reason to live.\" (gemli, 7 November 2019)","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/author\/danpeterson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}