{"id":32354,"date":"2018-03-19T06:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T10:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=32354"},"modified":"2018-03-19T01:37:34","modified_gmt":"2018-03-19T05:37:34","slug":"religion-is-for-those-in-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2018\/03\/religion-is-for-those-in-need\/","title":{"rendered":"Religion Is For Those in Need"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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The 10 happiest countries one earth are among the least religious; conversely, the 10 least happy countries are among the most religious.\u00a0 Such information<\/a> would seem to discredit religion, but it shouldn\u2019t at all.\u00a0 Christian Smith\u2019s theory of religion<\/a> helps us to see why.<\/p>\n

As we blogged about<\/a>,\u00a0Smith in his book\u00a0Religion:\u00a0 What It Is, Why It Works, and Why It Matters.\u00a0<\/a>defines religion in terms of people seeking help from \u201csuperhuman powers.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Thus, he observes, people who suffer more\u2014that is, deal with more difficulties that they cannot overcome themselves and so seek superhuman help\u2014tend to be more religious.\u00a0 Conversely, people who have few problems tend to be less religious.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt root, human approach superhuman powers for help in conditions and situations they cannot control and with problems that they cannot solve. Generally, when people are able to resolve their difficulties in a reasonable amount of time using ordinary, human means, they do so and leave the superhuman powers alone.\u201d (p. 36)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So why should people from the \u201chappy\u201d secularist countries\u2013who are affluent, whose government takes care of them, who feel no guilt, who have few worries\u2013be religious?<\/p>\n

Of course people in less developed nations\u2013who struggle with poverty, who live under tyranny, who know their weaknesses, who see death all around them\u2013are going to be more religious.<\/p>\n

Religion is for those who are in need:\u00a0 those who are sinners and yearn for forgiveness; those whose lives are a wreck and need help; those who are suffering; those who need more than what this material world offers.<\/p>\n

Now in reality, the people in those \u201chappy\u201d countries\u2013where I have spent some time lately\u2013have needs that they are blind to.\u00a0 And they are not as happy or irreligious as they appear.\u00a0 Smith\u2019s theory has applications to \u201csecularism\u201d that I want to discuss in a later blog post.<\/p>\n

The United States appears to be an outlier.\u00a0 Here, the affluent tend to be more religious, while poor and struggling white people<\/a> tend to be more \u201cunchurched.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0(Black Americans, however struggling, are highly religious.\u00a0 So are Hispanics.)\u00a0 How might we explain this anomaly?<\/p>\n

The conventional wisdom is that the problem of suffering\u2013if there is a God, how could He allow me to suffer?\u2013undermines religious belief.\u00a0 But if Smith is right, suffering is at the essence of religion.<\/p>\n

To be sure, in the Christian religion, faith is a response to God\u2019s grace.\u00a0 While it is true that it\u2019s harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, Jesus adds an important qualifier:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWith man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible\u201d<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 (Matthew 19:26).<\/p>\n

The God who can make a camel go through the eye of a needle can, by his grace, bring a rich man into His kingdom.\u00a0 For which all of us who have it relatively easy must be grateful.<\/p>\n

But those who have it easy do have needs that they need to awaken to.\u00a0 \u00a0Complacency, worldliness, and self-satisfaction have always quenched the spiritual life.\u00a0 But the Law reveals our sinfulness and our need for the Gospel.\u00a0 Death awakens us to our need for everlasting life.\u00a0 Vocation makes us see our need to love and serve our neighbors, as opposed to merely loving and serving ourselves.<\/p>\n

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