In the previous blog post of this series we looked at the profound and possibly surprising ways the Christian movement started by Jesus has benefited Western culture through history. If you haven't read it I strongly encourage you to do so—not because of the quality of the post per se but because of the importance of the topic. In our increasingly post-Christian society it is so easy to dismiss Christianity and church as pointless or toxic, but a look at the facts gives us a more nuanced perspective.
In the present post I want to continue the theme of the benefits of Church, now looking at the present-day benefits. Not only has Christianity made positive contributions in the past but it continues to do so today.
The Benefits of Participating in a Church
The first point to make is that being a part of a church community is beneficial for your well-being. The 2012 Oxford Handbook of Religion and Health provides a comprehensive meta-analysis of all published studies on the association between religious involvement and health. Here are just a few examples of the findings:
Meaning and Purpose: 93% of 45 studies report a positive association between religiosity and one's sense of purpose and meaning
Social Support: 82% of 74 studies report a positive association between religiosity and one's sense of social support
Depression: 61% of 413 studies report lower rates of depression or faster recovery from depression in religious individuals.
I don't want to bore you with a longer list of stats and numbers, but it's worth noting that religiosity has also been positively linked with things like higher rates of adopting children, less suicide, higher likelihood to volunteer, and more giving money to the poor. (Click here for sources.)
To be clear, much of the research that has been done in this regard has been about "religiosity" in general, not Christianity in particular. In other words, someone would likely get many of these same benefits from being an active member of their local mosque or synagogue. And that's great! That doesn't take away from the point that I am making: that in general being a part of a church community is likely to benefit people in numerous ways.
The Benefit of Church to Society
Whereas my first point above had to do with the benefits of attending a church, this second point has to do with the benefits churches have to their surrounding communities. Churches are good for the people both inside and outside of their walls.
I encourage you to check out the Halo Project. A Christian non-profit called Cardus studied the socio-economic benefit of congregations to the cities in which they were located. And their finding was impressive: for every $1 in a congregation's annual budget, a city gets an estimated $3.39 in benefits. They calculated this by looking at services churches provided to their community, ranging from things like letting groups use the church building's space, church daycares, helping newcomers to the country get settled, food banks, and more. Being a Canadian organization, Cardus estimates that the "Halo Effect" (i.e. the socio-economic benefits provided by churches) for Canada as a whole is $18.2 billion! Similar studies have also been conducted in the US and UK, with similar results.
In lower-income countries, the effect appears to be even greater. The organization Tearfund found that for every £1 invested in local churches in these lower-income countries, £28 of "social value" is created. The term "social value" refers to the number of different ways churches benefit their communities, including teaching farming skills, building healthcare centers, building infrastructure to access clean water, and more.
All of this is to say that if churches suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth, they would leave a massive socio-economic hole for governments to attempt to fill.
Concluding Thoughts
I want to state explicitly what is and is not being said in this blog post.
Firstly, none of what has been said in any way minimizes, excuses, or "redeems" the failures and sins of the Church I outlined in the very first blog post of this series. The bad stuff is just bad, period. However I hope that between my last post and this one I have shown that the Church isn't all bad. The situation is nuanced.
Second, if you are someone who has experienced church hurt, I don't expect anything that has been said to make everything better. If you have stopped going to church because your last experience of church was a toxic one, I don't expect what I've said here to magically change your mind and suddenly make you a passionate church-goer. Healing from church hurt will take time, gentleness with yourself, and support from loved ones, among other things.
Finally, I do not personally value Church for sociological reasons. I've spent that past two blog posts outlining positive contributions the Church has made and continues to make in the world because I believe it's a correction to the popular feeling nowadays that the Christian Church is just a total failure. But these positive contributions that I've outlined are not the foundation for my commitment to it. Rather, I believe in the value of Church and participate personally in a local church for theological and biblical reasons (which I summarized in posts #3 and #4 in this series). Ultimately I value the Church because I believe God does—it was His idea!
Sources and Further Reading: