EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS OF THE ‘WEAKLY RELIGIOUS’

Howard Meltzer, at the University of Leicester, has recently analysed data from interviews with more than 4,000 young people aged 11 to 19, their parents and their teachers. One notable finding was that more than one half (58%) of young people said that they had no religion at all, implying that being non-religious is normal for this age group.

The largest religious group was Protestant (14%), although a substantial minority (40%) of these youngsters said that, although they are Protestant, they know nothing about the religion. They are effectively ‘culturally’ Protestant or ‘weakly religious’. Conversely, although only 3.3% of the total sample, some 60% of the Muslim young people said that their religious beliefs were strongly held (compared with only 20% of Christians).

Meltzer’s analysis set out to discover the extent to which the strength of religious beliefs correlates with emotional disturbances. In summary, the ‘religious’ young people were more likely to report emotional disturbances and the effect was found to be particularly pronounced (and statistically significant) for youngsters with ‘weakly held’ beliefs.

One of the researcher’s conclusions is that a loss of religion does not lead to unhappiness or other emotional problems. But loss of the social framework that religion can provide does seem to lead to conduct disturbance. The implications for a secularising society are clear – losing religion might be alright because the children can do well. But it’s important to ensure that they have a broad, engaged, mutual society to grow up in!

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There are I think weaknesses in the assumptions here about the relationship of 'religious belief' and relationship with God but the extent of secularisation and ignorance of the Gospel are sad if not surprising.

FRIENDS AT CHURCH MAKE YOU HAPPY

Sociologists Chaeyoon Lim of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Robert Putnam of Harvard University have recently reported on a study which reveals that religious people are happiest with their lives when they have made friends at church.

The research indicates that the health of a believer’s prayer life, the vitality of their worship at church and the strength of their faith are not the most important determinants of their levels of happiness. It seems that what matters most is whether the believer has made some close friends at church and feels a strong sense of belonging. Based on this evidence, Lim and Putnam argue that what makes religious people happier than the non-religious, are the social aspects of religious community and not the spiritual.

However, critics suggest that the research seems to be stating the painfully obvious – that being lonely in your church does not lead to a happy life. Although it may well be true that people who have made friends at church are happier, it does not necessarily mean that all you have to do to raise happiness levels is to help people make friends.  

Nevertheless, there may be an important lesson in the research for church leaders, as the study appears to indicate that the fellowship aspects of church life do impact substantially on people’s lives.

Science News

Free Meditation for City Workers

 

A London-based Christian group is offering stress-relieving meditation to city workers. At St Mary Woolnoth’s Church – opposite Bank Tube station and the Bank of England – the Moot monastic community put up banners declaring ‘Free Meditation’ to those who are ‘stressed in the city’. In a nearby pub, city workers share a drink or meal while a group of people meet in a back room for talks based on bigger questions around life, God and spirituality. ‘Britain needs primary evangelism more than ever,’ said Bishop Graham Cray, commenting on the initiative, ‘but there can be no “quick fix”. It requires an imaginative and long-term, incarnational, engagement, meeting people where they are.’
Source: Church Of England Newspaper (25/11)

• http://www.religiousintelligence.org/churchnewspaper/eos/stressed-in-the-city

'Seasonal blandness' or the Real Message of Christmas?

Many of us who love God and the glory and power of His becoming one of us find the meaning Christmas lost in materialism and superficiality.  Simon Barrow was moved to comment on the essential blandness of messages at Christmas, not just on Christmas cards but in the messages from leaders, religious and political. The Gospel is toned down, weakened, but-

Steven Shakespeare expresses the Gospel dynamic with admirable simplicity and directness when he writes: "The paradox of God's 'Yes' spoken to [us] in Jesus Christ is that it throws the world into a crisis of judgement. It is spoken, not from the lofty heights of Christendom's power, but from the depths of dereliction, a cry of protest against all Empire. Absolute and vulnerable, God proclaims life as a free gift. No market can buy it, no state can enlist it, no church can own it. It is common wealth."

This is the real message of the crib. Hope is born again and again in the shape of Christ, inviting us to a way, a life and truth that confronts everything within and around us that suffocates, kills, denies and denudes us of God-given dignity, whether it wears the language of 'religion' or some other form of verbal aggression.

In a world of poverty and inequality, environmental degradation, mass violence, deadening consumption, and crippling fear of 'the other', the litmus test of Christian belief in the West is therefore not to be found in desperate acts of self-assertion, attempts to defend the club, wave the cross like a flag, or cry 'persecution' every time we are challenged. Instead it resides in open-handed living, in the cultivation of the way of the Prince of Peace, in hospitality for the stranger, in solidarity with the weak, and in a refusal to submit to the powers-that-be.

Given the weakness of the Christian message from the institutional church perhaps we should not be surprised that the majority of those under 40yrs are not sure what Christmas is about. See the article