Lasting a Lifetime

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2001—Commitment to faith—and how well an individual struggles with faith in difficult times—appears to be connected to psychological and physical well-being throughout a lifetime.

"Energies flow within us and within the universe, and when people feel like God is picking on them or believe that the universe is against them, they cannot take advantage of these forces," says the Rev. Joseph Willis, minister emeritus at Jefferson Unitarian Church in Golden, Colorado, and author of Finding Faith in the Face of Doubt (Quest Books, 2001).

Willis, who offers pastoral counseling to people facing crises, says that struggling with faith may deprive a person of using the potentially healing energies in the universe. "It is similar to the thought of a home-field advantage in sports. When your fans are rooting for you, it may help you perform better," he says.

Two recent studies support this idea. A survey of eighth-graders showed those who participate in religious activities feel better about themselves than those who don't. A separate study found that chronically ill seniors facing a crisis of faith died sooner than those who made peace with their illnesses and their religious beliefs.

Self-esteem for teens

In the youth study, psychologists Yong Dai and Rebecca Nolan of Louisiana State University in Shreveport and psychologist Qing Zeng of Wells College in Aurora, New York, analyzed the results of "Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of American Youth," a national survey conducted by the University of Michigan Survey Research Center in 1999.

In a summer presentation at the American Psychological Association convention in San Francisco, California, the authors reviewed data collected on 1,261 eighth-graders across the United States.

The study involved 570 boys and 691 girls, including 1,011 Caucasians and 250 African-Americans. Female African-American eighth-graders evaluated themselves more positively than did Caucasian girls. Caucasian eighth-grade males evaluated themselves more positively than did African-American boys. African-American girls in the survey had the highest opinion of themselves; African-American boys had the lowest.

All study participants responded to a question about their involvement in religious activities. Almost half of those showing high self-esteem participated in religious activities, while fifteen percent with high self-esteem were not involved in religious activities.

"I'm not surprised by these results," says James Flanagan, director of the Office of Youth Ministry for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. "I see this correlation all the time. Our job is to bring it out, build on it, and strengthen it."

Teens' relationship with their parents even as peer relationships develop. The family influence seems to affect adolescent religious involvement, which leads to more of the positive teaching that boosts teen self-esteem.

Serenity in seniors

In the elder study, a Duke University research team evaluated what happens when life-threatening illnesses—cancer, heart disease, or strokes—strike people of faith. "At first, people ask Why me?' And they direct that question at a Supreme Being,' says Harold G. Koenig, one of the study's authors and an associate professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

"Most people work through that and come to experience a renewed closeness with their religious beliefs," Koenig says. Those who don't, however, face increased risk of death.

Details of physical and mental health, as well as reports of religiosity and religious struggle, were collected through participant interviews. Gender, race, diagnosis, cognitive functioning, independence in daily activities, depressed mood, and quality of life did not predict risk of mortality. But during the course of an approximate two-year follow-up period, patients who reported feeling alienated from God or who attributed their illness to the Devil had a nineteen percent to twenty-eight percent greater risk of death.

That difference was significant when compared to people who did not continue to blame outside forces for their illness. Koenig and his colleagues studied 595 patients older than fifty-five at hospitals in Durham from January 1996 to March 1997. The group was ninety-five percent Christian, with the majority of patients representing conservative or mainline Protestant denominations.

"This study reminds us religion is a rich, complex process, one that represents a potent resource for people facing problems and one that can, at times, be a source of problems in itself," says Kenneth Pargament, psychology professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and lead author of the study. "The link between religious struggles and increased risk of mortality surprised us," he says.

Koenig notes that several previous studies demonstrated a reduced risk of death with more frequent church attendance, but this study is the first to examine negative forms of religiosity as predictors of mortality. The study was published in July in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

According to Pargament, the study findings underscore the need for spiritual assessment and pastoral interventions for patients experiencing chronic religious struggle in the face of major medical illnesses.

"These feelings by patients that God has deserted them or that they are not loved are normal responses, but if people get stuck there that can lead to worse health outcomes," says Koenig, coauthor of The Handbook of Religion and Health (Oxford University Press, 2001). "It's important that either doctors or chaplains address these issues so that people can work through them."

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