Blind Faith Takes a Back Pew in Wellbeing List

by Linda Morris, Religious Affairs Reporter; Age December 11, 2004

Churchgoers who carefully wrestle with their faith have a greater sense of wellbeing than those who uncritically hold to their beliefs, groundbreaking research has found.
The first comprehensive Australian study to investigate the relationship between community wellbeing and religious and spiritual orientation supports a growing body of overseas evidence that a spiritual framework is good for your personal health and that of the community.
But the benefits might be more marginal for those who have blindly inherited their faith from parents or have adopted them from another culture.
The study, a project of the National Church Life Survey, Edith Cowan University, Deakin University and Anglicare Sydney, surveyed 1514 people across Australia to map the relationship between spirituality and wellbeing.
It concluded that those with a spiritual outlook were more positive, more generous with their money and time, and exhibited a greater sense of purpose in life than those with a "here and now" mindset.
Peter Kaldor, the principal author, says the exploration of spirituality appears important to a healthy society. But the more eclectic nature of alternative religions might not provide as clear a framework for living as mainstream faiths.
"Of all the groups across the spiritual spectrum, it is those who are reflectively religious who have the highest purpose in life. They are also the ones that are going to give voluntary service and give to charities," Dr Kaldor said. "They also register higher than average levels of personal growth."
But how a person arrived at their beliefs appeared important to their likely levels of growth, sense of purpose and contribution to others in the community, he said.
"There is a caveat, and the caveat is that those who are non-reflectively religious have much lower levels of personal growth, lower levels of purpose in life than the reflectively religious and are nowhere near as involved in giving to community life.
"While a smaller group than the reflectively religious, and still with a greater sense of purpose and contribution than those with a here and now mindset, this group shows how different the various approaches to spirituality may be."
Increasingly, Australians were "looking around the spiritual supermarket" for things that made sense and gave them an anchor, he said.
"We are trying to go on a journey that in times past may have been inherited, we may have been born Presbyterian or we came from a certain culture."
Some people "go on a journey carefully and reflectively like sitting beside a placid lake and some of us might go on a spiritual adventure more like bungee jumping; 'let's journey to the edges for the experience of what we might find out there'."
Most Australians (74 per cent) believe in God or a spirit, higher power or life force, two-thirds say a spiritual life is important to them and a third pray or meditate at least weekly.
However, the churches argue that the decline in active religious life has coincided with rising rates of divorce, greater isolation, less involvement in community organisations, declining levels of trust in organisations and a widespread sense of insecurity.
The national president of the Uniting Church, the Reverend Dean Drayton, said the survey served as a telling reminder to the church that getting people to engage in the journey was as important as the journey itself. "We know that today people still search for that something extra in their lives," Dr Drayton said. "Despite the growth in material wealth and consumerism, people still sense the emptiness and lack of fulfilment they did 2000 years ago."