Prayer Works: A Psychological Case for Public Prayer and Graceful Governance

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On the Patheos Atheist Channel, Jeffrey Jay Lowder posted an article titled, “Question for Theists:  Why Is It Important to Begin Governmental Meetings with Prayer?”  I appreciated the honest and respectful attempt to engage believers on this controversial issue–especially in light of Canada’s high court ruling that such prayer is impermissible— so I thought I would attempt a purely secular, non-theist, research-based response to the question.   There actually is a purely psychological argument for the benefits of public prayer. To start, we need to look at some research on a surprisingly powerful strategy for resolving marital conflict.

The Marriage Hack

A team of resaerchers led by Eli Finkel at the University of Chicago recently identified a conflict resolution strategy Finkel calls, “The Marriage Hack.”  (You can watch his TED talk here.)  The short version is that researchers asked couples who were in conflict to imagine what a third party, who loved them both and wished the best for both of them, would advise them to do about their conflict.  This simple intervention had two surprisingly powerful results.

First, when compared to the control group who did not use this strategy, this technique enabled couples to stop being so concerned with their own agendas and made them more willing to seek mutually satisfying solutions. Second, and again, compared to the control group, couples who used this strategy were able to experience significantly more harmony in the relationship over time, actually arresting the normal decline in relationship satisfaction most couples normally experience as the years go by.

The Marriage Hack and Prayer

I would suggest that prayer serves a similar psychological function.   There is, after all, considerable evidence that couple-prayer bears tremendous fruit both in terms of relationship happiness and stability.   Even if we were–for the sake of argument–ignore any effect that grace might have, simply taking a moment to reflect, in prayer, on what God–the person who loves each of us and desires the best for all of us–would have us do before a conversation allows us to be more generous toward others, more accommodating of other’s agendas, and more egalitarian than we might otherwise prefer to be.

The Significance of Public Prayer

Would this benefit extend to public prayer at government meetings?  I would suggest that it does.  Again, for the sake of argument, leaving out any potential supernatural benefit of prayer, even simple civic deism (i.e.  pro forma displays of public spirituality that do not necessarily represent a specific belief in any doctrine or creed) causes the people praying to pause and reflect on how God–as the participants understand that concept–would want them to behave in a more pro-social manner than they might otherwise choose to behave if they were solely focused on their own agendas.  Whether the person believes in Jesus Christ, Allah, the Bab, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster is, for the sake of this argument, irrelevant.  The simple act of reflecting upon how a being that loved us all and wished the best for us has been shown to promote pro-social behavior.  Believers, of course, call this activity “prayer.”

I would suggest that people naturally intuit the social benefits of even pro-forma prayer which is why they feel so passionately about doing it in the first place.  A basic principle of evolutionary psychology argues that customs don’t develop in the absence of a perceived benefit.  My suspicion is that people’s experience tells them that prayer works, not just because of wishful thinking, but because even without considering the power of grace, the simple act of pausing to reflect what a loving, benevolent, third-party would wish us to do makes us more agreeable and helps us get things done in a more–*ahem*— graceful manner.

An Atheist Alternative

I suppose you could theoretically argue that you could get a similar benefit to civic deist prayer by simply asking the participants of a meeting to, “Please pause and reflect on how a benevolent third party who loved us all and wished the best for us would want us to behave”  but I’m not really sure how that would be different than what civic deist prayer already is and does.

A friend of mine, Patheos blogger, Mark Shea, often remarks that society could do with a bit of insensitivity training.  That is, we could all benefit from indulging in a little less of a tendency to actively seek out opportunities to feel offended, slighted, and put out, and instead look for ways to be generous in our interpretations of the behavior of those around us.  Considering this, perhaps a modest suggestion for those who are offended by civic deist prayers could simply pause and imagine what a third party who loved them and all the others in the room would wish from them?

But I’m not sure if we really have a prayer of that happening.

Is Atheism A Mental Illness?

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Sean Thomas at the London Telegraph seems to think so….

Thanks to a couple of surveys, it’s being put about in certain circles that atheists have higher IQs than believers. That may or may not be the case, but…Let’s dispense with the crude metric of IQ and look at the actual lives led by atheists, and believers, and see how they measure up. In other words: let’s see who is living more intelligently.

And guess what: it’s the believers. A vast body of research, amassed over recent decades, shows that religious belief is physically and psychologically beneficial – to a remarkable degree.

In 2004, scholars at UCLA revealed that college students involved in religious activities are likely to have better mental health. In 2006, population researchers at the University of Texas discovered that the more often you go to church, the longer you live. In the same year researchers at Duke University in America discovered that religious people have stronger immune systems than the irreligious. They also established that churchgoers have lower blood pressure.

Meanwhile in 2009 a team of Harvard psychologists discovered that believers who checked into hospital with broken hips reported less depression, had shorter hospital stays, and could hobble further when they left hospital – as compared to their similarly crippled but heathen fellow-sufferers.

The list goes on. In the last few years scientists have revealed that believers, compared to non-believers, have better outcomes from breast cancer, coronary disease, mental illness, Aids, and rheumatoid arthritis. Believers even get better results from IVF. Likewise, believers also report greater levels of happiness, are less likely to commit suicide, and cope with stressful events much better. Believers also have more kids.

What’s more, these benefits are visible even if you adjust for the fact that believers are less likely to smoke, drink or take drugs. And let’s not forget that religious people are nicer. They certainly give more money to charity than atheists, who are, according to the very latest survey, the meanest of all.

So which is the smart party, here? Is it the atheists, who live short, selfish, stunted little lives – often childless – before they approach hopeless death in despair, and their worthless corpses are chucked in a trench (or, if they are wrong, they go to Hell)? Or is it the believers, who live longer, happier, healthier, more generous lives, and who have more kids, and who go to their quietus with ritual dignity, expecting to be greeted by a smiling and benevolent God?

Obviously, it’s the believers who are smarter. Anyone who thinks otherwise is mentally ill.  MORE

 

What is “Mental illness”  — Does Atheism Fit?


There is a lot to this.  Part of the problem, of course, is that there is no generally accepted definition of the terms “mental health” or “mental illness.”  Readers might be surprised to learn that most therapists can complete their training and not once have a meaningful discussion in class about what mental health or mental illness actually is.  We learn categories of illness and symptom checklists, but there is no generally accepted understanding of what actually constitutes a mental illness in the first place.  In order for Thomas’ assertion to be more than a slur against atheists, we need to look at what mental illness could actually be defined as.

Psychiatrist and brain researcher,  Dr. Daniel Siegel, argues that mental health represents the degree of integration within and between the mind, the body and our relationships.   He further argues that mental illness can be described as the falling out of  this state of integration and lapsing into a relative state of increased rigidity, chaos or both.  These are probably the best definitions of these terms I’ve ever encountered.

Seen in this light, I think there is a case to be made that atheism could be a mental illness.  There are many more studies like Sean Thomas points to that strongly suggest that religious believers have significantly better integration with regard to health, mental health, relationship satisfaction, and pro-social behavior.  We also know that there is strong comorbidity between atheism and high functioning autism.  In general, while the occurrence of agnosticism or personalized spiritualities is quite high, the incidence of atheism stands at 1-5% in the general population, which is consistent with other mental disorders.

Can Belief Systems Be Disorders?

It isn’t enough to say that, because atheism is a belief system it should be exempt from being considered a mental illness.  The belief that one is Napoleon is clearly evidence that something  is not right.  Also, I’m not picking on atheists, I would argue that any belief system that significantly inhibited the integration between or within one’s mind, body, and relationships was representative of, if not outright mental illness, than at least poorer mental health.  And, in fact, there are types of religiousness (aka, “extrinsic religiosity” which tends to be characterized, not by internal conversion, but rule-bound judgmentalism and angry tribalism) that have been shown by a great deal of research to be associated with poor mental health.

So, seen from this perspective, considering the relatively lower rates of mental, physical and social well-being enjoyed by atheists, it really isn’t unreasonable or inappropriate to ask if atheism either is a mental illness itself or is a contributor to poor mental well-being.

 

Six Types of Atheists?

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According to the University of Tennessee, in what is, reportedly, the first-ever attempt to classify different types of atheism, researchers have identified 6 types of atheists.  If you are an atheist, what flavor are you?  Is there a category they didn’t think of?  If you are close to someone who is an atheist, do you recognize them in these types?

1. Intellectual Atheist/Agnostic–The true believer (er, non-believer) who seeks to develop his non-belief through reading and other intellectual pursuits related to atheism.

2. Activist– The evangelists.  It isn’t enough to reject God.  They need to convert others.

3. Seeker-agnostic– They embrace uncertainty.  They’re pretty sure there is no God, but they are open to the possibility.

4. Anti-Theist– Antagonistic to religion.  Equates religion with ignorance.

5. Non-Theist– Not concerned with religion at all.  Just don’t think about it.   Apathetic.

6. Ritual Atheist–Doesn’t believe in God, but thinks religious rituals serve a healthy role for personal growth and social stability.

Read the article.

 

Will Your Kids Stay Catholic? (UPDATED)

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Most parents hope that their adult children will remain in the faith in which they were raised.  Lisa and I often hear, both on the radio and in our counseling practice, from parents who are profoundly upset that their adult children have left the Church.

Obviously, parents can never guarantee that children will follow in their footsteps with regard to their beliefs but there are things that can be done to stack the deck.  When it comes to raising kids to stay Catholic, the research is pretty clear.  Being religious yourself and having a religious home isn’t enough.  Religious education is important, but the strength of the attachment between the parents and children appears to be the factor that decides whether your children stay faithful or not.  That said, there are some interesting details in how the relationship between religious education and relationship plays out.

Religiousness and Relationship: Two Theories

There are two theories of how a child’s relationship with his parents affects religious belief.  The “compensation hypothesis”  asserts that insecurely attached children are more likely to be religious as adults because they are seeking to compensate for their lack of connection with a parent by connecting with a heavenly parental substitute.

The  “correspondence hypothesis” states that the likelihood of a parent passing on their values to their children is dependent upon the strength of the relationship between the parents and the children.  Logic here is that children who have a healthy relationship with their parents are less likely to challenge or reject the values they were raised with.

So which is true?  Both are.    Here’s how things tend to break down according to the research.

The Results:  Religious, Not Religious, and “Spiritual but not Religious”

If a child is securely attached to non-religious parents there is a greater likelihood that child will not be religious as an adult.

If a child is insecurely attached to religious parents there is a greater likelihood that child will not be religious as an adult  (there is also a fair number in this group who fall into the “spiritual but not religious category.  Mostly because their attachment issues make them suspicious of what researchers call, “social religion”  [i.e., organized religion]).

BUT…

If child is insecurely attached to non-religious parents there is a greater likelihood that child will grow up to be “spiritual but not religious.”  (for the same reasons as above.)

Finally, children who are securely attached to highly religious parents are the most religiously attached of all groups as adults.

The Bottom Line

Now, granted, there are going to be individual variations on the above themes.  Not everybody fits into neat categories.  That said, the evidence is pretty clear that the best way to increase the likelihood that a child will retain the faith of his youth as an adult (even if that is “no faith”) is to both practice the faith intentionally in your home and make certain that you have a strong attachment with that child.

 

A Consideration for Evangelization: 

One interesting question for me that comes out of the research is how to evangelize those who are “spiritual but not religious.”  If the data is correct that many “spiritual but not religious people” are really  can’t be reached simply by hearing the message of the Gospel.  They need to experience a relationship that heals the attachment wound first.  Something to keep in mind for all my budding apologist readers.  All the best arguments in the world can’t substitute for an authentic relationship that leads another person to Christ.

The same is true, really, for religious adults who are in a frustrated relationship with irreligious adult children.  If your kids aren’t impressed with the power of your arguments, the answer isn’t seeking better arguments.  The answer has to be healing the damage in your relationship.

UPDATE:  I’ve had a few people asking to see this alleged research to which I’m referring.  I actually anticipated the objection, but decided not to post anything at the time because I’m summarizing about a half-dozen different studies over the course of 20 years.  That said, it was certainly a fair challenge.  For those interested in further reading–assuming you don’t have access to an online academic database–this is a pretty good article summarizing the highlights of the data.  For those who do have access to an academic search engine (like Academic Search Premier or PsyArticles), use the key words “attachment style” and “religiousness” and dive in.

OF COURSE…If you are a parent and less interested in the academic side of things and more interested in how to stack the deck in favor of YOUR kids being faithful Catholics as adults, please be sure to check out Parenting with Grace for tips on building a family around the principles of the Theology of the Body and Beyond the Birds and the Bees, a book not just about talking to your kids about sex, but rather about forming your kids’ moral conscience from birth to young adulthood.

 

“I Don’t Believe in God”–When Your Kids Reject the Faith

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I’ve been hearing from a lot of parents whose teens are rejecting their faith.  The stories are all terrifically painful but they tend to represent different variations on the following theme.

 

The other day my son/daughter was refusing to go to Church.  S/he told me that s/he doesn’t believe ‘all that stuff’ anymore.  We had a huge fight about it.  I don’t understand.  I never had any problems before.  When s/he was little, s/he loved to go to Church.   S/he was an altar server (lector, choir member)!  Why is s/he being so stubborn all of a sudden?

 

When teens fight you about Church, it usually has little to do with their actual beliefs about God or church.  Usually, a teen’s apparent rejection of his or her faith has to do with one of two things; a personal encounter with suffering he or she can’t make sense of or the breakdown of their relationship with you.

Teens and the Problem of Pain:

One of the most common reasons teens become resistant to the faith is because of a personal encounter with suffering that they can’t make sense of.

“I have a friend who says he’s gay.  The Church says homosexuality is a sin. I don’t believe all that stuff anymore.”

“My friend died of leukemia.  If there was a God, he would have saved him.”

“My parents are getting divorced.  They always went to Church.  They’re such hypocrites.”

Generally speaking, teens who are struggling with their faith for this reason tend to couch it in more philosophical terms.  “There’s so much suffering in the world.  How could God let all (those people) in (that far off place) suffer like that.  I can’t believe in a God who would allow all that.”

Even though their teens’ statements tend to be phrased as philosophical dilemmas, parents should resist the temptation to address the problem as a mere intellectual struggle.  For all their intellectual pretensions, teens–even teens in middle to late adolescence–tend to be more emotional thinkers than abstract thinkers.  Adolescents are in the early stages “formal operations” (i.e., philosophical, abstract thinking).  They are certainly capable of asking hard questions and thinking deep thoughts, but they aren’t all that good at thinking all the way through them.  An adolescent’s attempts at deep thinking tend to result in more brooding than brilliance.

Parents of kids who are struggling with their faith for these reasons would do well to remember that their children’s attempt to make this an abstract issue is a red herring.  There is always, always, always some personal experience of suffering or pain that is making the teen question the existence or relevance of a loving God.  The best response to this is to build you relationship with your teen, help him or her identify the specific, painful experience underlying the intellectual pretense of disbelief and–sensitively–work through that pain.  Sometimes this might require professional assistance.  The good news is that, in most cases, if the suffering teen encounters a loving, sensitive, effective parental response to their pain, their faith will come back online.

Loss of Faith as Loss of Rapport

The other most common reason that teens lose their faith is that they are angry with their parents and are looking for a way to hit back.  In my experience, this accounts for about 85% of teens who adopt an anti-God/anti-church posture (with the other 10% being a personal encounter with suffering and 5% being other factors).

In this scenario, teens often feel that God and faith are the reason their parents are overly strict or controlling.  They’re angry at their parents rules and, for whatever reason, they believe that those rules are a direct result of their parents religious devotion.  That said, the teen isn’t so much angry about the rules per se, as they are about the needs/wants they feel those rules jeopardize.  In other words, the teen feels he has certain needs that his parents don’t respect, and won’t listen to; needs that his parent’s rules forbid him from wanting much less getting.  As a result, he experiences his parents, his parents’ rules and, by extension, his parent’s faith, as obstacles to his growth, independence, and well-being.  This teen comes to believe that the only way he can be his own person is to reject–and even rage against–his parents faith–the source of the rules that are threatening his ability to grow up and be an independent person.

Again,  in this case, the  teen’s rejection of the faith isn’t really about the faith.  It’s a symptom of a deeper and very serious relationship problem between the parent and child or, perhaps, within the family itself.

Healing the Wound: Two Steps

Two things need to happen to heal this wound.

First, parents need to invest in the relationship. They need to make a commitment to regular one on one time with the teen–especially if the teen resists it.    They need to make this one-on-one time as pleasant as possible,  No lectures.  No lessons.  Better yet, do something that the teen is good at that you’re not.  Let them teach you something for a change.  Focus on being compassionate.  Sincerely convey that you are more interested in them than your agenda.

Likewise, parents need to make family life more enjoyable and more intimate and they need to reduce the conflict between them and their son or daughter by whatever reasonable means they can.  They also need to do a much better job picking their battles.  Scale back rules to cover the most important issues (e.g., basic respect, safety and order) and intentionally let almost everything else go–for now.  You can go back to  working on the other, less serious but still important ,behavioral and attitudinal issues once rapport has been re-established.

Second, parents need to look hard at how they might be able to help their teen meet the needs that have been inadvertently frustrated by the parent’s rules.  Increasing the rapport with the teen by spending more one-on-one time together, making family life more intimate and enjoyable, and picking battles will allow the teen to open up about what they need and why.  This will give the parent the opportunity to help the teen find godly and effective ways to meet their needs instead of just saying “no” all the time.  The more the teen feels the parent is invested in meeting their needs instead of frustrating those needs, the more willing the teen will be to see the parent as a mentor.  The restoration of the parent’s mentor status is what allows the teen to be receptive to the parent’s attempts to form the teens faith, values, and worldview.

The more effective you become at proposing satisfactory, godly, alternative ways to meet your teens needs instead of just shutting them down, the more you should see your teen be more receptive to God and the Church.

The Bottom Line

Just remember, if your teen is fussing about going to church, being faithful to your values, or believing in God, don’t assume it’s “just a phase.”  Address the problem behind the anti-religious posturing and you will see your teen’s faith flourish once again.

If you additional help to work through these issues, please check out Parenting with Grace:  The Catholic Parents’  Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids or, for more individualized assistance, you can speak with a Catholic therapist by calling the Pastoral Solutions Institute’s tele-counseling appointment line at 740-266-6461.  Together, we can help your teen become everything God created him or her to be.

Why Don’t Christians Blame God When Bad Things Happen?

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When terrible things happen, such as the tragic events in Moore, Oklahoma, non-believers often challenge Christians by saying, “You Christians are so quick to thank God for every little good thing that happens, as if God is personally causing the sun to rise on your rear end.  But you never blame God when bad things happen.  Why the double standard?  If God is responsible for every little good thing, why isn’t he responsible for the messes too?”

This is a truly important question, and one that trips a lot of Christians up.  It really doesn’t have to.

The easy answer to this challenge is that we Christians believe that, because of  sin, the world is so hopelessly screwed up that nothing at all should, could, or would ever go right unless God intervened.  The Christian is genuinely and happily surprised that the world isn’t filled even more death, chaos, and destruction than it already is.  We thank God for every little blessing because we understand how hopelessly out of order the world is.

Christians know that people and the world are hopelessly lost without God.    It is true that, at the beginning of time, the world existed in perfect balance.  But Christians are all too aware that sin destroyed that balance.  As a result, if anything bad happens, Christians know that’s just a normal day on planet Earth.  The fact that it works at all is a miracle.

Let’s try a metaphor that could make this clearer.

The Broken Clock That Still Works

Throughout history, people have often referred to God as a clockmaker.  There are certain problems with this view of God from a Christian point of view, but there is nothing really problematic about comparing the world to this proverbial clock.  Imagine then, that the world was created to be a beautiful, complicated, grandfather clock.    It keeps time perfectly.  It works just as it should.  One day, two kids end up wrestling near the clock.  They’ve been warned not to play too close to the clock, but they get carried away and do it anyway.  In their high spirits, they knock the clock over.  It shatters.  Glass and gears are scattered all over the floor.  Now, let me ask you a few questions…

Would you ever expect the clock to tell time in its shattered state?

Would you consider it a miracle if, somehow, sometimes, even with the gears scattered all over the floor, it did tell the correct time anyway (more than twice a day, of course), even to the point of chiming correctly?

Would anyone accuse you of being crazy for being happily surprised to hear this broken clock chime perfectly and report that it was  1:15 or 2:30 or 3:45 when, in fact, it actually was 1:15, or 2:30, or 3:45?

You would be right to be surprised to hear the clock work correctly ever because you KNOW the clock is hopelessly broken.  You assume that it isn’t going to work.  There is nothing surprising about all the times the clock doesn’t chime or doesn’t keep time because it isn’t supposed to work anymore.  What is tremendously surprising is the fact that, for some reason–a reason that opposes all logic to the contrary–the crazy thing still works sometimes.  In fact, it even works more often than not!

And that is why Christians praise God for blessings but “let him off the hook” for the troubles.  He didn’t break the world.  We did.  Yet somehow, despite all logic to the contrary, God finds ways to make the world work for us.  It doesn’t happen all the time.  It can’t.  We have hopelessly broken it.  And yet, it does work sometimes, even often.  Aware of the miracle that this is, we praise God for it.

The Atheist Delusion

The problem is that for all their purported realism atheists are too optimistic.  They see the chaos, pain, and insanity around them and still manage to think that the world’s normal state of affairs ought to be order, peace, and serenity.  What utter nonsense!  That opinion defies all logic and represents one more example of the insanity of atheism.  It takes a truly deranged person to look at a hopelessly broken world filled with hopelessly broken people and, as atheists do, still expect it to work —to the point of being deeply, personally offended when it doesn’t.   How could you possibly stare at a broken clock and be offended that it doesn’t tell time?   It makes no sense!

It takes a Christian to see the world for what it is and, as a result, rejoice with heartfelt gratitude when it doesn’t function the way it looks like it ought to (i.e., not at all).

That’s why we praise God for the blessings.  Destruction, death, disease, and misery is the normal state of affairs for the fallen world but the blessings aren’t possible without him.  He deserves our praise for that.