Yesterday
I wrote about how we all seek to be part of something beyond ourselves. That something may be a church or synagogue
or mosque or other religious group. I
have been putting off writing about faith or religion because it is a topic where
it is really easy to offend people.
Atheists are wary that others are suggesting that they are that they are
not good people because they are not religious and believers are wary that
their faith may be under attack. I will
try to do neither of those things. But if
we are going to talk about values, it is important consider faith because
religious beliefs are where many people locate the source of their values.
Researchers have looked at the question of how strength of faith
and life purpose relate to our sense of wellness (Byron & Miller-Perrin,
2009). The participants in this study
were students at a Christian liberal arts university in California. They were surveyed about their life purpose (pursuit
of meaningful life goals), about their wellness (psychological, emotional, social,
physical, spiritual, and intellectual), and about the strength of their
religious faith. The researchers found
that life purpose fully mediated the
relationship between faith and well-being.
In everyday language, that means that the impact of faith on well-being
was explained having a life purpose. Of
course this was a sample of Christian students and these results might not hold
for everyone. But they do suggest, that
one of the contributions that that religious faith makes to the quality of our
lives is to foster a sense of life purpose.
Reference
Byron,
K. & Miller-Perrin, C. (2009) The value of life purpose: Purpose as a
mediator of faith and well-being, The
Journal of Positive Psychology, 4:1, 64-70, DOI: 10.1080/17439760802357867
No comments:
Post a Comment