Is Religious Practice Good for You?

I recently read a book called How God Changes Your Brain. Now before you start worrying that this is another of those dogmatic, but untested ideas about how necessary relationship with God is, let me assure you that this work comes from a highly reputable source, and while it has some startling conclusions, it is not a veiled attempt to manipulate or indoctrinate you into some kind of Christian Orthodoxy. This series of studies articulated in the book is a product of The Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania. It is co-authored by Andrew Newberg, MD, a physician who is the Director of the Center and Mark Robert Waldman, a therapist and lecturer who is an Associate Fellow of the Center.

According to their own research, and including their review of many other reputable studies, religious practice is not only good for the brain, but it is good for relationships and community, too. One interesting factor is that “God” or a particular image of God is not a necessary factor in creating the beneficial effects. For example, a broad range of meditation practices have been shown to be highly and rapidly beneficial to memory and general cognitive functioning. There is one qualification, though. If the focus of meditation does include an image of God, the nature of that image does matter. While the details of the particular image are inconsequential, whether the image is positive or negative matters a great deal. If a person meditates on the image of an angry, demanding, dangerous God, effects on the brain are negative. A positive, loving, forgiving image, however, results in very positive effects from meditative practice.

In short, the following eight practices enhance brain function (listed from least to most effective): Smiling, Intellectual Activity, Conscious Relaxation, Yawning (that’s right, Yawning!), Meditation, Aerobic Exercise, Dialogue with others, and (get this!) Faith.

This last practice is a bit surprising in the light of their assertion that the particular religious or theological formulation doesn’t matter. It comes to this. Being able to trust in your belief system is really good for you, even if you recognize that you can’t know for certain if it is true!

Does this mean, then, that beliefs shouldn’t be challenged? Should we all become conservative in our theological perspective? I don’t think so, and here is why.

A part of a healthy belief system is its ability to mature over time. So while we may not have to trust the ultimate accuracy of our belief systems, we must believe that those systems are the best we can have at the moment, and we trust (and this is the key) that growth and development is integral to our theology and to our faith/trust in it.

Getting back to the list for a moment, I encourage you to see how many of these activities are present in your life. I also ask you to consider if your religious community encourages these activities, or if for some reason, it ignores or even inhibits them.

Now, theoretically, all of these can be exercised without participation in a religious congregation. Still, speaking personally, I find that I need the support of like-minded others. No matter how useful or noble religious practices might be, I have a hard time staying engaged all by myself. Religious congregations don’t have to exist in order to promote these activities, but wouldn’t if be great if they did? What do you think?

Wayne Gustafson
“Our faith is 2000 years old. Our thinking isn’t.”
The United Church__of Christ