Religion and better mental health.

2,270 participants. That was what it took to come out with a finding about religion and positive mental health (“PMH”). The study was carried out by IMH in collaboration with Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health.

What is PMH? According to lead researcher Janhavi Vaingankar, 45, it generally refers to "a person's attitudes towards themselves, ability to handle life's surprises and ability to reach their true potential and resist stress".

To me, it is a deep soul searching personality, one that is intensely introspective and is aligned with a worldview (or a metanarrative) that not only provides solace and resilience to the individual, but also faith and hope to move forward in life (one step/day at a time).

So, are those with religion, or believe in a purpose beyond themselves and the world they engage in, cope better with life’s circumstances or trials? Well, the study seems to point to that. 

Reported by Cheryl Doo, it reads: “People with a religion were found to have a higher total PMH score, faring better in spirituality, emotional support and general coping. As spirituality includes practices like prayer and religious beliefs such as trust in a higher being, it was not surprising that people with a religion had stronger spirituality, says Ms Vaingankar.”

And FYI, the study measures six aspects of PMS: “General coping, emotional support, spirituality, interpersonal skills, personal growth and autonomy, and global affect, which is the experience of positive moods such as being calm and happy.”

Lesson? One - should we now go and sign up for a church, mosque or temple, do some good deeds and then wait for favour to pour on us in this life and the next? 

Well, being a Christian since 1985, I know intimately what religion can do to a soul. At least, that knowledge is personal to me. Like a fingerprint, no two religious experiences are alike. That is my caveat. 

To every belief, there is a dark and a bright side. A study like that is generally on point. You can’t believe in isolation. No religious man or woman is an island by itself. We are an archipelago of closely knit islands, pandemic or otherwise, collectively coping courageously in a sea of uncertainty, disappointment and doubt. 

The basis of religion is to bind a community together with a timeless purpose beyond this world. Being a social animal, body warmth always brings soul healing, cults and false teachings notwithstanding. 

Cheryl observed: ““That people with a religion had stronger emotional support indicates that "interpersonal aspects of PMH are stronger among people with religious affiliations than those without"”.

However, in the continuum of belief, at one extreme you have the martyr and on the other extreme you have the pew warmer. Under all circumstances, only the martyr will die for and with the faith. For the pew warmer, there is a price to his/her devotion. When it gets too high, you can be sure that one by one they will fall away, or remain in a suspended faith state.

Well, I do not know how the 2,270 participants are lined up for the study. What is their level of belief and faith. But there is a deeper aspect to belief or religion that can make or break a person. In general, most of us believe because of the community (and some of us stray also because of the community. It’s a double-edged sword, leaning in favour of community, of course). 

The binding communal effect of religion is irresistible to the faith subscriber. People attract people, masses draw masses, and crowd huddles with crowd. That is the interpersonal aspect of religion, and in that connection, ties, hope and faith are build up. 

Sometimes, it is an involuntary knock-on effect like the domino effect, or it’s something like the time when preacher Benny Hinn swung his coat at the congregation and that managed to pull down a whole row of front seaters, some falling due to gravitational reasons.

So, between the martyrs and the pew warmers, there is the goldilocks zone of religious belief comprising the unquestioning believers and the inquisitive ones. And their level of bliss depends on the level of ignorance they are prepared to bear by faith. 

Because, ultimately, the omnipotence is largely unknowable, and this has already been foretold in Deuteronomy 29:29: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”

Yet, having said all that, here is where the faith of the martyrs leave little doubt that that Deuteronomic scripture is not a source of frustration, but one of comfort and hope. It is also a source of strength and courage to them. 

They are indeed a rare breed in the continuum of belief, and their faith is unshakable because they have a resilient and all-encompassing worldview that endures through good and bad times, blissful and stressful times. In fact, quite quizzically, their hope is so anchored that it is in the furnace of fire that they shine the brightest.

Religion for them is more than just a community of many. It is however first and foremost a community with one, that is, with the object of their affection and devotion. That is the true price of their faith, one that they are prepared to pay because for them, it is real, timeless and nothing in this world compares. 

That is the true prize of religion, and it is hard to study that kind of faith because it is not just about community, that is, the interpersonal aspects that yield better mental health. It is about a soul so transformed by a transcendental purpose that mentally, emotionally and physically, they are simply set apart from the things of the world as the latter goes strangely dim in the light of what is ahead of them.