The Church

“One of the most striking scientific discoveries about religion in recent years is that going to church weekly is good for you,” stated T. M. Luhrmann, Stanford University professor of anthropology, in a recent article posted in the New York Times.[i] He referred to (though does not cite), several studies that support his own studies of people who attend church regularly.

Going to church “boosts the immune system and decreases blood pressure. It may add two to three years to your life,” said Luhrmann. One of the benefits he counts is “healthy behavior. . . On overage, regular church attendees drink less, smoke less, use fewer recreational drugs and are less sexually promiscuous than others.”[ii]

This “healthy behavior” leads to less disease and lower mortality rates overall among Latter-day One study conducted over a 24-year-period of 9,800 “faithful Mormon couples” by two UCLA professors is just one report of many citing the positive effects of church attendance and religious adherence. “The practicing Mormons in California had the lowest total death rates and the longest life expectancies ever documented in a well-defined U.S. cohort,” concluded Dr. James E. Enstrom and Dr. Lester Breslow. LDS males live 10 years longer and LDS females live 5 years longer than their non-LDS peers.[iii]

Perhaps harder to quantify is the emotional benefit to those who attend church. Luhrmann explains that social support—looking out for one another—comes from regular involvement in church groups. From his own studies in California, he found that “people really did seem to look out for one another. They showed up with dinner when friends were sick and sat to talk with them when they were unhappy.” Referring to a North Carolina study which concluded that “frequent churchgoers had larger social networks, with more contact with, more affection for, and more kinds of social support from those people than their unchurched counterparts. And we know that social support is directly tied to better health.”[iv]

Yet another help for the religiously affiliated is the positive effect of believing in a loving God. Luhrmann feels that people who believe in a “close and intimate” God are “healthier.” He points to a study at a private Christian college in California which concludes that belief in or attachment to a caring God “significantly decreased stress and did so more effectively than the quality of the person’s relationships with other people.”[v]

What’s more people who attend church have a 22 percent lower rate of depression according to a longitudinal study conducted in Canada and published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. Researchers who followed 12,000 people over a 14-year period found that church-goers had significantly “fewer episodes or diagnosis of depression. This . . . suggests a protective effect of religious attendance. They found that church-goers “benefit from an unmeasurable’ aspect of religious attendance.”[vi]

However, this lower rate of depression does not accrue to those who merely claim spirituality but do not attend church regularly. “It might be something about the organized component of religion that is the healthy component,” said Dr. Marilyn Baetz, professor and head of psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan and study co-author.[vii]

Being physically present in church not only manifests devotion, it also is a necessary component in attaining true spirituality, which leads to “peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come” (D&C 59:23). Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles stated: “Some young people in the world say they are spiritual but not religious. Feeling spiritual is a good first step. However, it is in the Church that we are fellowshipped, taught, and nourished by the good word of God.”[viii]

The “benefits” of regularly attending church are multiple. Most likely, we don’t think to enumerate them on a weekly basis as we go each Sunday to our ward or branch meetings. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of faithful church attendance brings unmeasured blessings far above and beyond the health and social aspects noted earlier.

One young woman described how attending church has blessed her life: “I love attending Church! Attending Church services has led me to understand that not only has Christ given us His Gospel teachings to follow, but He has also given us an organization to help us make it through this life and apply what He taught. Within the various wards or congregations I have attended, I have hundreds of people who instantly cared about me. In attending Church services, I have found life-long friends, received answers to prayers, been taught the doctrines of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, felt His Spirit, and had opportunities to serve and develop skills to use throughout my life.”[ix]

In a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1831, the Lord gave clear direction as to why Latter-day Saints attend church each Sabbath day:

“And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day;

“For verily this is a day appointed unto you to rest from your labors, and to pay thy devotions unto the Most High” (D&C 59:9–10).

Continuing her testimony of attending church, this same young woman stated: “Most importantly, it is at Church where I have the opportunity to partake of the Sacrament, which is the bread and water we take to remember what Jesus Christ has done for us and to renew the promises we have made to God. It is during that special part of church services that I remember my commitments to follow my Savior and how He has blessed me for those choices. I contemplate the amazing gifts of grace and mercy offered by the Savior in His love for us.”[x]

Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said: “Partaking of the sacrament renews the cleansing effect of our baptism and qualifies us for the promise that we will always have His Spirit to be with us. A mission of that Spirit, the Holy Ghost, is to testify of the Father and the Son and to lead us into truth (see John 14:26; 2 Ne 31:18). Testimony and truth, which are essential to our personal conversion, are the choice harvest of this weekly renewing of our covenants.”[xi]

Going to church each week has blessed my life immeasurably as a child, as a young adult, and especially now as a seasoned adult. How could I ever have anticipated just how much “going to church is good for [me]”?