Live Long and Prosper
"Though a recent survey raises questions, the health benefits of faith have been documented for centuries."
Elesha Coffman | posted 8/01/2001 12:00AM
According to a study published Monday in Archives of Internal Medicine, religious anxiety may hasten death among ill patients. Of 596 elderly hospitalized patients surveyed in 1996, those who said they "wondered whether God had abandoned me," "questioned God's love for me," or "decided the devil made this happen" were more likely than people who didn't share those thoughts to be dead two years later.
This study stands apart from most faith-health research in the past several years, which has suggested that religion affects health positively. Speculation on why this happens (better lifestyle choices? stronger support communities? prayer?) continues to spawn studies, but the concept is hardly earth-shattering. The physical benefits of Christianity have been attracting attention—and converts—since the days of the early church.
Rodney Stark, professor of sociology and comparative religion at the University of Washington, explored this phenomenon in CH issue 57: Converting the Empire. The following excerpts from his article, "Live Longer, Healthier, & Better," illustrate his conclusions:
* * *
Christians in the ancient world had longer life expectancies than did their pagan neighbors. Modern demographers regard life expectancy as the best indicator of quality of life, so in all likelihood, Christians simply lived better lives than just about everyone else.
In fact, many pagans were attracted to the Christian faith because the church produced tangible (not only "spiritual") blessings for its adherents.
Social security
Chief among these tangibles was that, in a world entirely lacking social services, Christians were their brothers' keepers. At the end of the second century, Tertullian wrote that while pagan temples spent their donations "on feasts and drinking bouts," Christians spent theirs "to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and parents, and of old persons confined to the house."
Similarly, in a letter to the bishop of Antioch in 251, the bishop of Rome mentioned that "more than 1,500 widows and distressed persons" were in the care of his congregation. These claims concerning Christian charity were confirmed by pagan observers.
"The impious Galileans support not only their poor," complained pagan emperor Julian, "but ours as well."
Girl power
Women greatly outnumbered men among early converts. However, in the empire as a whole, men vastly outnumbered women. There were an estimated 131 men for every 100 women in Rome. The disparity was even greater elsewhere and greater still among the elite.
Widespread female infanticide had reduced the number of women in society. "If you are delivered of a child," wrote a man named Hilarion to his pregnant wife, "if it is a boy, keep it, if it is a girl discard it." Frequent abortions "entailing great risk" (in the words of Celsus) killed many women and left even more barren.
The Christian community, however, practiced neither abortion nor infanticide and thus drew to itself women.
More importantly, within the Christian community women enjoyed higher status and security than they did among their pagan neighbors. Pagan women typically were married at a young age (often before puberty) to much older men. But Christian women were older when they married and had more choice in whom, and even if, they would marry.
Urban sanctuary
Christianity also offered a strong community in a disorganized, chaotic world.
Greco-Roman cities were terribly overpopulated. Antioch, for example, had a population density of about 117 inhabitants per acre—more than three times that of New York City today.
August (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45
1 of 2
E-mail
Print
Post
Subscribe to Christianity Today magazine today!
