A STRENGTHENING of religious faith is often raised as the answer to society's ills. Peter Costello has said, for example, "that a recovery of faith would go a long way" to solving many of our society's problems. The Prime Minister, too, has publicly argued for the societal benefits of religiosity, claiming that "the Christian religion is the greatest force for good in this nation". Labor's Lindsay Tanner, a self-described agnostic, seems to agree, stating that "without some kind of sustained spiritual input" our society will "degenerate into a bleak utilitarian shell that debases us all".
Many ordinary Australians share the belief that religious faith is an indicator of morality, and it is accepted wisdom that high rates of religious practice correlate with lower rates of crime, promiscuity and abortion.
However, a study published in the Journal of Religion and Society, an American academic journal, set out to test this hypothesis and found there is an inverse relationship between religiosity and public health and social stability. The study, "Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies", compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy using data from the International Social Survey Program, Gallup and other research bodies.
"In general," writes the author, Gregory Paul, "higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies."
A striking example of this is the US, which has the highest degrees of religious faith and the highest rates of homicide, abortion, STD infection and teenage pregnancy. The least religious countries - Japan, France and Scandinavia - have the lowest rates of violent crime, juvenile mortality and abortion.
Paul makes it clear his "intent is to present basic correlations of the elemental data not to present a definitive study that establishes cause versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health". So while the study doesn't show that religion causes or exacerbates societal problems, it does raise important questions about the relationship between religious belief and societal wellbeing.
Consider the finding that countries with higher religious belief have higher rates of teen pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted disease. Other recent US studies show that teenagers who received abstinence-only education, which is more common in countries with high religiosity, are less likely to use condoms or other contraceptives than teens receiving comprehensive sex education.
Is it possible that, like teenagers who deny they will have sex and are thus unprepared when the time comes, nations whose citizens or leaders have faith that a higher being will ensure prosperity, security and wellbeing fail to effectively prepare for the possibility that bad things will happen?
Maybe those who believe in a God who takes care of His own are less motivated to take practical steps to help the less fortunate in society. Is it, as the late American essayist Walter Lippmann supposed, that "as long as all evils are believed somehow to fit into a divine, if mysterious, plan, the effort to eradicate them must seem on the whole futile, and even impious".
This is all speculation; exactly why prosperous, highly religious societies are so dysfunctional is not known. Fortunately, Paul's report ends by calling for researchers to "consider the degree to which cause versus effect is responsible for the observed correlations between social conditions and religiosity versus secularism".
Those who claim religion is a way out of our social troubles should heed the one firm conclusion of this report: that societies which have largely discarded religion are not hotbeds of sin and iniquity, but are often highly functional, safe and prosperous. Consequently, relying on religion to fix social problems is irrational.
No one is suggesting that religious faith is harmful, and, anecdotally, it seems it may even be beneficial on a personal level. But when it comes to working for a better society the religious need to stop sermonising, get up off their knees, unclasp those praying hands and work for measurable change in the here and now.
