Do you remember that thing called the Covid pandemic a few years ago? Schools closed, businesses closed, churches closed. The nation spent weeks – in some cases months – holed up in their homes, rarely daring to set foot outside except for essentials. It was a nightmare that many of us thought we’d never forget.
But recently, I’ve noticed that we are beginning to do just that. Evidence of this surfaced on X the last weekend of December when many began commenting about how various churches were closed – not for weather or sickness, but for Christmas.
Closed. For Christmas.
What happened to Christmas being one of the most important holidays in the church calendar – a time when everyone went to church, even if they didn’t the rest of the year?!
Such an occurrence indicates that some of us learned nothing from the pandemic and the ill effects that shutting churches can have on society.
Instead, the pandemic taught us convenience – “We can meet online for a sermon!”
It taught us that other things are more important – “Christmas is a family time, we can’t interrupt that with church!”
Given these developments, perhaps it’s time for a refresher. Why is it important to go to church, even on a holiday weekend when people are out of town, want to take it easy, or have more “important” things to do? Research gives us several practical reasons.
For starters, those who attend church appear to have a more hopeful outlook on life. In 2020, research out of Harvard University found that those “who attended religious services at least once a week were significantly less likely to die from ‘deaths of despair,’ including deaths related to suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol poisoning.”
Three other positive outcomes associated with regular church attendance were discovered in 2019 by Pew Research. According to Pew, those who are “religiously active” are more likely to report higher levels of happiness, health, and civic participation.
Funny, isn’t it? In contemporary America, we all desperately strive for good health, long life, strong community or friendships, and an absence of depression … yet only 25% of Americans weekly attend the place that will aid in advancing those goals.
Why is it that church manages to provide such health, happiness, and hope?
C.S. Lewis offered several clues in his work, “Mere Christianity.”
First, church offers us secret intelligence with which to properly engage in the battle we face in daily life:
Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, and you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church you are really listening – in to the secret wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going. [Emphasis added.]
Second, church is more than just the sum total of all its activities and busyness. “It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects – education, building, missions, holding services. Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects – military, political, economic, and what not,” Lewis writes. “But in a way things are much simpler than that,” he continues.
The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden – that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time. In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. [Emphasis added.]
In other words, the church exists to point people toward the perfect model for life – a model which brings the joy, peace, and contentment which so many are seeking.
It’s still early in the year, and many of us are still trying to make good on our New Year’s resolutions. Even if you’ve tried and failed at them already, it’s not too late – or too difficult – to add one to your list. Go to church this year – for all 52 Sundays – and chances are your resolutions to be happier, healthier, and more content may just begin falling into line on their own.
This culture article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News.
Image credit: Flickr
