Abstract
This book, edited by Anthony Blasi, strives to identify a sociological approach to explaining the generally positive association between religion and health, both mental and physical. Toward a Sociological Theory of Religion and Health articulates a common ground between the sociology of religion and of health and should peak the curiosity and imagination of students and scholars of either field. Its ten chapters range from literature reviews to empirical studies of specific populations to delineations of conceptual models and hypotheses derived from theory and research on religion and health.
The central theoretical question is articulated by Neal Krause who asks “how religion offsets the noxious effects of stressors” (p. 207). Since stressors have social-structural roots, and religion consists of multi-faceted resources (and sometimes stressors), this question is appropriately addressed by stress process theory, a broader approach to understanding the social underpinnings of well-being that appears throughout the volume. It is indeed fascinating to consider and assess how religion in its many forms might help people cope with adversity, especially adversity with social-structural roots, such as financial hardship or racial discrimination.
Throughout the book, psychological and social resources related to religion and directly or indirectly related to health are articulated. Not only do the authors conceive of religion as a multi-faceted resource, but several of them argue that its facets hold greater power to improve health than their corollaries in the secular world. Religious social support, for example, might be especially healthful because religious communities tend to be composed of like-minded individuals who practice compassion, forgiveness, and altruistic helping behaviors with greater regularity than do non-religious communities. Social support could also be perceived from a personal “relationship” with God, if one’s divine belief is that God offers unconditional support and secure attachment. Self-esteem may be particularly enriched by identifying with a relatively loving religious community, and sense of coherence in the face of inexplicable tragedy might be restored if one is able to reframe it cognitively into a perceived gift, challenge, or lesson from God. Finally, sense of control might be enhanced when practical limitations on one’s own ability to control a stressor lead one to “collaborate” with God and benefit from God-mediated control.
It bears mentioning that there is a counter-argument to each of these examples of religion being especially resourceful, in that each “resource” can be alternately conceived as a stressor, indeed as a particularly toxic stressor. For example, religious organizations can make heavy demands of one’s money or time, religious leaders are sometimes volatile and even abusive toward members, and religious people may perceive God as distant and punishing, especially when times are hard. Self-esteem could be hard to maintain if one cannot abide by the moral imperatives of one’s religion (e.g., practicing heterosexuality when one is gay). Indeed, reframing a horrible tragedy, such as the loss of a child, into a perceived “gift” is not something every religious person can do. And no doubt individuals do sometimes relinquish their own capacity to exercise control effectively, choosing instead to leave it up to their God. This so-called “dark side of religion” does not receive equal treatment in this volume, although Terence Hill and Ryon Cobb (Chapter Nine) propose a conceptual model of the ill-health effects of religious “struggles.”
Several chapters in the book present new data, often testing hypotheses derived from stress process theory. Chapter Four analyzes the role of religion in protecting poor women with chronic gastro-intestinal problems from psychological distress, finding that religiousness reduces distress more for them than for women without such health problems. This study raises an interesting question brought up later by Neal Krause, of where physical health fits in the stress process: is it a stressor, an outcome, or both?
Chapter Five endeavors to study religion and health in the very different religious context of Japan, where the practices of Buddhism and Shinto are often consciously directed toward improving health, yet lack a strong community aspect. Surprisingly, some private religious practices among the Japanese predict worse health over time, challenging our assumptions that private religiosity bestows health benefits and suggesting that they may, in some contexts, make health worse.
Chapter Six takes us to China, and tries to unravel the interface between believing in fate, yet also believing in one’s own sense of control. The results indicate that Chinese people who believe in fate still have greater life satisfaction to the extent that they also believe in their own personal control, regardless of their religiousness. Lastly, Chapter Seven asks whether religiousness can counteract the negative health effects of acculturation among Latino immigrants to the United States, finding that the association between religious service attendance and good health in this population is mediated by healthy behaviors like physical exercise.
Not much is said about spirituality as distinct from religion in this book, although it appears tangentially in a chapter about “transcendent” experiences that “evoke a perception that human reality extends beyond the physical body and its psychosocial boundaries” (p. 72). The author of this chapter, Jeff Levin, focuses on the absence of attention to such phenomena, arguing that scientists have relegated them to the realm of the paranormal, whereas they should be integrated into the mainstream study of religion and health. This objective could be accomplished as part of a larger effort to study spirituality and health among the growing proportion of the U.S. population who identify as “spiritual but not religious” and whose spirituality may function like religion in promoting health, although perhaps via different, as yet unknown, mechanisms.
This book raises many intriguing and important questions about the relationship between religion and health, and makes a strong case for applying stress process theory to better understand the nature of that relationship. Blasi concludes the volume by revisiting the fundamental question of what religion “is” in relation to health, distinguishing between religion as a “relativizer,” or state of mind that puts secular life and its myriad stressors into perspective, and as a “social experience.” These and many other ideas chart a course for future study of the link between religion and health that could easily occupy scholars for a lifetime.
In the end, however, this volume does not fully elucidate how religion should be integrated into stress process research. For example, should religion always be conceptualized as an array of resources (and perhaps, stressors), or would it also make sense to treat it as an outcome, such as when stress exposure strains religious faith? Furthermore, what are religion’s socially-structured roots? Should we think of religion as a status in the social structure, or as a phenomenon that arises from other social-structural positions, such as socioeconomic status? Whatever the case, it is not enough to demonstrate the psychological benefits of positive religious coping, or the emotional risks of being disappointed in God, without wondering why people come to practice these behaviors and have these beliefs in the first place.
In closing, this book establishes that religion is undoubtedly related to well-being and should be integrated into research on the social determinants of health. Whether one wants to study religious beliefs or religious experiences, private practices or social activities, Christianity or Buddhism, there is ample opportunity for sociologists to join in this fascinating endeavor, which I suspect more will, upon reading this book.