
Church Participation Reduces ‘Deaths of Despair,’ Study Shows
By Movieguide® Contributor
A new study has found that areas with high religious participation see fewer “deaths of despair,” including suicide, drug overdose and alcohol poisoning.
“Despair is something that can confront anyone dealing with severe difficulties or loss,” Tyler VanderWeele, John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb said.
They continued, “While the term ‘deaths of despair’ was originally coined in the context of working class Americans struggling with unemployment, it is a phenomenon that is relevant more broadly, such as to the health care professionals in our study who may be struggling with excessive demands and burnout, or to anyone facing loss. As such, we need to look for important community resources that can protect against it.”
This study, performed by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, found a correlation between religious service attendance and a lower risk of death from despair.
The study analyzed data from 66,492 women and 43,141 men and found that women who attended religious services at least once a week had a 68% lower risk of death from despair when compared to those who never attended services.
Men who attended religious services at least once a week had a 33% lower risk of death from despair.
The study asserts that “religious participation may serve as an important antidote to despair and an asset for sustaining a sense of hope and meaning.”
This study supports Movieguide® founder Dr. Baehr’s research, including a study about the effect media has on faith, specifically with young people:
With the flood of mass media of entertainment, parents need help educating the hearts and minds of their children to be media-wise.
According to Cornell University, 9 out of 10 children abandon the values of their parents. According to USA Today, 83% of the youth leave the church, and 80% of the parents are very worried about their children and the mass media of entertainment’s influence on them.
Recently, USA Today noted that 70% of Americans were unable to name the Ten Commandments. In a culture where physical health is a higher priority than spiritual vitality, another recent survey found that more Americans are familiar with the specific ingredients in a McDonald’s hamburger than know the individual commands that comprise the Ten Commandments.
Many Christian parents are concerned about the influence of media violence on their children, but many of those who are concerned don’t know what to do about the problem. The good news is that there are effective ways to teach your children to be media-wise.
Five Keys of Media Wisdom
As the director of the TV Center at City University of New York, I helped develop some of the first media literacy courses in the late 1970s with 60 professors for all over the world. Since then, years of research have produced a very clear understanding of the best way to teach media literacy. Specifically, there are five Keys of media wisdom that will help build the culture-wise family.
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- Key 1: Understand the influence of the media on your children. In the wake of the Columbine High School massacre, CBS President Leslie Moonves put it quite bluntly: “Anyone who thinks the media has nothing to do with this is an idiot.” The major medical associations have concluded that there is absolutely no doubt that those who are heavy viewers of violence demonstrate increased acceptance of aggressive attitudes and aggressive behavior. Of course, media is only one part of the problem – a problem that could be summed up with the sage biblical injunction, “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character’” (1 Cor. 15:33). As the results of thousands of studies on youth violence prove, watching media violence causes violence among children. Bad company corrupts good character – whether that bad company is gangs, peer pressure or violent movies, video games and television programs.
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- Key 2: Ascertain your children’s susceptibility at each stage of cognitive development. Not only do children see the media differently at each stage of development, but also different children are susceptible to different stimuli. As the research of the National Institute of Mental Health revealed many years ago, some children want to copy media violence, some are susceptible to other media influences, some become afraid, and many become desensitized. Just as an alcoholic would be inordinately tempted by a beer commercial, so certain types of media may tempt or influence your child at his or her specific stage of development.
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- Key 3: Teach your children how the media communicates its message. Just as children spend the first 14 years of their lives learning grammar with respect to the written word, they also need to be taught the grammar of twenty-first-century mass media so that they can think critically about the messages being programmed for them.
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- Key 4: Help your children know the fundamentals of Christian faith. Children need to be taught the fundamentals of Christian faith so that they can apply their beliefs and moral values to the culture and to the mass media of entertainment. Of course, parents typically have an easier time than teachers with this Key because they can freely discuss their personal beliefs. Yet, even so, it is interesting to note that cultural and media literacy and values education are two of the fastest growing areas in the academic community – a trend most likely due to the fact that educators are beginning to realize that something is amiss.
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- Key 5: Help your children learn how to ask the right questions. When children know the right questions to ask, they can arrive at the right answers to the problems presented by the mass media of entertainment. For instance, if the hero in the movie your child is watching wins by murdering and mutilating his victims, will your children be able to question this hero’s behavior, no matter how likable that character may be?
“Give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.” – 1 Kings 3:9
Theodore Roosevelt said that if we educate a man’s mind but not his heart, we will get an educated barbarian. Cultural and media wisdom involves educating the heart so that it will make the right decisions.