Today, 80% of Americans say religion is losing influence in American life. Sociologist Christian Smith’s book-length study Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Decline of Traditional Religion (2025) provides data that support this perception. One international study in the last decade that examined national levels of religiosity found that the United States ranked 14% lower in religiosity than formerly communist Russia. Many Americans have replaced religious commitments and identity with devotion to aspects of politics, popular culture, science, or all three.
Religion has been a controversial issue in popular media for decades. Unfortunately, shock is a more effective hook than carefully measured and well-established scientific findings about religion. As a result, we have a cultural susceptibility to listen to loud voices coming from various (and often extreme) cultural and political perspectives instead of making the effort to understand what rigorous analyses of scientific data reveal.
In an effort to combat extremes and the misinformation they can produce, we ask a central question: As we begin the second quarter of the 21st century, what do the best medical and social science studies tell us about religion and mental, physical, and social health? In The Religion and Mental Health Connection, the first report in a three-part series on religion and health, we draw on findings from medicine, psychology, family studies, and sociology that examine religious involvement and its relationship to psychological well-being, emotional functioning, and psychiatric outcomes.
Studies reporting positive associations between religious involvement and mental health (961) outnumber those reporting negative associations (101) by nearly 10:1. The strongest evidence links religious involvement to lower suicide risk, better coping with stress, reduced substance abuse and addiction, and higher levels of hope, meaning, and life satisfaction.
Although harmful or coercive forms of religion do exist, the overall pattern across the best available studies is clear: religious belief and practice are overwhelmingly associated with better mental and
emotional well-being.
The other two parts of this series, which will focus on physical health and social health, respectively, will be released in the over the course of the next several weeks.