The Church Changes The World

The church too often gets a neg­a­tive rep on the col­lege cam­pus. Con­sid­er this: “Would any­one notice if our church closed down tomor­row?” a preach­er asked his con­gre­ga­tion. Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty researcher Robert D. Put­nam says yes, Chris­tian­i­ty and oth­er reli­gions do make a dif­fer­ence in Amer­i­can soci­ety. (source)

Some high­lights:
* half of all per­son­al phil­an­thropy is reli­gious in char­ac­ter, and half of all vol­un­teer­ing occurs in a reli­gious con­text.
* Church­go­ers are sub­stan­tial­ly more like­ly to be involved in sec­u­lar orga­ni­za­tions and to have deep­er infor­mal social con­nec­tions.
* In one sur­vey it was mem­ber­ship in reli­gious groups that was most close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with oth­er forms of civic involve­ment, like vot­ing, jury ser­vice, com­mu­ni­ty projects, talk­ing with neigh­bors, and giv­ing to char­i­ty.

Food for thought…