From the Worldwide Faith News archives www.wfn.org
Religion linked with strong sense of community
From
ENS@ecunet.org
Date
08 Mar 2001 11:10:39
2001-54
Religion linked with strong sense of community
by Jan Nunley
jnunley@episcopalchurch.org
(ENS) Religious ties motivate Americans to participate in community-building
social activities, according to results from the new Social Capital Community
Benchmark Survey.
Among 30,000 Americans polled, religious belief and participation emerged as
the key indicator of civic involvement. People with religious ties scored higher
in measures of trust of others and were likely to have a wider, more diverse
circle of friends than non-religious people, in addition to giving and
volunteering for charitable causes at higher-than-average rates.
The survey was paid for by grants from the Ford Foundation and about three
dozen foundations. It was designed by the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in
America, a project headquartered at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard University. Principal investigator in the project was Robert Putnam, a
Harvard University professor and the author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and
Revival of American Community.
"Americans in faith-based communities are actually pretty good citizens,"
says Putnam. "They give more, they volunteer more, they vote, they donate blood."
But people with strong religious views also tended to rate lower than
average in tolerance for people with ideas different from their own. For example,
the report noted they were more likely to favor banning books from libraries and
were less supportive of immigrants and homosexuals.
Southern and Midwestern localities generally measured high in giving and
volunteering. Metropolitan areas with racially and ethnically diverse
populations, such as Boston and Los Angeles, rated high in measures of tolerance
but tended to score low on other measures of social connections.
President Bush's top advisers on faith-based charity issues, Stephen
Goldsmith and John J. DiIulio Jr., have both served on the Saguaro Seminar
project.
The survey may indicate that America's social ties are in better shape than
Putnam predicted in Bowling Alone. More than three-quarters of respondents
identified themselves with either or both of two key benchmarks of civic
engagement: involvement in religion and tolerance for those of a different racial
or ethnic background.
For copies of the survey results, contact: Saguaro Seminar, John F. Kennedy
School of Government, Harvard University, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138,
(617) 495-8809 or point your browser to http://www.cfsv.org/communitysurvey.
--The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of the Episcopal Church's Office of News
and Information. This article is based on a report by Elizabeth Schwinn of The
Chronicle Of Philanthropy.
Browse month . . .
Browse month (sort by Source) . . .
Advanced Search & Browse . . .
WFN Home