wfn.org | Religion linked with strong sense of community

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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.