By Ken Camp
Research proves what most ministers long have suspected: Friendships developed at church positively influence religious behavior and — to a lesser degree — beliefs.
Sam Stroope, a doctoral student in sociology at Baylor University, analyzed data from the Baylor Religion Survey, a random survey of more than 1,600 adults nationwide conducted by the Gallup organization. His wrote about his findings in an article that will be published in the summer issue of the journal Sociology of Religion.
The greater the proportion of friends a person has at church, the greater the likelihood of that person’s involvement in religious activities, he discovered.
“Friends matter more than any other factor — income, age, gender, geography, denominational background or how long a person has been going to church,” Stroope noted in an interview.
Religious activities include publicly observable behaviors such as singing in the choir, attending worship, participating in Bible study classes, joining in church social event and performing church-related volunteer work.
That outcome might be expected, Stroope noted, since peer groups of any kind tend to monitor behavior and either reward or discourage certain actions.
But religious activities identified in the survey also included more private activities such as prayer, Bible reading and sharing one’s faith with other people. Stroope suggested subtle indicators, such as a well-worn Bible, might provide the kind of monitoring by others that encourages certain behaviors.
The connection between having friends at church and religious involvement hold true across all Protestant traditions — evangelical, mainline and African-American.
“You would think evangelicals might get more bang for the buck, so to speak, but that does not seem to be the case,” Stroope observed.
While the connection between church friendships and religious activity holds true for Catholics, it is less pronounced. Stroope suggested the difference might be attributed to Catholics’ emphasis on Christ’s presence in the sacraments, while Protestants emphasize the presence of Christ wherever “two or three are gathered.”
“The implication seems to be that if churches want to retain congregants and see them become more involved, it may matter less the charisma of the pastor and matter more how effectively the church is facilitating friendships,” he said.
“Nothing replaces a church member taking the time to develop friendships with someone on the periphery of church life.”
Friendships at church also have an effect — somewhat weaker but still significant — on belief in the supernatural, biblical literalism and religious exclusivity, research demonstrated.
People with no friends at church hold fewer supernatural beliefs — God, the devil, angels, demons, heaven and hell — than people who report some or most of their friends attend their church, Stroope discovered.
“With regard to supernatural beliefs, there wasn’t an incremental effect evident. It’s not the number of friends but whether you have friends at church at all,” he noted.
However, having a greater proportion of friends at church increases the likelihood a person will affirm the Bible should be interpreted literally and believe only Christians will go to heaven, research showed.
Stoope’s analysis marked the first study testing the relationship between networks of friends at church and a variety of religious indicators using nationwide data.