Faith-Based Happiness Across the Pond
Is Europe — post-Christian, post-everything Europe — getting religion? Don’t count it out. Miracles do happen. In any case, some in the Old World are at least noticing that people of faith are better off emotionally than agnostics and atheists. The chattering class is discussing data presented in March to England’s Royal Economic Society that showed higher levels of “life satisfaction” among believers. Justin Thacker, head of theology for the Evangelical Alliance, the largest organizing body of evangelical Protestants in Britain, told the BBC that the connection between religious belief and happiness should come as no surprise. “There is more than one reason for this,” he said. “Part of it will be the sense of community and the relationships fostered, but that doesn’t account for all of it. A large part of it is due to the meaning, purpose and value which believing in God gives you, whereas not believing in God can leave you without those things.”
