In a 2014 Pew Research Center study nine out of ten adults
in the United States report believing in God and more than half are “absolutely
certain” God exists. While one in five Americans pray every day, attend
religious services regularly and consider religion to be very important in
their lives. Although these proportions are declining precipitously since an
earlier 2007 study, today religion still plays an important role in the lives
of older people.
As adults get older they get more spiritual and some become
more religious. It is not only that religious or spiritual people tend to live
longer (they do, for many reason other than spirituality), but that older
people become more spiritual and religious as they age.
There is a great attraction to argue for a spiritual
interpretation of aging. Two religious gerontologists did just that when Jane
Marie Thibault and Richard Lyon Morgan in 2012 made themselves their own
subject matter when they wrote a book about their aging experiences. In a
self-described pilgrimage into their third age, they interpret aging through
religion. While growing up God has shown us how much he loves us by making us
healthy, giving us pleasure through our bodies, nature, perhaps experiencing
the miracle of having children. As we age then it is time for us to show God
how much we love him in return. God stops showing us how great he made us and
now it is our turn to reciprocate. In one example, by using “dedicated
suffering,” we acknowledge our pain and dedicate it for the benefit of others.
And it works. When people dedicate their suffering they report a reduction in
pain. This spiritual switch—as older adults we are now responsible for the expression
of gratitude—has some surprising support in the scientific field.
The Swedish sociologist Lars Tornstam in 1989 developed a
theory that argued that older age brings about spiritual growth. Gerotranscendence
Theory suggests that older individuals—perhaps because of ill health—tend to
experience a redefinition of self and their relationships with others. By redefining
ourselves we become more spiritually aware. More recent in 2009 the American
Pamela Reed in developing her own Theory of Self-Transcendence states that
individuals who face human vulnerability have an increased awareness of events
that are greater than them. So is spirituality the answer to this increasing
loss of control that we experience as we age?
Research tends to support this interpretation. In one
review, the Portuguese researcher Lia Araújo and her colleagues, report numerous
studies showing that religion, spirituality, and personal meaning have a broad
range of mental and physical health benefits, satisfaction with life and coping
better with stress. In older age, existential issues—contemplating life and
death—appear to gain increasing importance. There seems to be a growing
preference for acquiring meaning from faith. It seems that the greater the
challenge the greater the religious or spiritual meaning that we gain from the
experience. By gaining a positive meaning of life, purpose, religion, and
spirituality individuals also gain a higher level of life satisfaction.
Regardless of physical health, developing a positive attitude toward life has
positive outcomes. It is only when religion becomes an ineffective tool for explaining
dramatic challenges that people start revoking their religious conviction.
Christopher Ellison with the University of Texas at Austin and
others have referred to this area of research as the “dark side of religion.”
Doubt in our beliefs can have very negative consequences. Doubt erodes one of
the major functions of religion which is to provide an explanation for why we
are aging—such religious explanations are generally referred to as theodicies
But we are always looking for a reason, a model of the world
that is just, logical and predictable. Religion has that extra facet of
immortality—life in the afterworld, a comfort to those that have to confront
the eminence of death. Whether we get this view of the world from religion,
science or from intellectualizing, the overarching observation is that we need
to have such a view. Everyone has an opinion on things that matter to them.
Some simply don't call it religion but having an explanation comes with the
territory of being human.
© USA Copyrighted 2018 Mario D. Garrett
References
Araújo, L., Ribeiro, O., & Paúl, C. (2017). The Role of
Existential Beliefs Within the Relation of Centenarians’ Health and Well-Being.
Journal of religion and health, 56(4), 1111-1122.
Ellison, C. G., & Lee, J. (2010). Spiritual struggles,
and psychological distress: Is there a dark side to religion? Social
Indicators, 98, 501–517.
Rogers, M. E. (1989). An Introduction to the Theoretical
Basis of Nursing. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis
Rodin, J. (1986). Aging and health: Effects of the sense of
control. Science, 233(4770), 1271-1276.
Thibault, J. M., & Morgan, R. L. (2012). Pilgrimage Into
the Last Third of Life: 7 Gateways to Spiritual Growth. Upper Room Books.
