Faith in a time of crisis

Kay Bajwa, a real estate agent in Washington, D.C., spends her time in quarantine praying five times a day and working with members of her mosque to find ways to help the less fortunate during these difficult times.

“This whole ordeal is bringing us closer together and closer to Allah,” she says. “Spending time praying and being with him is comforting.”

Bajwa is not alone in turning to her faith to weather life’s storms. Religion and belief are now seen by many researchers and clinicians as an important way to cope with trauma and distress thanks to research over the last three decades.

“Religion was largely looked upon as an immature response to difficult times,” says Kenneth Pargament, PhD, professor emeritus of psychology at Bowling Green State University, who since the 1980s has been on the forefront of the research on religion and resilience.

Despite the attitudes he faced at the time, Pargament and a handful of others pressed on, conducting research on the impact of religion on people’s mental health.

That research identified positive and negative forms of religious coping — as well as evidence that how people experience and express their faith has implications for their well-being and health. “People who made more use of positive religious coping methodsopens in new window had better outcomes than those who struggled with God, their faith or other people about sacred matters,” Pargament says.

What are those positive effects? Research shows that religion can help people cope with adversity by:

• Encouraging them to reframe events through a hopeful lens. Positive religious reframing can help people transcend stressful times by enabling them to see a tragedy as an opportunity to grow closer to a higher power or to improve their lives, as is the case with Bajwa.
• Fostering a sense of connectedness. Some people see religion as making them part of something larger than themselves. This can happen through prayer or meditation, or through taking part in religious meetings, listening to spiritual music or even walking outside.
• Cultivating connection through rituals. Religious rituals and rites of passage can help people acknowledge that something momentous is taking place. These events often mark the beginning of something, as is the case with weddings, or the end of something, as is the case with funerals. They help guide and sustain people through life’s most difficult transitions.

“It is extremely important that people use their beliefs in a way that makes them feel empowered and hopeful,” says Thomas Plante, PhD, a professor of psychology at Santa Clara University. “Because it can be remarkably helpful in terms of managing stress during times like these.” 

Unfortunately, religious beliefs may also undermineopens in new window healing during stressful times. These negative religious expressions include:

• Feeling punished by God or feeling angry toward a higher being. Trauma and tragedy can challenge conceptions of God as all-loving and protective. As a result, some people struggle in their relationship with God and experience feelings of anger, abandonment or being punished by a higher power.
• Putting it all “in God’s hands.” When people engage in “religious deferral,” they believe God is in charge of their well-being and may not take the necessary steps to protect themselves. One example of this deferral is church leaders who say God will protect their congregations as they hold church services in defiance of physical distancing guidelines aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19.
• Falling into moral struggles. People can have difficulty squaring their behavior with their moral and spiritual values. For example, health-care providers who are on the front lines of treating coronavirus patients may describe the anguish they feel as they are being forced to decide how to allocate limited life-sustaining resources, decisions that put them in the uncomfortable role of playing God.  

Even though you cannot congregate due to physical distancing rules, there are many ways to lift your spirits right now, says Plante. “You can play a spiritual or uplifting song, you can join fellow congregants on Zoom or you can decide to help other people by giving to those in need.” Bajwa says she is inspired by both the practical and spiritual information she is getting during Zoom calls with members of her mosque.

“We are inviting doctors and financial advisors to hold seminars on key topics during our Zoom meetings, and they are giving us a lot of information that is helping us with all of the issues that are popping up during this difficult period,” she says. “Our leaders are coupling the seminars with emotional and spiritual support, which is really helpful.”

Plante says that the benefits of religion are not exclusive to believers. “There are so many religious practices that are now used by non-believers,” he says. “Yoga comes from Hinduism and mindful meditation from Buddhism, yet agnostics, atheists and people of all belief systems now take part in these traditions.”

Plante says atheists and agnostics can seek inspiration in literature, nature and by connecting with others, but he notes that the world’s religions are ready-made for when the world is turned on its head.

“Religion has been helping people get through hard times for thousands of years,” he says. “It’s tested and ready to go at a moment’s notice. Just read the psalms and you will see that it is all about people turning to God during troubled times.”