Congregants make better citizens, says new study

June 16, 2009

First, the silver lining: people of faith are better citizens and better neighbors, and the U.S. is "amazingly" religious compared to other countries, says Harvard University professor Robert Putnam.

Now, the cloud: young Americans are "vastly more secular" than their older counterparts, according to Putnam.

"That is a stunning development," Putnam said. "The youth are the future. Some of them are going to get religious over time, but most of them are not."

A celebrated political scientist, Putnam has long been concerned with declining participation in American civic life, as described in his best-selling book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. When Elks clubs and parent-teacher associations lose members, the ties that bind civil society unravel, Putnam argues.

But religious people may be God's gift to civic engagement, Putnam and Uni versity of Notre Dame scholar David Campbell contend in their book Amer ican Grace: How Religion Is Reshaping Our Civic and Political Lives, which is scheduled to be released next year. the rest