[1]WASHINGTON (BP)–Young people who regularly attend religious services are less likely to use illegal drugs, smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol, according to a survey released Sept. 1.
Such a result makes sense because religion’s “culture-conserving power” is one of its most important contributions to society, a Southern Baptist specialist on substance abuse said of the report.
The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse’s fourth annual back-to-school survey found of young people from ages 12 to 17:
— Only 13 percent of youth who attend religious services at least four times a month have smoked marijuana compared to 39 percent who attend religious services less than once a month;
— Only 8 percent who attend religious services at least four times a month smoked cigarettes compared to 22 percent who attend such services less than once a month;
— Only 19 percent who attend religious services at least four times a month consumed alcohol in the last month compared to 32 percent who attend services less than once a month.
The survey also found adolescents who say religion is important to them are less likely to abuse alcohol and other drugs. The poll found:
— Young people who get drunk at least once a month are twice as likely to say religion is not important in their lives than those who do not get drunk.
— Young people who smoke marijuana at least once a month are twice as likely to say religion is not important in their lives than those who do not smoke marijuana.
The survey has shown for three years “religion — Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim — is a key factor in giving our children the moral values, skill and will to say ‘no’ to illegal drugs, alcohol and cigarettes,” said Joseph Califano, the center’s president and former secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.
“This offers an enormous opportunity to America’s clergy to help the nation’s children resist the drugs, alcohol and cigarettes they confront every day in their schools and neighborhoods. It also tells parents that by taking their children to religious services beginning at a very early age they can have a major impact on whether or not their children resist these substance,” Califano said in a written statement.
Barrett Duke of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission said the results are understandable because organized religion “provides the means to communicate a set of values from a previous generation to the current one.”
Without the “culture-conserving aspect of religion, people are left with very little help in getting from one moral point to the next,” said Duke, the ERLC’s director of denominational relations who also handles substance-abuse issues. “The result of this loss of guidance is experimentation. It is understandable that many teenagers would make the wrong decisions when left to their own devices since most of the voices to which they are listening are as lost as they are when it comes to making decisions about the important moral choices in life.
“Religion teaches restraint and moral rectitude. These values are more dependable for guiding a teenager through the turbulent years of adolescence and the search for meaning,” he said.
Evangelical Christianity “offers even more help to teenagers,” Duke said. “Through faith in Jesus Christ the teenager finds the ageless source of wisdom and moral guidance — God himself. The teenager who knows Jesus Christ as Savior, who identifies with God’s message and who adopts the kind of lifestyle exemplified by Jesus is assured of the guidance that he or she needs to get from adolescence to adulthood with the fewest moral failures. Church provides the best place for a teenager to come into contact with these great evangelical truths.”
The survey also found young people who say religion is important in their lives are much more likely to depend on their parents, not friends, when making important decisions than adolescents who say religion is not important.
The survey was conducted in May, June and July of 1,000 young people age 12 to 17, as well as more than 800 teachers and 800 principals.
The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse is located at Columbia University in New York.