God’s Love Leads to Increased Benevolence Among Americans

Almost half of all Americans feel God’s love at least once a day, according to a new national survey. Eight out of ten have this experience at least once in a while. A similar number have felt God’s love prompting their compassion for others at least occasionally, with almost a third feeling this compassion daily or more often. Furthermore, the experience of divine love proved to be the most consistent predictor of six different forms of benevolent behavior studied in the research. Whether giving time or money, helping friends and family, or working to make the world a better place, the findings suggest that for many Americans, the experience of divine love and practical benevolence are inseparable.

This is the contention of Matthew T. Lee, Margaret M. Poloma, and Stephen G. Post, authors of The Heart of Religion: Spiritual Empowerment, Benevolence, and the Experience of God’s Love, published in December by Oxford University Press. “Millions of Americans frequently experience divine love and for them this sense of God’s love not only enhances existential well-being, but underlies a sense of personal meaning and purpose and enlivens compassion for others,” says Lee.

The book charts the results of the Godly Love National Survey (GLNS), a representative random survey of 1,200 people—both religious and nonreligious—from across the United States. The authors describe a “pentecostalization of Christianity,” an emotional experience of faith that might include physical and emotional healing, miracles, and hearing directly from God. It is found in all denominations and is more important than any other factor in accounting for experiences of divine love.

In another result from the work, almost half of the respondents who had a strong sense of purpose directly experienced God’s love daily or more, as compared with the 14% who had a strong sense of purpose but never experienced divine love.

The three authors—two sociologists and a theologian—are co-principal investigators for the Flame of Love Project, an initiative to study the relationship between spiritual experiences and benevolent behavior in America. The project, which has been active for more than four years, was funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

The work also has implications for the way religion is studied. “Previous studies have not picked up on the centrality of experiencing a loving God in the lives of benevolent people,” argues Lee. “This deficiency might well reflect a more general bias against plumbing the depths of religious experience, as opposed to belief. Our findings reveal dimensions of the relationship between religious experience and benevolent service that have largely escaped sustained scholarly and popular attention.”

Other notable findings from the research include:

Those who feel God’s love more than once per day are more than twice as likely as the rest of Americans to give their time more than once a week to help others in need, and more than twice as likely to give more than $5,000 per year to help others in need.
African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely than Euro-Americans, and women are more likely than men, to report experiences of God’s love.
Anger at God is a normal part of experiencing divine love. Within certain limits, it is a signal that a deep relationship exists.

In addition to the survey, the authors conducted 120 in-depth interviews and produced stories of five “exemplars of godly love” in the book. Their backgrounds and types of service differ, but all five share a sense of being called to partnership with God. They include:

Heidi Baker, a minister and a missionary to poorest of the poor in Asia, England, and Africa.
Paul Alexander, a peace activist and theologian involved with high-risk ministries throughout the world.
Steve Witt, pastor of a growing network of churches working to transform urban communities.
Anne Beiler, founder of Auntie Anne’s Pretzels and co-founder of the Family Center of Gap, PA, which offers resources for mental, physical, and spiritual health.
Herbert Daughtry, pastor of The House of the Lord Fellowship in Brooklyn and a social justice activist with an emphasis on the empowerment of African Americans.

Access Innovation Prize Awards for Digital Freedom

The winners of the first annual Access Innovation Prize have been announced in New York City. Awards totaling $100,000 are made across various categories for the best actionable ideas on how to use information technology to promote free expression.

Winners included Briar software, which enables people in authoritarian societies to build secure communication networks; LEAP encryption technology that makes encryption easy to use; OONI, a project that gathers information about internet censorship and surveillance; and Flashproxy, a Facebook app designed to raise online freedom issues.

Access’s Digital Freedom Project, funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, aims to build a world where everyone can actively participate in, contribute to, and share an open Internet that promotes free expression, free markets, and economic entrepreneurship.

New Funding Competition: Measuring Virtue

Meaningful progress in understanding and promoting character development depends on the availability of effective methods of measuring or assessing positive character traits—that is, virtues. Both scientific researchers and practitioners seeking to develop evidence-based character education programs need measures that are valid, reliable, and usable. Yet few such measures of virtues exist today, especially in comparison with fields such as clinical, personality, and developmental psychology.

To promote the development of high-quality measurement and assessment methods, the John Templeton Foundation has launched a funding competition entitled “New Assessments and Measures of Virtues.” The goal of this initiative is to support the creation of meaningful, valid, and reliable measures of virtues.

Proposals may request up to $250,000 for projects of up to two years in duration. The Foundation will award up to $3 million in grants in this competition. Online Funding Inquiries for this competition are due no later than April 1, 2013. Applicants invited to submit Full Proposals will be notified by May 3, 2013 and invited Full Proposals will be due no later than September 3, 2013. Full requirements are available online.

The Foundation will also be accepting Online Funding Inquiries for its core areas beginning on February 1, 2013.