The Link Between Religion and Helping Others: The Role of Values, Ideas, and Language

This study used life narrative interview data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study to examine how religious values, ideas, and language motivate prosocial behaviors. Open coding of 88 in-depth interviews revealed six themes: defining morality in religious terms, considering religion an important aspect of one’s identity, feeling that one’s life involves carrying out God’s mission, making an increased commitment to religion over time, drawing an explicit connection between reli-gion and helping others, and, for Christian respondents, finding inspiration for helping in Jesus’s teaching, example, and sacrifice. Using ratings from independent coders, statistically significant relationships were found between most of the themes and prosocial behaviors, particularly for respondents who engaged in multiple helping behaviors. In addition to documenting the relationship between religious ideas and values and helping behaviors, the study demonstrates how language mediates the relationship between the social and personal aspects of religion. Key words: beliefs; civil society/public sphere; nonprofit sector; qualitative methods; values; prosocial behavior. The importance of helping others is a common theme in many religious traditions, and many scientific studies have found a link between religiosity and helping. However, the exact nature of this link is disputed. Sociologists who study this issue tend to explain the connection between religion and helping by reference to the social networks that come with religious participa-