When science agrees with religion with Dr Byron Johnson

Looking for gumption to persevere in ministry? Looking for spectacular evidence for the case of religion? Interested in what makes death row inmates flourish more than the global population? Debunking the Gallup Happiness report with the #1 countries that flourish *hint* it speaks to suffering NOT GDP or education.  You will want to catch this one.

Dr Byron Johnson is Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University. He is the founding director of the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR) as well as director of the Program on Prosocial Behavior. Johnson is a faculty affiliate of the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University, and is Visiting Distinguished Professor in the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University. He is a leading authority on the scientific study of religion, human flourishing, the efficacy of faith-based organizations, and criminal justice. He has been the principal investigator on grants from private foundations as well as the Department of Justice, Department of Labor, Department of Defense,
National Institutes of Health, and the United States Institute for Peace. His newest books are The Faith Factor and Social Welfare: Rethinking Evidence, Practice, and Policy (2026), and The Death of Religion: Nones, Others, and the Flourishing of Faith.

Key Topics:

• The groundbreaking scope and scope of the Global Flourishing Study, measuring over 200,000 participants across 20 countries

• How religious participation, particularly faith-based activities, correlates strongly with multiple domains of flourishing

• The surprising resilience and flourishing among prisoners, including those on death row

• The significance of community, relationships, and spiritual capital in societal well-being

• The role of suffering, trauma, and trauma recovery in fostering resilience and spiritual growth

• Findings indicating that GDP and material wealth are inversely related to flourishing, emphasizing mental and relational health

• Practical implications for churches, congregations, and faith communities in fostering holistic well-being

Timestamps:

• (00:00) - Introduction to Dr Byron Johnson and his credentials

• (01:02) - The cross-centered approach to research and its significance

• (02:30) - Landmark status of the Global Flourishing Study

• (03:30) - The biblical concept of abundant life and human flourishing

• (04:27) - Shift from predicting wrongdoing to understanding positive human behaviors

• (05:27) - The importance of recovery, rebuilding, and pro-social behaviors

• (06:55) - The study’s scope: over 20 countries, 200,000 participants, 100 researchers

• (08:19) - Origins of the study and the importance of spontaneous collaboration

• (10:09) - Challenges in translation and implementing the study internationally

• (12:24) - How the study showcases God's goodness through high-quality research

• (13:20) - The importance of causal infer

Podcast Disclaimer:

Please be aware that the opinions and viewpoints shared on this podcast are personal to me and my guests, and do not represent the stance of any institution.  This podcast aims to present findings for open discussion and dialogue, inviting listeners to engage critically and draw their own conclusions. While the content serves informational purposes, it is not a substitute for professional advice. Thank you for joining me on this journey of exploration and conversation!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:08

And I remember talking to one guy on death row last year, and I said, Every time I come to see you, you have a smile on your face. He said, Well, I go, how do you do that with a death sentence? He said, We all have a death sentence. And and so he goes, The difference is some people don't understand they have a death sentence. The day you were born, you had it. And he goes, I've realized that. What does it mean to live the good life? Or to live live a life well lived or a flourishing life as we call it. They do want these things and uh they just don't know how to get there are what makes up the whole life, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Hello everyone. I have with me today Dr. Byron Johnson. He's a distinguished professor of the social sciences at Baylor University, the founding director of the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, as well as director of the program on pro social behavior. He's a faculty affiliate of the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University and is visiting distinguished professor in the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University. Byron is a leading authority in the scientific study of religion, human flourishing, the efficacy of faith-based organizations and criminal justice. Welcome, Byron.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Thank you, Valerie. Good to be with you.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

When I met you uh at the Common Table Conference, all of these qualifications, and I know there is more, are impressive and admirable and inspiring. One thing that captivated me though when I heard you is just how cross-centered your view of your work is and how cross-centered it is in being diligent and excellent in research so that people like myself sitting in views all the way in Australia can be encouraged. And I just knew that I wanted to connect with you. So I'm I'm really grateful for that, Byron.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Thank you. And thank you for saying that. It's encouraging to hear it. And um I think what you've said is true that um as an act of stewardship, I think that we should we should give our our best. And um I love Oswald Chambers devotional, my utmost for his highest. And I've been doing that for over 30 years. But that little expression, I think, is really powerful. And I think that it's easy for us as Christians to get by. And I don't think we're supposed to just get by. I think that's one of the things that's so encouraging about the Global Flourishing Study is it's a landmark study. And one of the nicest things anyone has said to me was when someone from the Center for Open Science said this is a basically the classic example of how you do science the right way. And this was a from a completely secular organization. So it was really encouraging to hear that. Um and and I think that there was a time in which believers led the way in so many different fields of inquiry. And so for us to kind of lead on something like this on a topic so relevant in the world, you know, what does it what does it mean to live the good life or to live live a life well lived or a flourishing life as we call it? But what maybe a number of your listeners will know about from the Bible in John 10, 10, when it talks about the abundant life, these are the kinds of things that I think most people want, secular or religious. They do want these things, and uh they just don't know how to get there are are what makes up the whole life, you know. We like to say whole person for the whole world.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

You originally started off in criminology, yeah, and I'm still there.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

A lot of the work that I do um is within the field of criminology, and um that's why when you did the introduction, you mentioned pro-social behavior. As a criminologist, I'm not happy with the fact that it's a field that has been dominated by how do we predict wrongdoing? Why is it that people commit horrible acts of crime? Why is it that people are delinquent or deviant? And or can we predict the likelihood that you're going to be the victim of a crime? These things to me are not very encouraging. I I like to look at it the other way around. Why is it that the vast majority of people are law-abiding? What keeps people within certain boundaries? And what can we learn from those people? Why is it that so many people actually do honorable things? Why why is there so much generosity and gratitude around what motivates those kinds of behaviors? A lot of people help other people. So I like to look at the other side of the equation, but I think there's just been too much emphasis on the negative side of it. Yes, some people do horrible things, but the majority of people don't run the red light. The majority of the people actually stay in line. So I'm very curious about those kinds of things. And then I'm curious about when people do make mistakes, how do they recover? How do offenders rebuild their lives? How do addicts become sober? Those are the things that interest me as a criminologist. And it was that work over a lot of years that led to the flourishing work for me and then also connected me to Tyler Vanderwill at Harvard. And so I'm still doing the work within criminal justice and I'm studying prisons right now. What why is it that some prisons are actually doing quite well and a lot of offenders are actually doing well? Whereas other prisons have been, let's say, taken over by gangs. And so what can we learn about individual reform and rehabilitation? And then what can we learn about the rehabilitation of an entire facility? So those are all issues that I think are relevant. So when I'm looking at flourishing, yes, we're we're doing a global study of people all around the world, but we also want to know how it is that people on death row can flourish. And because I've been studying guys on death row for a lot of years, and you'd be surprised at how many of them are doing so much better than in people in the free world.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

So what can we learn? And I think we mentioned this when we were together in Houston that when you talk about flourishing, I think we should all enter it kind of with a humble attitude. And that is we're all on a journey. We we haven't arrived and we haven't totally figured it out, but we want to know more. And we're eager, eager to learn more. And I think the Global Flourishing Study is producing a lot of data and a lot of papers that are giving us insights that maybe we we didn't quite have before.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

So the Global Flourishing Study, I've been on the website. There's a title that says Mapping the Mystery of Humanity. Over 20 countries, over 200,000 research participants, over a hundred researchers around the globe. It's long the title, which means that you're measuring data points at the same time every year, which means we can start to think about causality. This is a conversation, it is impressive in scope and admirable in vision. A conversation that started between yourself and Tyler Vanderwill in Harvard, whom I understand is also a Christian.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

And you're sitting there and you think this could be a really good idea.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

You know, it's one of these things where I think a lot of important ideas happen in the hallways next to the water cooler. And this is why I think my own bias, I think working remotely, while it's great for some people and not so good for others, because so many of the great ideas that I've had are impromptu conversations with someone that I bumped into in the stairwell that led to something pretty magnificent. The idea being if you weren't bumping into each other and comparing notes, you might not have hatched this idea. And in 2018, Tyler and I were both at a meeting at Harvard. And in one of the breaks, I told him that I was going to be at the Gallup headquarters the next week and that I had been working with Gallup for many years. And that's when I said, you know, you want to come with me to that meeting? Because what if we were to run the idea of a longitudinal study around the world, which had not been done by Gallup to see if it was even feasible to do it. And um, he thought, well, okay, especially if we can get a couple of funders to go with us into that meeting. And so that's how it all started was just this rather ambitious idea. Uh and over a couple of years, we got people to believe it was really possible to do it. And but as you said, the scope is it's unprecedented. I mean, over like 40 languages, just the translation for India alone was so so difficult because that we're using 11 languages in India. And so how do you do all the translation work to make sure that items that you're asking people in this context it actually works? And the word forgiveness, does that word translate well or the word belonging? I would assume in Australia that word works, but in some environments, that word just doesn't really connect. And so the translation process, it took us a year of doing cognitive interviews around the world in all those countries just to ask people when we ask you this question, does it make sense? Was there anything confusing? And then we had to kind of go back to the drawing board. So yeah, uh it's been a heavy lift. And then you always, Valerie, have these things that you don't expect to happen, like Russia invading Ukraine. Those were two of our key countries that just as we were getting started, that that conflict began, and we had to put the brakes on those two countries and then replace them. But the good news is Australia was one of the countries that we used. So Australia is in the project, along with Sweden. And those two countries weren't in the initial plans.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Right, right. And so I introduced myself by saying that I was one day sitting on my recline at home here in Sydney, Australia, stumbled upon the global flourishing study as well as Victor and Kate's work in Christian flourishing. And for me as a Christian, and wanting to share this in my audience who are basically a Christian base, it was as if these golden threads of God's goodness are being revealed through high-quality research to showcase his blueprint for what is the good life, what is the abundant life, what is common grace from him as well. Because all of these countries that you've got, I mean, was just a spectacular showcase of his goodness. Is that part of the reasoning for doing something like this as a Christian yourself with Tyler van der Wiel? Does that cross your mind?

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Yeah, I think one of the things that we were thinking about is if we're going to do our best work, we should try to do something that could eventually allow us to make causal causal inferences. And those kinds of studies are more difficult. And so I think sometimes there's a tendency to be lazy or to take the easier way out. And and so we we actually looked to take the the steeper path. So that that's why the longitudinal design was so important to us. But as you know, most of the research, the vast majority of it comes from the West.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

And over and over I read the call weird countries.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

The weird countries. Yes. And what's the accordion? Educated, industrial, democratic. And uh R is for um It'll come to me in just a second. But clearly there's a bias in what we know because it doesn't represent the world. And we've heard this criticism over and over, but we thought, you know, would the things that we're finding in the West also hold in other parts of the world, especially the global south, if we were to do that work? It's an empirical question, and and we felt like we should try to make sure that we can answer those questions. So the countries that were selected were selected on purpose to give us, and so we have about 64% of the earth's population represented in the global flourishing study. And you know, we would love at some point to add countries to our sample to get that number even higher. So close to two-thirds of the population of the world is represented in the in the study itself. And so that was part of our thinking, and it's been quite uh amazing because as you know, countries are different. A number of these countries that we're now studying are Muslim majority countries, not Christian majority countries. And then a number of these countries, especially in Western Europe, are very secular. And Australia itself is a quite secular country. And so what can we learn about these countries that are so vastly different? Um and and then what can we do with that knowledge? And so, you know, you can't people ask me all the time, what have you learned? And I'm going, well, it's it's not one thing. It's it's thousands of things that we're learning because each of these, we've published about a hundred papers in the last 12 months, and and all of these papers are in in some of the world's top journals. And there's many, many findings embedded within each of these papers that are on topics like optimism and hope and purpose and character and anxiety and stress, depression. And so what are we learning? Well, we're learning just all kinds of things, but there are some things, Valerie, that we're finding in virtually every country that are kind of consistent. And things like young people around the world are struggling. That's not a Western problem. Okay. It's a global problem that that demographic is not doing so well. And this is um this is has not always been the case. So that's reason for concern. And then uh there are countries in the developing world that are doing much better than countries in the developed world on all kinds of things like character and virtue and close relationships and meaning and purpose. They may not be doing well with financial and material security, but they are doing well in these other areas. So I think there's reason to believe that the countries can can help each other. What can we learn in the United States from Tanzania, where people seem to have closer relationships than we do in the United States? And so there's there's there's much that can be learned from all of us. And so we're kind of a global community, and one of the things that we're finding consistently is that community matters. Flourishing is in fact both an individual and a community thing. And so as Christians, we want our neighbors to do well. If we love our neighbor, as as the scripture says we should. And so if my neighbor's not doing well, that that should affect me. And and if you go to a house of worship, is that house of worship having an effect on the community where that house of worship is embedded? It should. And if it isn't, then maybe that congregation isn't nearly as healthy as it should be. So these are the kinds of things that the studies are actually allowing us to gain some insights into.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Yeah. So I've got the um acronym here, weird, Western, educated, industrialized, rich democratic.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Yeah, rich and democratic. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

So I've got here the definition of flourishing, you've got the six domains. Is that correct? Happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, close social relationships, and financial and material stability. And you're finding that gross domestic product or wealth doesn't necessarily equate to flourishing.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

This is such an important finding because so much of what we have assumed is that economics drive everything. And it's it's just not the case. Economics are terribly important.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

And so I don't think anyone should be happy that in in the developing world where income is so terribly low and poverty is so very common, that should concern us. But then the question becomes, well, how do you do economic development without overlooking the kinds of things that those countries may be doing better than other parts of the world? And how in the West, for example, have we strayed from those things that used to bring a lot of social capital, but maybe our social capital is in decline because we've overlooked some of these more basic kinds of things. And how how can we get those back? So I think that it's a it's an important finding that GDP is often inversely related to flourishing. That's not what we had hoped for, but it maybe it's a reality check to where we are. And I think that the beautiful thing about the flourishing framework is if you do this at the individual level, you can see maybe where you're scoring lower and where you're scoring higher, and then realize that you've overlooked the mental part of your health, the emotional side of things, and you need to pay attention to it. And but I think there's often the case that maybe people will focus more on their physical health and their mental health. And spending so much time on social media without being in actual connection with people. These things are not a good recipe for overall flourishing. But the good news is, well, let's find out where one is and what one can do about a mid-course correction. And I think that goes for individuals, but it also goes for nonprofits and businesses and schools. And by the way, it goes for houses of worship. And so we have a project that we I think we talked about a little bit when you were uh with us at that conference uh back in January, where we're actually doing assessments within congregations in California and Texas uh to see how individuals are doing within the congregation and how's the congregation doing at large, and then talking to people in the community to see how people in the community feel about the congregation.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

And and so I think to be able to gauge the health of the church is something that maybe should have been happening a long time ago. And I hope it leads to the whole movement of doing these kinds of assessments within houses of worship because one can always assume that everything is great, but maybe it isn't. And and attendance may not be an indicator. It may be an indicator of a of a bunch of positive things, but just because the attendance seems to be holding doesn't mean that the church is flourishing in a lot of different ways. So I I do think the idea of um uh taking these these these periodic checkups. I mean, we go to the doctor for checkups, but maybe we should be doing that with our own lives.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Yeah, in fact, I believe you said that religion, and it doesn't mean Christianity, I think you said that a large proportion are coming from the Muslim world, but religion is one of those universal indicators of flourishing.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

It's perhaps the strongest predictor that we have. And you know, when you mention those six domains, religion is not one of those domains, but we do look at religion and we do it in an in-depth way. We ask a number of questions about spirituality, not just attendance, but other kinds of involvement in groups, prayer, other religious activities that people can be involved in, like scripture reading. So we want to know how these how people respond to all of these things. And of course, what we're finding is that faith is something that really does connect people on a host of domains. So if you're looking at physical health or mental health or close relationships and meaning and purpose, faith has a lot to do with these things. And so I think that was the surprise that many of the journalists had that interviewed us after the initial release of the third first 36 studies was just a surprise that something like faith could be so important to people because a lot of them were people that don't participate in religious activities. But then when they think about it, okay, so this brings together a lot of people. There's a lot of networks of social support that are embedded within these houses of worship. There are small groups designed to bring people closer together within most of these congregations. And then there's teaching that goes on about, you know, how one should live one's life and maybe how one should live a life that is other minded, where we actually do care for neighbor and learn to love our enemies. So these kinds of teachings and then the practice of having community and then guess what? Praying for people and helping people that are less fortunate than yourself, these kinds of things manifest themselves in ways that we're beginning to see in the data.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

So I can see how because I think some of the poorer countries. Countries actually came out as being higher and flourishing. And then you'll have countries that have actually come up higher on things like loving relational interactions. That's not necessarily one of the weird countries either. Right. So I'm thinking it's a product of relational capital, but it's also a product of spiritual capital because you're not just measuring output like material things. You're actually assessing for the quality of how much you feel like your life has meaning, how connected and cared for you feel with one another. I can kind of see how we would want to major on that within church congregations, but how would a community looking in at a church say, oh yes, these people are, you know, part of our flourishing network?

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Well, I think if you take a good look at a lot of houses of worship and you ask them, what ministries do you have in your church for your church body? But what ministries do you have in your congregation for the community? Oftentimes you'll be surprised to know that they have a uh health outreach that provides health care to people in their community. They have after-school program for kids, they have a food pantry and English as a second language and other kinds of ministries that operate out of the church designed for the community. And if you go into the community and ask people, what do you know about this congregation that's one block away from where you live? This gives you an idea of whether or not they're connecting. Um, or are people just commuting in to worship and then they leave, but the community, you know, is not affected. So you would think that all things being as they should be, that there should that the church's imprint should be on that community around it. And so I'm really excited about the kind of work that we might be doing where we could be doing this flourishing work within thousands of congregations to give us the insight. Is it a church that's insular or is it a church that's outwardly focused? And I think some of the criticism in the past is that churches operate within the four walls of the congregation, but they don't operate outside of those walls. And I think that too is an empirical question, but I would be surprised to find that that's something that holds. I think that a lot of these congregations are involved in so many ministries they can't even hardly list them all. Because people will feel called to do certain kinds of things. You know, one of the things that we were talking about earlier is prison ministry. Go to any prison in the world, go to any jail in the world, and you'll see volunteers from faith-based groups. They're the number one volunteer for any correctional facility. And it's been this way for many, many years. Look at disaster relief. It's largely faith-based. And if you look at issues like homelessness, we did a study in 2017 in the U.S. to look at the issue of homelessness. And we looked at 11 major cities. It wasn't throughout the entire country, but we picked 11 urban centers, and we collected data from the federal government and found that 60% of the beds that are provided for homeless people were from faith-based organizations. So well over half. But of all the HUD funding and all the research produced by HUD, that's housing and urban development, there wasn't even a footnote to religion, faith, faith-based groups, and yet they do so much of the heavy lifting. So I think that we see some indication in the foster care system and adoption that people of faith respond and to those kinds of crises just like they do to disaster relief. So that's some indication that the church is living out its mission, which is far beyond evangelism. It's to love thy neighbor. And but we do need more work like this to be to be able to say, are we really doing all that the church is called to do? And if we're not, maybe this gives us a a roadmap to next steps.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

I'm not sure whether there's any data yet or whether you have some working hypothesis, but given that religion in general brings about community and participation and a common scriptural hope and then promotes good work, what might we think therefore makes Christians unique, different, and you know, on the basis of the of the claims that we live by the the way, the truth, and the life? What might we know about that?

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Yeah, I I it it to your listeners, it won't come as a surprise that we live in a fallen world, and so our nature is to think about ourselves. Our nature isn't to think of others. But the whole Christian story is just that. It it is about sacrifice, it is about others, it's not about myself. If one follows the Christian message, Jesus's life is an example of God becoming flesh to redeem a fallen race. Um, and and so I I think that Christianity isn't about love and service to others. This is what Christianity is. Some people choose not that would claim to be Christians choose not to live that out in everyday life, but I think many, many believers actually do. And so I think it's not because we're good, it's because um this the Spirit of God helps us to do those kinds of things if we surrender our life to God. And that's the that's how one becomes other minded. Again, it's not a a natural thing, it's a it's a supernatural thing. So to give your life away in service to others really doesn't make sense. The whole idea of forgiveness doesn't make sense without, in my mind, without faith. And so the fact that we've been forgiven should allow us to forgive others. And so I think that there is this responsibility that Christians bear as a result of their faith, and especially as one becomes more mature in their faith. And one of the things that we're finding, and you've already alluded to this, is that the more active one is in their faith, the more likely they are to flourish and experience the good life. And so if you look at attendance for those that attend very little, it just drops off. And of course, those people in the Global Flourishing Study, by and large, that indicate that they are atheists or don't believe in God and don't attend religious services, they don't flourish at nearly the same levels. And that's true around the world. And so these are these are findings that are pretty consistent. And a lot of these findings do resonate with studies that have taken place in other parts of the world. So it's been encouraging to see some of these things hold together, even now that we're doing all these different studies, these studies in in different cultures. So it's encouraging. And you mentioned this earlier, but Indonesia, which is a Muslim-majority country, will came out ranked number one. And so we're looking at all the great world religions in the global flourishing study. It's not just a study of Christians. So I think that that's important too, is can people flourish in a lot of different ways? And the answer is yes, they can. And what is it that makes Indonesia different, perhaps, than other countries that are Muslim majority? I think these are some of the insights that we hope to learn more about as we do deeper dives. With the the it's a multi-wave study, as you know. So now we're writing papers from wave two, and we're getting ready to start writing papers on wave three, which that data will become available in another week. And then we're going to be going into the field next month with wave four. So each wave will give us yet another shot in the arm in terms of statistical rigor because uh the stats become much more powerful in that third, fourth, and fifth year.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

I remember hearing you say that you were quite pleased that unlike the Gallup poll, a happiness report, um, there were countries that were appearing on the flourishing study that didn't appear in the happiness. And I wonder whether part of uh, I don't know what you think about this, is part of that we've got relational capital, but then there's the spiritual capital. You know, happiness isn't necessarily about spiritual resources. And I wonder whether there's a place for understanding suffering. I mean, these countries Indonesia, Kenya, these are places that have known hardship. What are your thoughts about the role of suffering in this?

SPEAKER_00 32:11

I'm so glad you mentioned it. Suffering is something that you don't wish on anyone. Suffering is difficult. There can be no denying it. But we have talked to so many people who will tell you it was a cancer diagnosis that was a turning point in their life for flourishing. And that suffering in many ways can draw people closer to God, for one, but closer to their family and closer to loved ones. And maybe there's their priorities change after uh they've had to go through something that's been rather traumatic. And so I think from a very secular point of view, that doesn't make much sense. The whole idea is to kind of eliminate suffering altogether. But we're never going to have a society on earth that's free from suffering. And so then the question becomes how do people manage? And Israel comes out, by the way, number two in the rankings. And so it's really kind of interesting for a country that has often dealt with conflict to know that they come out number two is rather striking. So I think there really is this something to suffering. You know, earlier we were talking about prisoners, inmates that are living on death row, awaiting an execution. And I've been talking to these people for years. And many of them have this hope that you that's so vivid. And I remember talking to one guy on death row last year, and I said, Every time I come to see you, you have a smile on your face. He said, Well, I go, how do you do that with a death sentence? He said, We all have a death sentence. And and so he goes, the difference is some people don't understand they have a death sentence. The day you were born, you had it. And he goes, I've realized that. But he goes, while I've been in prison, you know, I did find God here, and I've grown up in my faith, and you know, I believe I have eternal life. And so if it took me coming here to get on this path that I'm now on, this is good news for me. And it's been good for me. And so, you know, a lot of these individuals experience what we call an identity transformation, the old self and the new self. And a lot of them, as they're growing and maturing in their faith and flourishing, they're not even content with the new self. That they want to know about the future self. Where where can I go? What might be possible? I'm here on death row with other people that I might be able to help. And um, so I mean, I've been studying prisoners now that work in hospice and they're helping other inmates who are dying. And it's the most remarkable thing to go and observe and to collect data on. So I think the suffering thing is huge. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that have told me they've lost a loved one, but that journey through that period of time with that person is something that they would never change. I mean, it allowed them to become closer to that person, closer to God, get their life priorities reorganized. So I do think there's something, I think the things that we don't understand, like death and dying and suffering, a lot can be learned from those, those kinds of things that are really valuable to us. And so I think you're exactly right to think that it's worth looking at suffering.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Yeah. I'd love to finish now um with, you know, I had some reflections that there were so many. It's just like I feel every time I pick up the new a new finding or the literature that comes out of this, I find myself in awe of the blueprint of God. But, you know, when I read mapping the mystery of humanity, I started to think about the number of times I've heard the word mystery in scripture. And I Colossians 1.24, which says, Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you. I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, which is the church. I've become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness, the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord's people, to them that God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mercy mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. And I just feel so privileged to be in this point in history to watch the work that your team are doing in revealing this mystery and that his common grace for the world is not limited as to whether they they now know him or they they don't, but he is revealing.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

I think that is so so true, so powerful. And you know, you used the term spiritual capital a little earlier, and I think that is so appropriate. We talk about social capital. Um, and and when people try to define social capital, there's things like, oh, well, it's it's reciprocal, positive social relationships, it's getting ahead, it's different kinds of things. But typically people think what whatever is right with society, you can call it social capital. But Bob Putnam, the famous political scientist who who sometimes is credited with this term of social capital, and he's worried that it's uh that social capital is increasingly in decline. And he's worried about this. He said, you know, we used to bowl in in leagues, now we bowl alone, that the title of his book, but his research has led him to conclude that literally half of all social capital is spiritual.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Wow. Okay. Yes, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Half. And he said it's tied up in in those houses of worship. And so that's a recognition that, okay, the spiritual side of things isn't a part of it.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

It's a vast chunk of it. And I think that will when when I read Putnam's uh quote, I thought, wow, a half of all social capital is spiritual capital, and you can find it in these houses of worship. I think that what you just said earlier is true. And I think that we didn't come up with mapping the mystery. That was a marketing firm that did. We thought it sounded we thought it sounded over the top. But but God willing, maybe the research that's being produced, and since it's open access data, Valerie, people around the world can have access to the data, it's not just researchers, anyone can have access to it. So we hope that there'll be many thousands of efforts to analyze the data to to further unpack these mysteries.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

So, in in conclusion, if I'm someone who's at church or a church pastor, and you know, we've been doing the pot luck dinners till the cows come home and it doesn't feel very lucky, but don't seem to be very thriving or growing. Yeah. Um, you know, from this work that you are doing with your team, what encouragement do you have for us? You know, what encouragement might you have?

SPEAKER_00 39:19

I think there's so much encouragement already in the data. And if you turn on the radio and you hear some of these religious broadcasts, there's so much gloom and doom that you hear sometimes from the pulpit. And of course there is is there's evil, there, there are there are problems. But when you read the data and and you see that people do have hope and they do have meaning, many people and purpose, and that for a lot of them their faith is central to it. Then if I were a pastor, I would want to communicate that to people that um you know, if you want to live the good life, it's it's a life that's anchored in faith. There's there's a shockingly uh large amount of data and studies that actually go alongside of this. Even if you look at mortality rates or longevity, it increases the your life expectancy if you practice your faith on a regular basis. And so I think there's so much evidence that faith matters. And I don't know that a lot of clergy fully understand that. I think they intuitively think it makes your life better, but I think the science would actually help them think, oh my, it it really is, it really does work. It's having an effect. And I've talked to pastors before too on issues like crime. Where would our inner cities be without congregations? As these agencies within the urban environment that provide all these pro-social values and behaviors that are protective for our communities. So I think the data actually validate a worldview that is consistent with the one that they've they're following. And I just think it's it could be a huge source of encouragement if they made themselves take a look.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

Well, I really hope that is exactly what happens. Um, because I hope that we can be in in partnership. I think one of the wonderful things is every time I've written to an academic in the US who's who's a part of this network, there is a real sense that the research is to resource not just the academic world, but the church, the people.

SPEAKER_02 41:30

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 41:31

And I really do hope that, you know, just to be tongue-in-cheek, that we think a little bit more about taking our potluck dinners to where suffering is in the community at that intersection. Spilling out and bringing the hope, um, the spiritual capital, uh, the outcomes of our lives that show a flourishing life into the community, actually where they need it most and where they are likely to see it more.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

I think that's exactly right. I think that's what the Great Commission is about. And then I think for us, in addition to doing these academic papers, which we think we're called to do, then we need to also be thinking about how to translate that work into lay-friendly language and products for toolkits, for houses of worship or nonprofits, that they might be able to use it. Not everyone is going to read the nature journals, but they might read something that is more like a manual or a how-to guide for people. And so we're working on those kinds of things right now, and we're also beginning to dabble into documentaries and what we call mini-docs that are shortened videos that translate the research into something that people can view almost like um a mini-series. And I think this will be helpful to people too, because that way maybe we can reach a larger number of people, both within the church and outside the church.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

Amazing, Byron. Thank you so much for your time.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Encouragement and for your diligence in serving him and for all that you have shared with us today. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

Thank you, Valerie. It's it's been a pleasure to be with you again. Take care.