I would say that it’s not the religion itself which is helping people it is a built-in community, with support for its members and a common identity. They meet at least once a week, sometimes eat together, and sing together.

That last thing is something that I believe is not recognized as much as it should be. For all of human history, since we could bang rocks and make grunts, humans have made music together.

It is only in the past century, and especially in North america, that we have delegated music making two professionals, while we become music consumers. The number of people who actually make music of any kind has shrunk dramatically.

In other parts of the world, or even some parts of North America (like the maritimes in Canada) making music is still a recognized and valued part of life.

I was struck by this when I attended a conference for volunteers. The volunteers from Denmark, Germany, and England all sang folk songs for us. The Canadians and Americans looked at each other and tried to find anything that we all knew. We couldn’t find anything.