Key to benevolence: Experiencing divine love may be gift that keeps on giving

Spending quality time with God appears to make benevolent love possible for many Americans, new research indicates.

The Godly Love National Survey, led by researchers at the University of Akron and the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, found people who most often reported feeling God’s love were more than twice as likely as the average American to give time to those in need more than once a week.

More than four in five respondents said they experience God’s love at least “once in a while;” a similar number said they felt God’s love increasing their compassion for others.

The more frequently individuals said they experienced God’s love, the more they appeared to embrace the need to give to others beyond their immediate circle of friends and family.

• Three-quarters of respondents said they gave their time to help others. That percentage rose to 93 percent among people who said they experienced God’s love more than once a day, but fell to 62 percent among people who said they did not directly experience God’s love. Those with high experiences of divine love were also the most faithful volunteers, with 41 percent giving time more than once a week, compared with 20 percent of others in the survey.

• Eighty-four percent of the people who most frequently experienced God’s love reported giving money to help others, compared with 58 percent of those who did not have such experiences. Overall, 73 percent reported giving money.

• When asked whether all people share an unbreakable bond of humanity, a strong predictor of benevolence, a third of people who experience God’s love often strongly agreed, compared with 17 percent of the total sample and 14 percent of those who did not experience such love.

The full national survey collected a national random sample of 1,208 adults conducted by telephone in the fall of 2009 in both English and Spanish (with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points and a response rate of 36 percent). A fourth and final survey was an oversample of 400 African American and 400 Hispanic pentecostals, using the same questionnaire as the national sample and also conducted by telephone. The pilot, national, and oversample surveys were conducted by the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University Akron under the direction of the project leaders.

For the full national survey, women comprised 51.4% of the sample. Whites accounted for 70.6%, follow by Latinos (13.5%), and Blacks (12.6%). Conservatives were the largest political group with 40.9% of respondents choosing that label (34.6% were moderate and 21.7% were liberal). Over half (55.8%) were married. Less than half (42%) had only a high school degree or less, 30% had some college, and 29% had a college degree. Just under half (46.1%) had a yearly income over $54,000, with 16.6% reporting less than $18,000, 22.1% claiming $18,000-$36,000, and 15.2% choosing the $36,000-$54,000 range. Following standard practices, both the pilot and national surveys have been weighted to match the demographic characteristics of the 2009 American Community Survey of the U.S. Bureau of Census .

Download the Godly Love National Survey (pdf)

.http://www3.uakron.edu/sociology/flameweb/natsurvey/index.html

Spending quality time with God appears to make benevolent love possible for many Americans, new research indicates.

Like spending time in prayer with HIM, reading HIS word, memorizing it, meditating it.

The only way to build a relationship with anyone is to spend time talking to them. Same with God. We speak to Him in prayer, He speaks to us through prayer and Scripture.

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