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Studies show that religion and spirituality correlate to positive character traits

The Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project produces resources for teachers and others to use when speaking of the history of Christianity in Kentucky. One significant priority has been to discover and disseminate biographical information linking the faith of famous Kentuckians with their achievements. To set famous Kentuckians as role models, heroes and heroines without including their own recognition that faith, religion or spirituality was an essential catalyst for the courage, wisdom, and diligence they needed to attain their fame may not equip our students to emulate their processes. Show-casing aspirational role models for our students is good. However, to deny the students critical information about the specific sources for their role models' strength (faith) may set them up for future disappointments and disillusionments.

The topic of faith may be a missing component in the scope and sequence of the character education we make available to our K-12 students. A 2012 study of 178 students at a university in Iran (Khoynezhad, Rajaei, and Sarvarazemy, "Basic Religious Beliefs and Personality Traits" in Iran Journal of Psychiatry 2012) correlated religion and spirituality with the existence of positive personality traits such as conscientiousness, carefulness, reliability, and being both hard working and well organized. In addition, religious people were found to be more responsible and to produce "greater achievements in their life than others" (IBID). The study also concluded that "religion can promote self-control and can facilitate self-monitoring" (IBID). It claims that religious people are more "calm, at-ease, relaxed, secure and comfortable" (IBID). 

Famous Kentucky Christians like Carl Brashear and H. Clark Karsner, for example, exhibited and credited these character qualities to their faith. By showing how such people asserted that their faith influenced their resilience and success, our students may become motivated to explore issues of religion and spirituality for themselves. 

The Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project is also committed to helping develop a secular, objective and non-devotional vocabulary along with sensitive and sensible strategies for teachers to use in the public school classroom when speaking of faith.

By Lesley Barker, PhD

c. 2021

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