Does Religion Lead to Good, Too?

I read an article in the Los Angeles Times this morning that raised a number of questions in my mind. Does religion, about which I am always very likely to be be suspicious and of which I often speak in negative terms, do good, too? I know many of the bad things I have seen arising from religion (e.g., holy wars, Texas politics, Pat Robertson, etc.), but does it really do good?

Maybe it's just the media's bias toward religion or maybe it's a fact that, despite their tendency toward faith-based conflagration, people who are highly religious tend to have exceptional abilities to focus, to get things done. Whatever it is, there's a lot said in the media about the power of religion and how it impacts the lives of people.

I'm talking about the inspirational stories that appear in newspapers. You know, stories about some average person who is driven to do good through the power of god or religion or church.

I rarely read stories of people who are driven to do good, with no intervention by a higher power. I know they're out there, but I rarely read about them. Is it possible that, when people are so intently devoted to their religious beliefs, people are just more likely to "do good?"

Despite my rather significant misgivings about religion in general and evangelical behaviors in particular, I have to say it sometimes doesn't matter whether it's just media bias or whether religion--rather than simply living one's life--is more likely to give people motives to "do good."

The article I linked above, in case you have or choose not to read it, is about a former restauranteur who took it upon herself to try to "lift up" the Chinese immigrants who work in the restaurant industry. The people she is trying to help really do need help. Here is an excerpt from the LA Times article:

Nationwide, more than 1 million immigrants work in 41,350 Chinese restaurants — from mom-and-pop takeouts to mammoth buffet enterprises employing hundreds, according to the Fremont, Calif.-based Chinese Restaurant News.

Though many restaurants hire non-Asian workers, Lou's ministry concentrates on the Chinese — the people she knows best.

It's a subculture hidden from most Americans. Speaking little or no English, many Chinese immigrants must settle for dispiriting kitchen work — laboring 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

Many, here illegally, have no access to labor unions or social service networks. They live in cramped restaurant-owned dormitories or in rented garages without cooking facilities, bathrooms or running water.

To cope with their harsh living conditions and mind-numbingly mundane work, many fall prey to gambling, drugs, alcohol and prostitution.

Among the worn wooden chopping boards and flashing meat cleavers, hissing deep-fryers and walk-in freezers, the desire for a higher calling is fierce.

While I admire people like the lady about whom this story is written for the good they do, I remain highly skeptical not of their motives, but of the reporters who write them and the papers that publish the stories. Are there not people who do as much, or more, but who do it out of a spirit of helping simply because help is needed, and not because the bible told them to?

I know, I'm going in circles. I have to admit, in some cases, the deeply-ingrained faults of religion seem not to matter as much as what religion seems capable of accomplishing. What's going through my mind at the moment is, "Is the good worth the price?" Reading about the Chinese restaurant workers who have no hope, who are treated with disrespect due to their low social standing, and who seem stuck in a cycle of misery...reading about that this morning, I have to say it is.