The Happiness Project
CATHEDRAL NEWSLETTER - 21 August 2025
Friends in Christ, this week The Australian newspaper began a series of articles entitled "The Happiness Project". The lead author, Stephen Lunn, began this way:
What’s the secret to unlocking your happiness? How do you achieve a satisfying life? Especially when the odds might seem stacked against you. It’s more complex than you might think. We take a deep dive into the latest research on how to build resilience and find life’s joy.
But happiness is hard to define. It's a desire. But is is a feeling, or a state? It's connected to life satisfaction. (Interestingly, when translating Jesus 'beatitudes' or 'blessings', many modern translators use "Happy" as a synonym for "Blessed"!)
But as the journalist said, your happiness levels can't be determined like taking a cholesterol test! And how does it relate to suffering and difficulty? Is it more biological or psychological or circumstantial? The Happiness Project plans to explore these issues, and is looking at the keys to happiness can be “unlocked”.
It's a significant issue, since although Australians rate 11th out of 148 nations on the World Happiness Index, levels are markedly lower for Aussies under 30.
Unsurprinsgly, loving relationships with family, children or friends rated highly as a happiness 'driver'. Likewise having some financial control and a sense of purpose were seen as key... Although it was noted that even in distressed parts of the world you can often see children running around or playing with pebbles and hooting with joy, so long as they have food and a modicum of safety.
Maintaining a good diet, exercising regularly and getting a decent amount of sleep are also said to help. Suggested practical steps included keeping a gratitude journal or turning your phone off for a few hours every day!
You might be pleased, and perhaps unsurprised to read that faith and happiness are also closely aligned – on average, not universally!
An analysis of longitudinal data over 20 years, from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics Australia survey, finds those who are religious have higher life satisfaction. Melbourne University senior research fellow Ferdi Botha says:
“People who are religious tend to have a greater sense of belonging, and a greater sense of social support and connection, especially if they practice their religion in a community setting. They also have that buffer of religion, which can be a coping mechanism for the knocks and adverse events that life throws up. And people who are religious tend to be more altruistic and volunteer more. Helping others can make you feel better within yourself.”
Here you see good reasons to come to church, and to get involved!
But "being religious" does sound a little utilitarian - a means to another end.
I was reminded of the truism – go chasing joy itself, and it generally eludes you; but invest in relationships out of love, for example, then joy will find you out – kind of a by-product!
And theologian David Wells warns:
God stands before us not as our Therapist or our Concierge… He is not before us to be used by us. He is not there begging to enter our internal world and satisfy our therapeutic needs. We are before him to hear his commandment. And his commandment is that we should be holy, which is a much greater thing than being happy…
It is true that there are psychological benefits to following Christ, and happiness may be its by-product. These, though, are not fundamentally what Christian faith is about. It is about the God who is other than ourselves, who is the infinite and gracious God. [God in the Whirlwind, 2014]
Yet it is true that God has made us with real desires and delights to bless us with joy. Biblical Christianity is not asceticism – obligatory abstinence from worldly pleasures through self-discipline and self-imposed restraints (though believers may make such choices at times).
As C. S. Lewis famously wrote:
The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.
Jesus took up his cross to forgive, cleanse and sanctify us from sin (see Hebrews 10).
We fix our eyes on that same Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross and its shame, before his resurrection and re-entry to the heavenly throne room with the Father (my emphasis; see Hebrews 12:1-3). That's why we seek to throw off sin and all that weighs us down.
So C. S. Lewis famously continued in that same war-time essay...
…it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. ["The Weight of Glory", 1941]
And so ultimately, regardless of what 'happiness' byproducts church attendance, or volunteering might produce, ultimately we are concerned to know the holy God for his own sake... Indeed, to be known by him, on his terms, and by the way he makes possible – through the cross. With Jesus our redeemer, there is joy through the suffering, and even greater joy beyond it.
Indeed, the puritan Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) authored a book with a very long title: The Crown and Glory of Christianity: Or, Holiness, The Only Way To Happiness. Here is what he claims:
Holiness is happiness in the bud, and happiness is holiness at the full... An absolute fullness of holiness will make an absolute fullness of happiness. When our holiness is perfect, our happiness shall be perfect; and if this were attainable on earth, there would be but little reason for men to long to be in heaven.
Fix your eyes on Jesus.
Warmly in Christ,
Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney