Charles Brammall
On a bright California morning in 2014, Dr Ellsworth Wareham pulled into his driveway, stepped out of his car, and lifted his golf sticks out of the boot. At 99, he still played regularly, still consulted, and still praised God for each day.
Wareham had practised cardiac surgery for more than half a century, a lifelong Seventh‑day Adventist, whose longevity puzzled journalists. “I think it’s important for an individual to have some security and peace in his life … I get that from believing in a loving, caring God,” he said.
He finally stopped operating at 95 and died in 2018 at 104. Wareham lived in Loma Linda, California – one of the most studied longevity regions in the world, where Christians walking closely with God routinely outlive national averages by years.
Researchers talk about diet, exercise or social networks; Wareham talked about Jesus, Sabbath rest, prayer, and doing tomorrow what obedience to his Lord demanded today. Beneath the anecdotes lies a persistent question: what is it about relationship with God that seems to extend life?
One of the most rigorous modern attempts to answer this question was by Shanshan Li, Meir J. Stampfer, David R. Williams and Tyler J. VanderWeele, published in JAMA Internal Medicine (2016). It followed 74,534 women for twenty years.
Women who regularly gathered for Bible reading and preaching; for fellowship, singing and giving; and for prayer, as an expression of relationship with God, had a 33 % lower risk of all‑cause mortality than those who never did. And this even after adjusting for age, income, diet, and health behaviours.
As Snr author Tyler VanderWeele, PhD explained: “Our results suggest that attending Christian services increases social support, discourages smoking, decreases depression, and helps people develop a more optimistic or hopeful outlook.”
The protective pattern ran through lower smoking, lower alcohol use, fewer depressive symptoms; and additionally through greater optimism, stronger social ties, and clearer purpose. A lived walk with Jesus, expressed publicly among others, tracked most clearly with longevity.
Private spirituality, detached from obedience and community, seldom shows the same effect. Data from the General Social Survey linked to the National Death Index similarly show that weekly gathered worship (not private prayer alone) predicts longevity.
Christianity here works as a shared, embodied obedience to Jesus: repeated, public, relational, and disciplined. Love for Christ becomes habit; habit becomes humility; humility becomes sustained health over many years.
Decades before modern epidemiology, aged‑care workers noticed something similar. The EPESE study (part of the NIH’s Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly) tracked 3,968 older adults aged 64–101 in North Carolina from 1986 to 1992.
Those attending gatherings weekly had a 46 % lower risk of death over six years — strongest in women but present in men too. A social worker on the project said: “Church gives you people who will notice if you disappear.” That noticing— phone calls, meals, prayers— flows from shared life under Christ, sustaining purpose and care.
Loneliness is now recognised as a mortality risk factor on par with smoking. Christian community, formed around love for Jesus, dismantles loneliness through expectation, prayer, obligation, and presence, enhancing mental and physical health.
In a 2020 analysis by Tobias Ebert, Jochen Gebauer, Jildou Talman, and P. Jason Rentfrow (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2020), researchers coded 6,400 gravestones across U.S. counties. People who openly lived devotion to God lived about 2.2 years longer, but only where such devotion was socially supported.
Where walking with the Lord was marginalised, the longevity advantage disappeared. Commitment to Jesus does not flourish in isolation; it thrives where shared discipleship is normal and welcomed.
This helps explain a grim pattern in many Western countries: when the elderly are removed from family and church life and placed into institutional aged care, post‑entry life expectancy often falls between two and six years.
I was an aged care Chaplain in high care residential facilities, and witnessed this often. As soon as residents were admitted, in many if not most cases their general health and mental health began to deteriorate almost immediately. Being admitted to such a facility meant an almost certain increase in mortality.
Geriatricians, counsellors and other Chaplains notice the same pattern: loss of purpose, spiritual rhythms, and being needed, precede decline. It seemed to me that residents died of nothing in particular except lack of community. Because community, family, and meaning, are what sustain life.
The contrast with so called “Blue Zone” cultures that resist isolating the old is striking. In Sardinia (Barbagia region of Italy) longevity correlates with multigenerational households, daily social contact, and modest diets; and with faith‑shaped rhythms embedded in ordinary life.
Grandparents bless grandchildren, attend Mass, discuss meaning, and are consulted, not warehoused. Belief in God might not be intense, but it is woven into everyday life, stabilising heart and body alike. I have new friend, Warren, 9 years my senior. And even his 9 extra years of wisdom and experience is instructive and fascinating for me. More years can mean more wisdom.
In Okinawa, research into ikigai (a reason to rise each morning) and moai (lifelong support groups) shows similar patterns: elderly adults are encouraged, indeed expected, to serve, contribute, and belong- not merely to be housed. And they are thanked, praised and appreciated for it. These factors overlap with what Christian discipleship fosters.
Comparing Okinawa and Loma Linda US reveals striking similarities: purpose, restraint, rhythm; also, belonging, social connection, and communal responsibility. A life shaped by Jesus cultivates these things as well.
Other Blue Zones include the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica, a region where people are more than twice as likely as Americans to reach age 90, with a diet rich in corn, beans, and squash (the “3 Sisters”). Also Ikaria, Greece, an island with low rates of middle-age mortality and dementia, attributed to a Mediterranean diet and relaxed lifestyle.
Emerging Blue Zones: recently researchers have identified potential new or emerging Blue Zones, with Singapore being labelled a “Blue Zone 2.0” due to engineered longevity through public policy rather than traditional habits.
- Move Naturally,
2. Purpose (Ikigai/Plan de Vida),
3. ”Down Shift” (stress reduction),
4.” 80% Rule” (eat until 80% full),
5. ”Plant Slant”,
6. ”Wine @ 5”,
7. Belong (faith/community),
8.”Loved Ones First”, and
9.”Right Tribe” (supportive social circles).
These 9 things are often present in communities that produce centenarians. And I n a qualitative study of sixteen 100+ers by Lydia K. Manning, Jessie A. Leek, and M. Elise Radina, many described surrender to Jesus as central to their longevity. One woman said, “The important part of my history is that God’s been in my life all the time… my Bible is so worn out now it’s funny looking.”
Another centenarian in that study said, “God has brought me through it all. He’s been with me every day and brought me through everything.” Herman, one of the participants, wept as he said, “I love God so much… that’s the secret to my long life— being with God and depending on Him.”
Back in Loma Linda, many older believers testify to similar experiences. A centenarian Christian in another study said, “I believe I will be here as long as God has a purpose for me.” Psychologists increasingly emphasise the internal dimension too: secure attachment to God functions like a stable attachment relationship, reducing rumination and catastrophic thinking that elevate physiological stress.
Prayer and Scripture reading foster cognitive reframing, forgiveness lowers blood pressure and inflammatory markers, and hope anchored in resurrection tempers chronic stress, sustaining resilience.
European data from Konstantinos Christopoulos (2023) show that active participation in God‑centred communal life correlates with lower mortality among 16,062 older adults – even after adjusting for wealth, education, and health status.
A psychologist observing these findings noted that people walking with God often possess a “coherent life narrative that absorbs loss without collapse,” which protects heart and mind, indirectly bolstering longevity.
Family structures shaped by obedience to Jesus also matter: stable marriage, durable friendships, intergenerational care; also, shared meals, caregiving, practical support. These are not merely moral goods. They are biological ones.
Chronic stress shortens telomeres (protective chromosome caps that prevent DNA fraying- like the little plastic “aglets” on the end of shoe laces). Each cell division shortens them; when too short, cells age faster. Stability, calm, and surrender to Jesus appear to slow this shortening.
A 2008 meta‑analysis of 69 studies found that sustained engagement in God‑oriented practices linked with reduced mortality (pooled hazard ratio ~0.82) in healthy populations. This is further evidence that discipleship reshapes life trajectories long before crisis.
Which brings us to Jesus himself. Christianity does not promise long life. Its eponymous Founder was no centenarian, but died young under Roman execution. Yet His life, death as our substitute in love, resurrection, ascension, and coronation in heaven reveal a blueprint for abundant life.
By bearing the penalty we deserved, Jesus frees believers from our just judgment and crushing guilt and fear. It reduces stress that damages body and mind. His resurrection gives purpose; in the past, as He conquers death. In the present, by giving us new life. And in the future, by marking Him out as the returning judge.
His ascension assures our eternal belonging. And walking with Him fosters stability, rhythm, trust, and consistent obedience— all of which are linked to longevity. Jesus does not evade or postpone death; he defeats it by passing through it. Surrender to a crucified and risen King not only provides forgiveness and rescue, but leads to patience, restraint, and rest. And a sure and certain hope.
These are slow disciplines, working over decades, not weeks. And Dr Wareham understood this intuitively as he joyously played that most frustrating and pointless of games, golf. Late in life, asked whether he feared dying, he replied, “No. I’m in God’s hands.” But the delightful twist in the tail is that the Dr outlived many of his peers not because he pursued longevity, but because he ordered his life around loving and obeying Jesus.
The studies confirm what the stories show: when people surrender their lives to Christ- adopting his rhythms, his community, and his hope— they often live longer. And live lives that are happier, healthier, relationally satisfied, and sometimes even more successful. That can be the problem with the prosperity Gospel lie sometimes- it’s a half truth, just like all the most clever lies.
And when people whom Jesus has forgiven finally die, those extra years were never the point. The point is belonging to a King who reigns beyond death, and learning how to live as though that were already true.
(Links added by The Other Cheek)
Image: Ethel May Caterham at 115, the oldest living human as this article is published. Image credit: Hallmark Care Homes
I receive a Time Magazine article in probably the late 1960s reporting on greater longevity and better overall health among religious believers. I can’t recall if it was specifically Christians or religion in general.
I remember that the incidence of chronic bronchitis and fatal one vehicle accidents was lower.
The article pointed out that among those researched were Adventists, so I presume Loma Linda was involved. The article pointed to the dietary practices of Adventists together with very low consumption of alcohol or use of tobacco, all of which would lower overall scores.
The conclusion was that hymn singing probably helps clear the tubes.