From editorial director of print Ashley Hales: Fairly soon after I started my current position at CT, I had a query in my inbox from researchers at Baylor and Harvard who had done a major global study around human flourishing. Several of them were Christians.

I was intrigued. Here were mountains of data—a five-year study of over 200,000 people around the world—explaining how flourishing was about more than money. I could imagine their findings helping equip pastors to talk about the benefits of community building, church attendance, and loving our neighbors and to have the data to back it up.

We worked with them on a feature for our May/June issue; Christianity Today was the premier Christian outlet to share the results of the first wave of data. Our fact-checkers loved how detail-oriented the researchers were, with every source expertly cited, and our art director, Jared Boggess, created a scatterplot of their flourishing scores against economic production in the 22 countries, showing that "you can’t buy happiness."

This week, the scholars who worked on the study also landed an op-ed in The New York Times, noting that countries without economic prosperity still scored high for flourishing when "rich in friendships, marriages and community involvement—especially involvement in religious communities." While some of the Times readers were skeptical about the value the research placed on religious attendance, it’s something we at CT can celebrate.