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Deaths of Despair and the Decline of American Religion (Tamar Oostrom)
What does repealing Sunday shopping laws have to do with rising rates of suicide, alcohol deaths, and drug overdoses? More than you might expect. In this episode of Thinking Christian, I sit down with Dr. Tamar Oostrom, health economist at The Ohio State University, to walk through her research on blue laws, religious decline, and what the data reveals about the hidden costs of losing community.
The paper's central finding is striking: states that repealed blue laws — the Sunday retail restrictions that once made church the default social gathering of the week — saw measurable…
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