The Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project affirms that religiously active people are more likely to engage in civic activities than others. The authors say their findings counter the view that religiously active people are less engaged with the secular world.

The report found that 40 percent of Americans engage in some form of religious activity such as going to a church, synagogue or mosque, and feel better about their place in the larger civic community. They tend to be more trusting of others and more optimistic about their impact on their community and are more active in groups.

Religious teachings have a component of helping others at their core, points out Eugene Fisher, a professor of Catholic-Jewish studies at Saint Leo University, in Florida. “Civic participation would be a natural result of that push to help your fellow man,” he says.

The study similarly reveals a high level of digital participation by religiously engaged folks. Media expert Paul Levinson, author of New New Media, says, “The Internet is an amplifier of all that each of us are in our humanity.”