Ohio State News is the official news service of The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. On December 18, 2025, Ohio State News published a university-conducted study linking the decline in church attendance to a corresponding rise in what researchers describe as “deaths of despair.” Researchers at the university reported that when laws were changed to allow stores and businesses to open on Sundays, fewer people went to church, and over time more people began to struggle with alcohol, drug use, suicide, death, and disparity. The researchers suggest that the loss of blue laws played a role in the rise of death and the breakdown in society.
Ohio State News released the following:
• “Researchers found that states that had the largest declines in churchgoing from 1985 to 2000 also had larger increases in death by drug overdoses, suicide and alcoholic liver disease – what have been called deaths of despair.” [1]
• “The link between declining churchgoing and increased mortality was found among both men and women, in both rural and urban areas of the United States.” [1]
• “In order to further confirm that link, the researchers analyzed the repeal of ‘blue laws’ that had prohibited many stores and businesses from doing business on Sunday, eliminating competition from going to church.” [1]
• “The largest repeal of blue laws occurred in 1985, when Minnesota, South Carolina and Texas all repealed their laws. The researchers compared those three states to others.” [1]
• “Findings showed that the repeal of blue laws led to a 5- to 10-percentage-point decrease in weekly attendance of religious services, and later an increase in the rate of deaths of despair in those states.” [1]
• “Religion may provide some way of making sense of the world, some sense of identity in relation to others, that can’t easily be replaced by other forms of socialization.” [1]
• “The results raise the question of whether a return to participation in organized religion, or maybe other secular community organizations, could reverse these mortality trends.” [1]
Researchers at Ohio State University are arguing that repealing laws that once restricted commercial activity on Sundays has not only weakened church attendance and community cohesion but has also directly contributed to rising levels of mental distress and premature death. The article portrays blue laws as a stabilizing social structure and suggests that renewed participation in religion could help reverse the negative trends now evident in society. This is the kind of “science” that will help to reopen the debate over restoring a shared weekly day of rest—potentially through the language of public health or social crisis—providing a pathway for the state to justify renewed Sunday-closing legislation.
By citing statistics that link the repeal of blue laws to increased rates of suicide, drug overdoses, and alcohol-related deaths, the study provides lawmakers with “evidence-based” justification to argue that unrestricted Sunday commerce has produced serious social harm, thereby popularizing the idea that state intervention through Sunday restrictions should be a legitimate remedy.
They further claim that meaningful participation in church life can help reverse this growing health crisis. In this context, Sunday laws are presented as a solution that would restore a shared day of rest, rebuild community bonds, and reduce mental health struggles and substance abuse. Under this narrative, Sunday legislation is cast as both reasonable and necessary in the name of public well-being and the common good.
We need to wake up to the reality that society is preparing for Sunday laws, and this moment calls for faithfulness to the prophetic mission of Revelation 14:6-12. We have a solemn work to inform people that enforced Sunday observance—no matter how benevolent it is being framed—stands in direct opposition to God’s law and will become a test of loyalty. As history repeats itself, God’s people must rise to proclaim present truth with urgency, helping others understand what is coming and preparing them, spiritually, to stand in the days ahead:
“The Sabbath question is to be the issue in the great final conflict in which all the world will act a part. Men have honored Satan’s principles above the principles that rule in the heavens. They have accepted the spurious sabbath, which Satan has exalted as the sign of his authority. But God has set His seal upon His royal requirement. Each sabbath institution bears the name of its author, an ineffaceable mark that shows the authority of each. It is our work to lead the people tounderstand this. We are to show them that it is of vital consequence whether they bear the mark of God’s kingdom or the mark of the kingdom of rebellion, for they acknowledge themselves subjects of the kingdom whose mark they bear. God has called us to uplift the standard of His downtrodden Sabbath” (Testimonies, Vol. 6, p. 352).
Sources
[1] https://news.osu.edu/a-decline-in-churchgoing-linked-to-more-deaths-of-despair/
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No one is clamoring for forced Sunday observance here. Many countries in Europe have blue laws and none of them require church attendance. Europe is also more secular than the USA.
Forced Sunday observance is the very definition of Blue Laws.
Sunday worship came from the pagan worship of the sun god.
Each pagan nation had a sun god with different names, but it’s obvious it is satan spreading these false religions to the heathens seeking for the whloe world to worship him; he is the one who they were worshipping.
Baal the sun god is satan.
We can see the evidence in scripture that the a star(sun) symbolic represents an angel. So its fitting that satan will us a star or sun to be his mark. Also, the sun is in the sky duirng the day the longest on the first day 9f the week, which is why the pagans worshipped the sun on that day.
Then rome mingled this day of worship with Christianity, but it was a clever deception of satan to switch out God’s seal – the sign of his authority from the early Christians day of worship the – 7th day Sabbath – Saturday, for satan’s mark of his authority, sunday.
the mark of the beast isn’t just the papal mark, but it is satan’s mark. Sun(day) worship is. What satan cannot destroy he counterfeits.
Could you imagine the world is deceived with this when the 4th Commandment of God’s Holy Law pointing to His autbority as Lord, God, and Creator begins with Remember!!?:
“And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; ”
Revelation 8:10 KJV
“The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches. ”
Revelation 1:20 KJV
“12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? ”
Isaiah 14:12-17 KJV
“The iniquity and spiritual darkness that prevailed under the supremacy of Rome were the inevitable result of her suppression of the Scriptures; but where is to be found the cause of the widespread infidelity, the rejection of the law of God, and the consequent corruption, under the full blaze of gospel light in an age of religious freedom? Now that Satan can no longer keep the world under his control by withholding the Scriptures, he resorts to other means to accomplish the same object. To destroy faith in the Bible serves his purpose as well as to destroy the Bible itself. By introducing the belief that God’s law is not binding, he as effectually leads men to transgress as if they were wholly ignorant of its precepts. And now, as in former ages, he has worked through the church to further his designs. The religious organizations of the day have refused to listen to unpopular truths plainly brought to view in the Scriptures, and in combating them they have adopted interpretations and taken positions which have sown broadcast the seeds of skepticism. Clinging to the papal error of natural immortality and man’s consciousness in death, they have rejected the only defense against the delusions of spiritualism. The doctrine of eternal torment has led many to disbelieve the Bible. And as the claims of the fourth commandment are urged upon the people, it is found that the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath is enjoined; and as the only way to free themselves from a duty which they are unwilling to perform, many popular teachers declare that the law of God is no longer binding. Thus they cast away the law and the Sabbath together. As the work of Sabbath reform extends, this rejection of the divine law to avoid the claims of the fourth commandment will become well-nigh universal. The teachings of religious leaders have opened the door to infidelity, to spiritualism, and to contempt for God’s holy law; and upon these leaders rests a fearful responsibility for the iniquity that exists in the Christian world.
Yet this very class put forth the claim that the fast-spreading corruption is largely attributable to the desecration of the so-called “Christian sabbath,” and that the enforcement of Sunday observance would greatly improve the morals of society. This claim is especially urged in America, where the doctrine of the true Sabbath has been most widely preached. Here the temperance work, one of the most prominent and important of moral reforms, is often combined with the Sunday movement, and the advocates of the latter represent themselves as laboring to promote the highest interest of society; and those who refuse to unite with them are denounced as the enemies of temperance and reform. But the fact that a movement to establish error is connected with a work which is in itself good, is not an argument in favor of the error. We may disguise poison by mingling it with wholesome food, but we do not change its nature. On the contrary, it is rendered more dangerous, as it is more likely to be taken unawares. It is one of Satan’s devices to combine with falsehood just enough truth to give it plausibility. The leaders of the Sunday movement may advocate reforms which the people need, principles which are in harmony with the Bible; yet while there is with these a requirement which is contrary to God’s law, His servants cannot unite with them. Nothing can justify them in setting aside the commandments of God for the precepts of men.” Ellen G. White, ‘Great Controversy’ pages 586.2 – GC 587.1