Many of us hold a Bible in one hand and a newspaper (newsfeed?) in the other, as theologian Karl Barth recommended. Unfortunately, we tend to hear more bad news than good. Stories about indignities against human life and a broad indifference to the state of creation have become commonplace. Sometimes I feel like the disciples on the lake during a squall. Finding Jesus asleep, they cry, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” (see Matthew 8:25). Or, as the worship group The Porter’s Gate sings it, “Jesus, when you gonna wake up and calm this raging sea?”

CALCULATING HAPPINESS

Every now and then, a good news story breaks through. One such story comes from a recent study that declares happiness still exists in the world.

The World Happiness Report, published annually by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, surveys people in more than 140 countries. The 2025 report claims the happiest nations are Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden, with Finland taking first place for the eighth consecutive year. Canada ranks much lower at 18. The United States wanders in at 24. Although Bermuda is not included, I certainly remember being happy when I lived there as a child.

The survey appraises happiness by asking participants to rate their lives along the Cantril ladder. The rungs of the Cantril ladder are numbered from zero, signalling the “worst possible life,” to 10, signalling the “best possible life.” Beside the ladder are other descriptive words. Toward the top rung is “thriving.” Midway down, “struggling” appears. At the bottom, we find “suffering.” Issues such as suicide, substance abuse and political populism are named here. In contrast, living the best possible life—being happy—is tied to good health, low stress and prosperity.

THE BODY OF CHRIST UNDERSTANDS THAT THE HAPPINESS OF ONE MEMBER STRENGTHENS THE WHOLE BODY, AND THAT THE SUFFERING OF ONE MEMBER IS BORNE COLLECTIVELY THROUGH THAT STRENGTH.

By this measure, a person cannot be happy in low times nor miserable in good times. This makes me suspicious about how happiness is calculated. Suffering caused by mental illness can happen in countries where wealth and publicly funded health care are present. And I’ve received genuine grins from people living in tent camps.

So, what makes Nordic citizens so much happier?

According to the survey, Nordic cultures encourage strong kinship. It’s not that individual autonomy is unimportant. It’s that benevolent relationships are normative. They are so common, in fact, that the remainder of the report outlines how happiness is shaped by values such as trust, kindness and generosity. These values are demonstrated through practical actions: eating and living together, caring for strangers and volunteering in communities of faith.

A vivid example of this benevolence comes from a New York Times writer, who compares her experiences of visiting libraries, one in Brooklyn and another in Helsinki, Finland. Libraries are meant to be quiet places, but how silence is encouraged influences why we keep quiet. In the Brooklyn library, signs read, “Please keep your voice down.” The library signs in Helsinki read, “Please let others work in peace.” Both request silence but for markedly different reasons. Brooklyn patrons are asked to control themselves. Helsinki patrons are asked to consider the needs of others. 

WHAT IS HAPPINESS, ANYWAY?

The Christian faith upholds the truth that relationships are a crucial part of human identity. In Scripture, we find the first human being isolated and lonely until God creates a second person (see Genesis 2:18-25). Yet not all relationships—even those shaped by benevolence—guarantee happiness. Perhaps we need to ask, what is happiness, anyway?

There’s no shortage of answers to this question. Some say happiness is an emotional response to a positive experience or memory. Accordingly, happiness is not consistent or reliable. It comes and goes. Others say happiness is not about immediate gratification but is achieved through living a virtuous life. Doing and being good, though, is challenging and not always satisfying. And then there’s the theory that happiness isn’t happiness without a violin-playing goat.

That’s a joke I share with my husband, borrowed from the movie Notting Hill. An actor-cum-asylum seeker, Anna Scott, makes the comment when she sees La Mariée, a painting by Marc Chagall, hanging in bookstore owner Will Thacker’s blue-doored sanctuary. The jest leads the couple to a happily-ever-after ending. But maybe this idea of happiness is more than a whimsical notion.

Animals playing stringed instruments were a common trope for Chagall. Some interpret it as his way of observing how joy pops up in the strangest places—even the darkest places found in the deep blue background of La Mariée. After all, Chagall’s life wasn’t without tragedy. Originally from Belarus, he sought art education and inspiration in Russia only to leave for France in 1923 due to poverty and political unease. Later, in 1941, he escaped to the United States after being stripped of his French citizenship and arrested by the Vichy government.

A violin is light enough for travel. Its strings, capable of fiddling out sorrow and delight, sing the human condition the world over. 

WHO IS BLESSED?

The 2025 report wraps happiness up in a quote from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: The quality of mercy “blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” Do unto others, we might chime in.

What else does Scripture say about happiness?

In the New Testament, the Greek word for happiness is makarios. Appearing 50 times, its definition is more complex than striving to live a virtuous life or appreciating something positive. Most often, our English Bibles translate makarios as “blessed.” Makarios is that blessed assurance we have when we know, no matter what we are going through, that God is with us. We may feel alone, but we are not alone.

Who are the blessed? Here, the Bible differs from the World Happiness Report. They are not people in good health, experiencing low stress and prosperity. Jesus says they are poor, hungry, downtrodden, grieving and persecuted (see Matthew 5:1-12 and Luke 6:20-26). They want to be righteous and merciful. They want to make peace. But it’s hard to do these things when excluded from society. When Jesus walks their way, they learn that the devilish temptations of wealth, power and prestige run contrary to God’s kingdom (see Matthew 4:1-11). In Jesus, they see that God is with them.

Like Jesus, the Apostle Paul does not separate happiness from suffering. Paul knows that living on earth as in heaven is something we do best together as the body of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 12). The body of Christ is not just a gathering of people with similar beliefs who like each other. It’s a community that includes diverse membership—feet, hands, eyes, ears—living in solidarity. The body of Christ understands that the happiness of one member strengthens the whole body, and that the suffering of one member is borne collectively through that strength.

Yet throughout the Acts of the Apostles and in his own writing, we see Paul undergo oppressive persecution and isolation in prison. How does Paul know he is blessed? How does he know he is not alone?

Paul embraces the kind of weakness his culture despises. In the deepest way, he is convinced that happiness and suffering can exist side by side only because of God’s presence. Perhaps the Corinthian Christians, proud and prone to disobedience, would have been surprised to hear Paul say he boasts “all the more gladly” (hēdeōs, or undergoing something “with pleasure” or “willingly”) when he suffers for Jesus (see 2 Corinthians 12:9- 10). Perhaps the Philippian Christians, humble and subject to persecution, were comforted to hear Paul say it is possible to find joy (chara) when isolated from community (see Philippians 1:8, 25 and 3:1).

So, what is happiness? What I know is that it’s not something that happens merely because we nurture kinship, though we should, or something that feels positive, though it can. It comes from Jesus: God’s good news of great joy for all people (see Luke 2:10).

The World Happiness Survey shares practical ways to be happy together. And we are better human beings when we are concerned with the needs of others. But solidarity doesn’t prevent squalls from appearing on the horizon. When we batten down the hatches, let’s not forget that a violin-playing goat—God’s joyful surprise—can pop up when we least expect it. 

DR. AIMEE PATTERSON (AimeePatterson.com) is a Christian ethics consultant at The Salvation Army Ethics Centre in Winnipeg.

Photo: Sabrina/stock.Adobe.com

This story is from: