Religious Belongingness Matters for Neighborliness, NOT Religious Believing

The following excerpt is from The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt. Within the excerpt Haidt sights findings from Putnam and Campbell's 2010 book, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. It is interesting because it illuminates an irony about many Christians who emphasize "correct belief" (i.e. orthodoxy) whereas modern polling shows "correct belief" not to be a reliable predictor of neighborliness and good citizenship. 

"Why are religious people better neighbors and citizens? To find out, Putnam and Campbell included on one of their surveys a long list of questions about religious beliefs (e.g., "Do you believe in hell? Do you agree that we will all be called before God to answer for our sins?") as well as questions about religious practices (e.g., "How often do you read holy scriptures? How often do you pray?) These beliefs and practices turned out to matter very little. Whether you believe in hell, whether you pray daily, whether you are a Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or Mormon ... none of these things correlated with generosity. The only thing that was reliable and powerfully associated with the moral benefits of religion was how enmeshed people were in relationships with their co-religionists.It's the friendships and groups activities, carried out within a moral matrix that emphasizes selflessness. That's what brings out the best in people.
Putnam and Campbell reject the New Atheist emphasis on belief and reach a conclusion straight out of Durkheim: "It is religious belongingness that matters for neighborliness, not religious believing."