Faith-Based Medicine
RESPONSIBLE religious leaders will breathe a sigh of relief at the news that so-called intercessory prayer is medically ineffective. In a large and much touted scientific study, one group of patients was told that strangers would pray for them, a second group was told strangers might or might not pray for them, and a third group was not prayed for at all. The $2.4 million study found that the strangers' prayers did not help patients' recovery.
The results of the study, led by Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and director of the Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston, came as welcome news. That may sound odd coming from an ordained minister. But if it could ever be persuasively demonstrated that such prayer "works," our religious institutions and meeting places would be degraded to a kind of commercial enterprise, like Burger King, where one expects to get what one pays for.
Historically, religions have promoted many kinds of prayer. Prayers of praise, thanksgiving and repentance have been highly esteemed, while intercessions of the kind done in the Benson study — appeals to God to take some action — are of lesser importance. They represent a less-respected magical wing of religion.
Read The Full Article in the New York Times
The results of the study, led by Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and director of the Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston, came as welcome news. That may sound odd coming from an ordained minister. But if it could ever be persuasively demonstrated that such prayer "works," our religious institutions and meeting places would be degraded to a kind of commercial enterprise, like Burger King, where one expects to get what one pays for.
Historically, religions have promoted many kinds of prayer. Prayers of praise, thanksgiving and repentance have been highly esteemed, while intercessions of the kind done in the Benson study — appeals to God to take some action — are of lesser importance. They represent a less-respected magical wing of religion.
Read The Full Article in the New York Times
posted by Raymond @ 9:39 AM
1 Comments:
At 9:33 AM,
Anonymous said…
Reading your op-ed and some readers' comments on another blog, some questions regarding theology--not the study's conception or its results--came to mind. As a seminary graduate myself, I acknowledge the complexity of the theological thought behind how we understand the activity of God and the manifest redemptive work of Christ. But if you could highlight the most important presuppositions or theological joints, that would be great.
One question is how one ought to understand apostolic teaching in the New Testament (e.g., James 5) to pray for physical healing. Second, how does Jesus' healing ministry as a human and the healing ministry of the early church of Acts (assuming Acts and the Gospels are historically reliable) inform or instruct today's church--in the West as well as in Asia and Africa? Finally, how do you read passages of prophetic books (e.g., Isaiah 35) that seem to promise a salvation that involves physical healing; do you see the coming of Jesus as the onset of that dimension of salvation?
I don't come from a mainstream denominational background, so please forgive any ignorance. Physical healing through the authority of Jesus Christ accords with sound Christian theology, in my view. I don't mean to get into vigorous debate necessarily; I ask the questions for clues to where my thought diverges from yours. Thank you.
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