Prayer doesn't work, if you can believe a pair of medical researchers whose paper appears in today's edition of the American Heart Journal. Then again, what it may instead prove is that the Templeton Foundation's grant review process isn't working quite as well as it should.
A March 30 Associated Press article reports on the $2.4 million study which involved 1,800 patients at six medical centers. Apparently, the research team decided to test the effect of having three groups of Christians pray for particular patients, "starting the night before surgery and continuing for two weeks. The volunteers prayed for 'a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications' for specific patients -- their identities known only by first name and first initial of the last name."
What was the result? "The study looked for any complications within 30 days of the surgery. Results showed no effect of prayer on complication-free recovery. But among patients who did receive prayers, 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for developed a complication, versus 52 percent of those who were told it was just a possibility." (Click here if you'd like to read the AP article.)
The primary outcome of the study is actually the recognition that some people don't understand prayer. Apart from a few televangelists who may describe prayer as a magical or mechanical process that can be turned on and off (if you've got the right prayer cloth to lay atop your TV), most believers know that prayer is an intimate communication with God, and that the God we serve doesn't participate in research studies.
(FYI - the article last week on John Wooden was written by Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated)
2 comments:
Isn't there a verse about God making the ways of the wise seem foolish? It's always great to watch science try to put God in a bottle!
The day before that study was released, I got this quote from heartlight: "A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol." -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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