Nov. 6, 2001 -- Here's more evidence that -- in medicine, as in all of life -- prayer seems to work in mysterious ways.In one recent study, women at an in vitro fertilization clinic had higher pregnancy rates when total strangers were praying for them. Another study finds that people undergoing risky cardiovascular surgery have fewer complications when they are the focus of prayer groups.
This is intriguing. I also found this interesting:
Seven prayer groups of varying denominations around the world -- Buddhists, Catholics, Moravians, Jews, fundamentalist Christians, Baptists, and the Unity School of Christianity -- prayed for specific patients during their procedures.
The researchers are careful to state that evidence is not conclusive:
"Although it's not statistical proof, it's not certainty, it is suggestive -- to the point that we've already begun a phase II trial."
Herbal medicines were once considered magical; perhaps the same is true with prayer. Focused attention may have power. Belief in a specific concept of god does not appear to matter.
I weigh these findings with an article I ready by John Shelby Spong:
In 1981 my wife Joan received a cancer diagnosis that was determined in all probability to be fatal. Because we were a well-known and publicly identified family (I was Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, New Jersey), the news became public knowledge almost immediately. resources of our people and our friends were quickly mobilized. Prayer groups throughout the diocese and even in ecumenical settings added my wife to their list of special intentions. Her name was spoken regularly during the prayers of the people in public worship in almost all of our churches. Those actions communicated concern, caring, and love to both of us, and we received that caring with deep appreciation. Remission did appear to have been achieved, and Joan lived for six and a half years from diagnosis to death.
This was beyond anything the doctors had led us to believe was possible. As this realization of a prolonged remission began to dawn, the people who were most concerned and whose prayers were the most intense began to take credit for her longevity. “Our prayers are working,” they claimed. “God is using our prayers to keep this malevolent disease at bay.” Perhaps there was present still that ancient but unspoken assumption that this sickness was the work of the devil and that this evil work was being thwarted by the power of God loosed through the prayers of God’s people.Despite my gratitude for the embracing love that these people demonstrated, both for me and for my wife, I could not help but be troubled at their explanations. Suppose, I queried to myself alone, that a sanitation worker in Newark, probably the city with the lowest per capita income in the United States, has a wife who had received the same diagnosis. Because he is not a high-profile person, well connected to a large network of people, socially prominent, or covered by the press, the sickness of his wife never comes to public attention. Suppose he is not a religiously oriented person and thus prayer groups and individual petitions in hundreds of churches are not offered on his wife’s behalf.
Would that affect the course of her sickness? Would she live less time from diagnosis to death, endure more obvious pain, or face a more difficult dying? If so, would that not be to attribute to God not only a capricious nature, but also a value system shaped by human importance and the worldly standards of social elitism? Would I be interested in worshipping a God who would treat my wife differently because we had had opportunities in life that the sanitation worker had not had? Do I want to attribute to the deity a behavior pattern based on human status?
I am interested to see further research.
Ginny