These criticisms illustrate the intrinsic difficulty in studying prayer in humans. There are so many factors, variables, and individual variations that it is hard …if not impossible… to eliminate these variables and only focus on the entity you are interested in: prayer, in this case.
The next logical step, given this difficulty, is to study prayer and its effects on non-human systems. The use of non-human subjects somewhat simplifies the design and increases the statistical validity. In many experiments of this nature only the activity you are interested in testing is changed. Again the literature on this approach is vast. It appears that there are even more published studies on prayer’s healing ability on animals and plants than on people!
Dr. Dan Benor summarized the findings of many of these studies in a paper he authored. He reviewed 131 studies that specifically focused on prayer’s effects on plants and animals, and in 56 he found statistically significant evidence of a positive impact on the organism.(6)
This type of study makes many people in the Christian community uncomfortable. Some feel it degrades prayer and doesn’t respect the holiness of the act. I sympathize with their arguments and view these kinds of studies with skepticism. I have a theological problem with addressing prayer in non-human systems and the study designs tend to skew the results based on the biases of the researcher. I put little credence on these types of studies, and only present them here for completeness.
More Questions
After reviewing all the evidence, I was haunted by two questions. If prayer works, why doesn’t it always work? and Why do spiritual people get sick? The answer to the first question lies in how I asked the question. What I was really asking was, if prayer works, why doesn’t it always work as I want it to?
Are we so presumptuous to claim to know the mind of God? Can we begin to understand fully the purpose that God holds for us? When prayer doesn’t have the expected result, do we assume that God didn’t hear our petitions or do we believe that we know what is best over and above a sovereign God? I suggest not. It is through faith that we understand that all prayers are heard and answered. God answers prayers in ways that are not always congruent with our beliefs and demands. I am reminded of God’s admonition to Job when questioned about His actions. “Are you going to discredit my justice and condemn me so you can say you are right? Are you as strong as God, and can you thunder with a voice like His?” …Job 40:8–9… God’s character is one of love and goodness. Any answer to prayer is predicated on that foundation.
When we pray for someone to be healed shouldn’t that include not just physical healing but also healing of mind and spirit. To me, that is true healing. If we, as Christians, view death as an endpoint, if it represents a failure of healing prayer, then we are in for much disappointment. Death happens! It is a reality of the physical world we inhabit. Christians view death as the end of our physical bodies, but our soul carries on. Our struggle is not against death and disease, it is against sin and eternal separation from God.
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