2 of 3

The two groups that were unsure of whether they were receiving prayer were also compared. One group actually received prayer (the same group mentioned above), while the other did not. This time, the group that had received prayer experienced more major complications than the group without additional prayer. In other words, the study seemed to show that prayer—at least prayer from strangers—might be bad for one's health. The results were disappointing to those who had hoped to see the positive effects of additional intercessory prayer. (They also may have been surprising to skeptics who were expecting no effect at all.)

Many have questioned the validity of the study, including the authors themselves, who worried that "… being aware of the strangers' prayers … may have caused some of the patients a kind of performance anxiety. It may have made them uncertain, wondering, am I so sick that they had to call in their prayer team?" Evangelicals' responses have included the observation that many of the patients, after all, were either praying for themselves or had friends and family praying for them (96 percent reported having others praying for them). This reality could drown out any effect of the additional prayers. Other Christians claim that intercessory prayer investigations are problematic, given the various New Testament examples of physical healing through direct, in-person prayers—a scenario that would be impossible to test in any double-blind way. A third response has been, as one high-profile hospital chaplain said, that "God is not subject to scientific research."

C.S. Lewis anticipated a carefully designed prayer study, but did not think it would show any positive, measurable "results." "The trouble is that I do not see how any real prayer could go on under such conditions," Lewis said. "Simply to say prayers is not to pray; otherwise a team of properly trained parrots would serve as well as men for our experiment." He argued that this approach to prayer treats it "as if it were magic, or a machine—something that functions automatically"—an accusation unintentionally but prophetically aimed at STEP and the other well-meaning attempts to measure the effects of prayer. If Lewis is right, such attempts always end up trying to measure something more akin to magic than a real movement of God.

Ironically, STEP actually supports the Christian worldview. Our prayers are nothing at all like magical incantations. Our God bears no resemblance to a vending machine. The real scandal of the study is not that the prayed-for group did worse, but that the not-prayed-for group received just as much, if not more, of God's blessings. In other words, God seems to have granted favor without regard to either the quantity or even the quality of the prayers. By instinct, we might selfishly prefer that God give preferential treatment to those who are especially, deliberately, and correctly prayed for, but he seems to act otherwise.

True to his character, God appears inclined to heal and bless as many as possible. It is as if he can barely restrain himself—though he often does—from supernaturally intervening and disrupting the nature of the universe to care for those he loves, whether they acknowledge it or not. Did God answer the prayers of the study's official prayer teams? Yes. But more than that, he answered the prayers of the patients, of their friends and relatives, and perhaps even of those who may not have known they were praying.

next page... |  2 of 3

share this page

May 2009, Vol. 53, No. 5