TruthBook Religious News Blog

By Wendy Cadge
June 25, 2009

Can the efficacy of prayer be determined through a double-blind clinical trial? Do studies measure prayer in ways that even make sense? Perhaps we’re learning more about medical science than about the healing power of prayer.
Image of Buddhist Monk performing healing ceremony courtesy of kevsunblush under Creative Commons license.

On March 31, 2006, the New York Times published a front page article under the headline, “Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer.” The article reported the results of a multiyear study designed to determine whether prayers offered by strangers influenced the recovery of people undergoing heart surgery—they did not.

Published in the prominent American Heart Journal, this was the latest in a line of medical research studies published over the past forty years that sought the answer to this hotly debated question.

But do these findings actually lead to a final conclusion that intercessory prayer does not help people recover from heart surgery? Can such a question be answered through a double-blind clinical trial? Is prayer “measured” in these studies in ways that even make sense?

The health care providers I interviewed for my book about religion and spirituality in hospitals asked me some of these questions; wanting to know what I thought about intercessory prayer studies as a scholar of religion. Knowing nothing about them I began to read, recently publishing in the Journal of Religion what I believe to be the first social history of medical studies of intercessory prayer.

Between 1965 and 2006, about 75 researchers working in small teams published eighteen research articles in English language medical literature reporting on intercessory prayer studies. The Cochrane Review (an organization that compiles medical studies on specific topics to offer clear recommendations) analyzed the literature—first in the 1990s, and several times since. While initially they suggested further study of intercessory prayer, TCR recently called for an end to such studies.

The efficacy of prayer as an adjunct to healing has been debated for many years. First it was thought to be effective, then, not. And now, the debate is rekindled. Please click on "external source" to access the complete article.

Labels: healing, intercessory prayer, prayer, Wendy Cadge

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