During the past 25 years, numerous medical studies have been conducted to try to measure whether prayer has any beneficial effects on patient recovery. The experiments usually involve two randomly assigned groups of patients, and a group of ‘pray-ers’. The ‘pray-ers’ are asked to pray for the recovery of one group of patients, but not for the other. Neither staff nor patients are told whether they are being prayed for, so that any effects are attributed to the power of prayer, rather than the power of suggestion.
What is the result of such experiments? In study after study, no statistically significant difference can be discerned between the recovery of patients who are prayed for and those who aren’t. For example, Randolph Byrd conducted such an experiment on 393 coronary care patients at San Francisco General Hospital in 1988. While six prayed-for patients had better results than the others, when it came to length of stay in hospital and mortality rates, Byrd reported no difference between the two groups.
Strangely enough, these results should come as a relief to Christians, for Christians don’t actually believe in the ‘power of prayer’. Of course we believe that prayer is important—indeed, it is vital and central to what it means to be Christian. The Apostle Paul begins so many of his letters with sincere and fervent prayer—prayer for his recipients to grow in love and knowledge, and prayer for the spread of the gospel in the world (e.g. Phil 1:3-11, Col 1:9-14, Rom 1:9-10, Eph 1:15-18). He clearly believes that prayer is foundational, and he is confident that his prayers will make a profound difference.
But Paul doesn’t believe in the ‘power of prayer’. Paul prays—not because he believes in the power of prayer, but because he believes in the power (and also the wisdom and goodness) of God. Witness Philippians 1:3-11: where is Paul’s confidence in his prayer? His confidence lies in God’s ability to finish the good work that he began in the Philippians, not in the power of the prayer itself. So Paul doesn’t pray like the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18 who lacerated themselves and cried aloud to manipulate their god into waking up and doing what they want despite himself. Nor does he pray like the pagans whom Jesus mentions in Matthew 6:7 and who think that the power of prayer is in the repetition of their words. No, Paul’s prayer is a confident and joyous request to his loving heavenly King—a child coming before his good Father and asking him to graciously grant his requests.
Why did the medical studies mentioned above fail? Perhaps they failed because they treated God like a machine—a ‘supreme thing’ that may or may not respond to our scientific experimentation. But that is not at all how God asks us to pray. Prayer is all about a relationship with God. It is a request to a loving heavenly Father who loves to grant requests to his children who ask in faith (e.g. Matt 6:8, Luke 18:1-8). If my children tried to manipulate me like this, setting up conditions to see where and when I would answer their requests, I probably wouldn’t be too impressed either!
We must pray. We must pray deeply, fervently and sincerely. We must pray for the the glory of God, for the spread of the good news about Jesus Christ in our world (e.g. Matt 9:38) and, of course, we should continue to pray for those who are suffering in this broken and divided world. And as we pray, we should be confident that it will make a difference. But we must always remember that our confidence in prayer is not in our own ability to pray; rather, it is in our loving Father’s power and willingness to do what is best for his dear children as they speak to him, trusting in his wonderful grace through the Lord Jesus. What a great reason to keep praying!
Well, it kind of defeats the purpose of praying for healing for the sick though, doesn’t it.
We really should have a ban on all those types of prayers (for those with cancer to those who’ve stubbed their big toe) because (a) they don’t work, (b) they give false hope, and (c) they distract from the true nature of prayer and/or our mortality.
Lionel wonders why the prayer experiments ‘failed. But did they? From a worldly point of view, they probably did. But from a Godly perspective? Surely the ‘success’ of prayer (if that is the right word) is not to be measured by worldly effects (which is not to say we cannot rejoice in a healing as God’s work). That is the whole point of saying that we should trust not in the ‘power of prayer’ but in the power of God.
We had a conference a few years ago and the theme was “The Power of Prayer.” The speaker kept on giving examples about “believers in Korea (or some other country) praying five, six hours a day.” If his reports are to be believed, some Christians in Korea prayed upwards of twenty hours a day, while shut up in a cave. The examples he gave may have truth in them, but the impression that was left was prayer in itself is powerful. The fact that it is God who is sovereignly hearing and answering prayer was somehow lost or overshadowed. Now we have people who think that “longer prayers are holier prayers.”
Andrew Gleeson suggests that the success of prayer is not to be measured by its worldly effects. This sounds awfully like Schleiermacher, for whom religion was entirely subjective. Is the only important efficacity of prayer in relation to the believer?
Lionel, you have suggested that put to the test by your children, you too might withhold your fatherly ‘blessing’. Tell me though: if an outsider sought to size up your goodness as a dad by observing your responsiveness to your children, what ought they to expect to see? Given that the whole world sees Christians at prayer…
By the way, the abstract of Randolph Byrd’s article, published in Southern Medical Journal 1988 Jul; 81(7): 826-9, concluded: ‘The IP [intercessory prayer] group subsequently had a significantly lower severity score based on the hospital course after entry (P less than .01). Multivariant analysis separated the groups on the basis of the outcome variables (P less than .0001). The control patients required ventilatory assistance, antibiotics, and diuretics more frequently than patients in the IP group. These data suggest that intercessory prayer to the Judeo-Christian God has a beneficial therapeutic effect in patients admitted to a CCU.’ Sounds good! – but Byrd was criticised for not being more transparent about the highly selective nature of reported positive outcomes.
Hi Mike, I hope you’re well! I agree with your statement about subjectivity – prayer’s effects have got to be more than subjective. But my point is that the objectivity of prayer isn’t about a simple mechanical “cause and effect” thing – it comes from the fact that we pray as children to our heavenly Father who is at one and the same time the creator, sustainer and judge of our world. To try to measure the objective effects of prayer divorced from their relational context is, therefore, a highly dubious exercise at best.
As to your question about an outsider trying to size up my effectiveness as a dad by observing my responsiveness to my children – a couple of points. Firstly, my response to my children is primarily for the sake of my relationship with my children, not primarily for the sake of outsiders. And secondly – if outsiders were trying to assess me purely on the basis of how I react to some such bizarre experiment, I would say that such outsiders are completely misguided and need to take a reality check. If they really want to see what I’m like as a Father, they should hang around with my family for a while and observe my normal interactions with my kids. To push the analogy into the realm of God, prayer and evangelism – the best way for outsiders to see how good God is as a Father is not to conduct a clinical “prayer experiment”, but to observe real family interactions between God and his children. Primarily between God and his one and only Son – e.g. we could point them to Jesus’ prayer in John 17 and help them to reflect on how God has responded to that prayer, both in the life of his Son and in the lives of his children ever since.
Mike Paget asks apropos of my comment: Is the only important efficacity of prayer in relation to the believer?
I was careful to say that sometimes there are healings in response to prayer. What I question is whether that sort of success is the only or most important criterion of prayer’s worth. Are all the prayers that are not met to be regarded as a waste of time? That doesn’t mean their value must consist just “in relation to the believer”. Prayer is a way of glorifying God, and that is never a waste.