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The daily bread of social science

The scientific study of prayer is beginning to resemble all those other studies about coffee and eggs. They're good for you—no wait, they're bad for you .... Not convinced? Well, just take a look at five years of BBC news reports about prayer under the statistical microscope:

• "Prayer 'no aid to heart patients'," BBC News, July 15, 2005

• "'No health benefit' from prayer," BBC News, October 15, 2003

• "Heart patients 'benefit from prayer'," BBC News, November 1, 2001

• "Prayer 'works as a cure'," BBC News, June 5, 2000

• "Praying 'aids mental health'," BBC News, November 12, 1999

And more such studies are on their way to us. In anticipation of four new studies about prayer (including intercessory prayer, knowing that someone is praying for you, and other healing modalities, such as visualizing patients and broadcasting a "healing intention"), the Washington Post reported on Friday that the "contentious enterprise is at something of a crossroads" and may lead to some solid information, or maybe not:

So I guess we're just going to be adding more to the ongoing speculation. Like the health effects of coffee and eggs.

For Christians, these studies are all worthless, except perhaps for their possible entertainment value. Christian prayer is not the same thing as shooting out from one's brain any healing intention, energy, or other such invisible New Age force. Wearing your Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie won't have any effect. Prayer is not a form of meditation, nor is it a psychic event of any sort. For us to study it in that way, we would have to take it to be something like talking to oneself, or talking to no one at all. The efficacy of prayer doesn't rest with the person praying, but rather with the one who answers the prayer.

I think Jesus already laid the matter to rest when he said that we are to pray in this manner [Matt 6:9-13, KJ]:

And Jesus said we are "therefore" to pray in this manner because "your Father knows what you need before you ask him" [Matt 6:8]. As for intercessory prayer, for which there is a long tradition in our faith,¹ the so-called scientific studies of this form of communication will always fail to uncover a causal nexus because there just isn't such a connection between the one who prays and the one who intercedes on our behalf.²

1.  Jesus is our standard for intercessory prayer, but we see this also in Abraham, Moses, Habakkuk, Nehemiah, Epaphras [Col 4:12, "He is always wrestling in prayer for you"], and Paul, who entreated us to pray without ceasing [1 Thess 5:7].
2.  I suppose one could say that the only thing that might resolve the efficacy of prayer issue is a bona fide "psychology of God," but that would require an unprecedented access to the Father for its success.