A scientific study of magic
By Bruce Bradshaw
Pastor, Zion Mennonite Church
Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist who directs the Mind/Body Institute (MBMI), Chestnut Hill, Mass., received considerable news coverage during the past week for his study on whether prayer affects the conditions of heart patients, a study that Templeton Foundation paid Dr. Benson's organization $2.4 million to conduct.
Dr. Benson conducted this study by dividing 1,800 heart patients into three groups of 600 people. He directed Christians to pray for patients in the first two groups, but advised only the patients in the first group that someone was praying for them; the people in the second group were unaware that Christians were praying for them. No one prayed for people in the third group. The patients in the first group, those who were prayed for, experienced the worst recoveries, suggesting that prayer has a negative influence on treatments for heart maladies, if not all medical care.
I must admit this study annoyed me. Here I am, in Elbing where people pray faithfully for each other, and some cardiologist gets a $2.4 million grant from the Templeton Foundation to conclude that prayer is not only ineffective, but possibly detrimental to a person's welfare.
Of course, I wish the Templeton Foundation solicited my thoughts on the mystery of prayer. I would have offered it to them for only a small piece of Templeton's $2.4 million. A small fraction of $2.4 million does go a long way in Elbing.
This study, like too much research, illustrates what most people already know — prayer is not magic. If we assume that Dr. Benson designed his research to comply with the standards of science, he had to measure the changes in his patients' recoveries. He undoubtedly did this. However, for his study to have credibility, he also had to measure the levels of love, hope, commitment, and care through which the prayers were offered. And he also had to find some way to identify and measure the redemptive nature of suffering; that God, somehow, brings redemption and hope through the maladies of our lives. Apart from these qualities, Dr. Benson only suggested that prayer is not magic.
If Dr. Benson peered into the mind of God and researched the mysteries of God's commitment to humanity, his study would have offered us a glimpse into the greatest mysteries of human existence. He would also have expanded the capacities of scientific inquiry. However, he only gave us another affirmation that prayer is communication with God through relationships of love, commitment, hope, and care. There is nothing magical about it.
