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God, M.D.: New Studies Examine Prayer and Healing
by Gary Thomas
Dr. Matthews is one of a growing number of medical professionals who are discovering the positive medical benefits of faith and prayer. For centuries, families and individuals facing medical crises have made prayer the bedrock of their experience. What is new is that certain segments in the medical community are finally beginning to scientifically study the effects of prayer on illnesses and injuries. And they are discovering that there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that prayer can be an effective tool with which to combat illnesses and disease. Slowly, the medical and theological worlds are converging once again as both doctors and pastors are seeking new ways to combine the benefits of prayer and traditional medical practice to fight illness and disease. The recent interest in prayer and healing has even spawned a new descriptor: Dr. Larry Burk from Duke University uses the phrase "complementary medicine." Complementary medicine seeks to combine prayer and traditional medical practice rather than pit the two against each other. This is in contrast to "alternative medicine" (anything from yoga and EST to aromatherapy) which has largely been devoid of Christian faith (and frequently steeped in syncretic beliefs) and which often pits itself against traditional medicine. While alternative medicine has been growing for decades--a report in The New England Journal of Medicine found that in a given year about a third of all Americans use "unconventional medical treatments"--prayer has not been included in many of the more popular discussions and books. The Studies Byrd's Landmark Study Byrd found that the intercessory prayer group had fewer patients with congestive heart failure. They used less diuretics, were less frequently intubated, and experienced fewer cases of pneumonia and cardiopulmonary arrests. Dr. Siang-Yang Tan, Associate Professor of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary, and author of Managing Chronic Pain, points out, however that while Byrd's study showed a benefit gained through prayer, the study did not establish the superiority of prayer to the Judeo-Christian God since no control groups were used in which the help of other deities were sought. Dr. Matthews primary complaint with Byrd's study is that Byrd didn't examine the religious beliefs and patterns of the patients. "Since the study was randomized, presumably their religious commitment was randomized as well, but it would have been nice to double-check," he says. The Value of a Chaplain's Time The chaplains in the experimental group spent over an hour with their patients--20 times longer than the routine visits enjoyed by the control group. The estimated cost of the increased chaplain visits was approximately $100 per patient, but the discharge rate was 1.8 to 2.1 days sooner, saving an average of about $4,000 per case. Dr. Diane Komp, a pediatric hematologist/oncologist with the Yale University School of Medicine, calls this "a great study" because chaplains are usually the first expenditure sacrificed during a budget crisis. But she cautions against using the study to specifically demonstrate the value of prayer, since patients may have benefited from the visit as much as from the spiritual exercise. The Importance of Community A study of 4,000 randomly-selected elderly people in North Carolina found that older people who attend religious services are both less depressed and physically healthier than those who worship at home. The study, reported this past February by Dr. Harold Koenig, a Duke University psychiatrist, found both general and specific health benefits of religion and faith. Koenig discovered that those who watched religious television and who prayed at home did not enjoy the same health benefits as those who actually participated in religious services. "Stress and despair arise from the feeling that you're alone, that there's nothing you can do about a situation," explains Koenig. "People who believe in God feel there's someone watching out for them, someone who has divine control of their destiny. Life doesn't always have to make sense to them, as long as they put their trust in an all-powerful, caring and loving God." Its importance for the burgeoning interest in prayer and medicine as mutually edifying is its demonstration that the context of prayer--a caring community, for instance--contributes to its success. But this is also the study's weakness. As Komp asks, "Is it the power of prayer or the power of community that accounts for the difference? Or both?" What this study does suggest, Komp suggests, is the need for the growing sub-culture of Christians who don't attend church to include a communal aspect as an expression of their faith. "I read the admonition in Hebrews 10:25 ('Let us not give up meeting together') as both a medical prescription and a spiritual admonition." Prayer as a Coping Mechanism The Saudia study found that 97 patients found prayer to be very helpful, with 70 percent giving it the highest possible rating on the Helpfulness of Prayer scale. "This study revealed that prayer was perceived as helpful," Dr. David Larson, president of the National Institute of Health Research, states, "regardless of orientation of who or what was controlling their lives. Prayer was perceived as a helpful coping mechanism in individuals with both an internal and external locus of control orientation." Dr. Saudia demonstrates that pastors and medical practitioners who can help patients learn to pray (even though some may never have prayed before) can render a great service to both believing and non-believing patients. Prayer and Relaxation Benson's findings have been published in a book entitled Timeless Healing, in which he argues for the curative power of belief. "The influence individuals and their minds, emotions and beliefs can have over their healing is being neglected," Benson argues. To Benson, any form of prayer is as valid as another--prayers to Jesus, praying the rosary, or using a mantra--as long as the person believes in it. His first step is, "Pick a focus word or short phrase that's firmly rooted in your belief system." While Benson found himself "in a peculiar position--that of a physician teaching people to pray," he has no preference over whether the prayers are Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, or Hindu. Komp warns against this "pumpkin patch spirituality." "It's like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin," she points out. "It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere." Benson takes this even one step further, however, suggesting that the "relaxation response" and "the faith factor" is "not the exclusive domain of the devout. People don't have to have a professed belief in God to reap the psychological and physical rewards of the faith factor." In other words, you don't even have to be sincere. You just have to pray! Taken together, just what do these studies demonstrate? "At this point, the data are still very general," Tan asserts. "We have to be careful. No matter how much empirical data you amass, you will never be able to prove that the Judeo-Christian God is the true God. That can only be known by experience through faith. Faith doesn't go against reason (and the studies are showing that) but it goes beyond reason." Dr. Matthews is a little more direct. "Scientific knowledge has demonstrated the positive benefits of religion. I can say, as a physician and scientist--not just as a Christian--that, scientifically, prayer is good for you. The medical effects of faith on health are not a matter of faith, but of science." Komp warns, however, against "prooftexting from science rather than Scripture." She urges physicians to "accept the fact that prayer and the spiritual life have a tremendous positive health benefit to patients," warning Christians that "faith doesn't need to be subjected to scientific methodology nor should we expect that it will oblige us with a rational answer of the outcome." Tan concludes, "The Bible, not research, will ultimately yield the final answers, but we can be encouraged by the fact that the research is supportive of faith and prayer. We need to be thankful that the general zeitgeist of the medical field is not as anti-spiritual as it used to be." Medicine's Skepticism Religion has not exactly been considered a "friend" of science in the last century. Sigmund Freud spoke of religion as that "universal obsessional neurosis," a statement which is not that far from Ellis' more recent quip that religion is "equivalent to irrational thinking and emotional disturbance." Still, one of the biggest blocks to a new synthesis is that, statistically, healthcare professionals tend to value faith far less than do their patients. One survey found that while 72 percent of the public agreed with the statement, "My whole approach to life is based on my religion," only 33 percent of psychologists and 39 percent of psychiatrists agreed. The desire to reach a new synthesis may finally be forced upon health care professionals via popular demand. A February 1996 study conducted for USA Weekend found that 79% of those people polled believe spiritual faith can help people recover from illness, injury or disease. Women are slightly more likely than men to believe this. After spending several sessions with a "secular" psychiatrist, one of Dr. Matthews' current patients told herself, "I could do this for the rest of my life and never make any progress." Even though she didn't consider herself religious, she found Matthews' attention to the spiritual dimension extremely helpful. "If it weren't for the spiritual progress, I probably wouldn't be alive today. If Dr. Matthews goes to Florida, I'd visit him three times a year just to keep up." The same poll found that 56% say their faith has already helped them recover from illness, injury or disease. While 63% believe it's good for doctors to talk to patients about spiritual faith, only 10% of them say a doctor has talked to them about their spiritual faith as a factor in physical health. Respondents from the South had the highest incidence of doctor-initiated discussion; patients from the Northeast reported the lowest. All of Dr. Matthews' patients who were interviewed for this article testified that he was the first doctor who actually took the time to pray with them, and even though some of them did not consider themselves "religious" when they first started treatment with Matthews, all of them were appreciative of his spiritual emphasis. Larson laments the reluctance of the medical profession to even consider prayer or religion as part of their profession. "We aren't talking about proselytizing or force-feeding patients religion, but responding to positive effects, such as the hope, coping and peace they feel prayer brings." "The clinical neglect, mishandling and misinterpretation of the beneficial health effects of religious commitment, including prayer have kept the application of these (positive) findings from being fully realized in the medical arena," Larson continues. "Because of many barriers, religious commitment and prayer remains an untapped medical resource. If a new finding arises, the scientific community has an ethical obligation to examine it as potential scientific progress to be either supported or refuted in time through proper study. They must be on the lookout for what works and respond accordingly." Dr. Matthews notes that "In our society, there appears to be a wall of separation between medicine and religion analogous to the wall of separation between church and state. Religion, as Dr. Larson says, is now the forgotten factor in medicine." "It's time the scientific community put its anti-spiritual bias on hold long enough to consider the data," Dr. David Stevens, Executive Director of the Christian Medical and Dental Society, asserts. "And it's time doctors started looking beyond physical ailments to the deeper and more important spiritual side of their patients. Only then can we truly begin to treat the whole patient. The results of faith can far surpass the limits of medicine." Modern Practitioners As President for NIHR, Larson is becoming known as one of the primary leaders and supporters of "complementary medicine"--the demonstrated belief that religious faith and traditional medical practice can work together for good. Dr. Larson is also Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center and Northwestern University Medical School and has published extensively in the research literature, so his credentials are well-established. "Scientific studies show that religious commitment can make a clinical difference," Larson states. "At a time when our country is struggling to find new and creative ways to gain hope, cope with crime, illness and death, and cut health care costs, is it ethical to ignore the untapped potential of prayer as well as faith, which studies have found to be beneficial?" This historical coalescence is forcing many practitioners to pioneer their own approaches to incorporating faith and prayer into their practice of medicine. Without much to go on by way of medical knowledge, research, or clinical precedence, many clinicians are struggling to deal with the ethical and logistical issues of helping their patients to discover the curative powers of prayer. "The first time he examined me, I had my hands up and I was praying," Juanita recounts. "Dr. Matthews looked up and saw me and then kept examining me. When he looked up again and saw that I was still praying, we started praying together, and I knew I had more than just a doctor, I had a man of faith who knows the value of faith." Instead of praying with that patient, Dr. Matthews encouraged him to spend his own time in prayer before he engaged in a particular activity that tended to generate a lot of anxiety. What Dr. Matthews has found is that patients appreciate his willingness to "talk their language." Just as he talks French to French-speaking patients, so he can talk spirituality with spiritually-minded patients. "It would be rude to speak French to a non-French speaking patient, and it would be rude to push faith on people whose ears are plugged regarding matters of the spirit. Now, I'll do everything I can to unplug someone's ears, but I recognize it's a process and the patients will have to be willing to participate." An Apology of Prayer But science, by nature, is based on demonstrable proof that can be replicated by additional studies undertaken by various researchers. If Prozac really helps depression, the results should be the same whether it's administered in Chicago or Orlando. If prayer isn't certain to be answered in the affirmative, however, can such replication ever be achieved? On the other hand, no medical treatments are one hundred percent effective. Their usefulness can be determined only in comparison to an alternative (which may include doing nothing). And the lack of a one hundred percent response doesn't stop doctors from prescribing a treatment which has historically been beneficial for others. "If a child comes in with leukemia," Komp explains, "I know that ninety percent will go into remission within four weeks with vincristine and prednisone. I won't withhold these drugs because of the ten percent who won't respond. The failure to meet one hundred percent isn't a stumbling block to a medical practitioner. You have to compare it to nothing. We don't withhold a modality because it doesn't work one hundred percent of the time." If group studies continue to yield the results they have--that, when taken as a whole, groups that are specifically prayed for tend to do better than groups that are not--then scientists will be forced to at least concede that some prayer is generally preferable to no prayer. This, however, raises a potentially troublesome ethical objection: How could a Christian doctor ever knowingly withhold prayer from a control group? And how can a researcher be certain that members of a control group aren't being prayed for by somebody outside the study? Such unanswered questions are to be expected in a field of study that, amazingly enough, remains very much in its infancy. The other major question facing academics is whether prayer in general, or Christian prayer in particular, is the primary basis of healing. Apart from Byrd's study (for which there was no control group for "non-Christian" prayer), prayer has not generally been defined along Christian lines. Matthews has an impressive relational style and skill that allows him to take a patient where they are--even if they're talking about out of body experiences or visits from dead relatives--and patiently move them toward an examination of orthodox Christianity. His "prescribed" Bible verses gently lead each patient to consider the claims of Jesus Christ. Like Komp, Matthews believes that God will reveal himself to each person in his (and His) own time. The New Synthesis Ten years later, Harvard University Medical School is establishing a mind and body institute to teach the benefits of spiritual healing, and physicians such as Dr. Ralph Snyderman, Chancellor for Health Affairs at Duke University Medical Center, are arguing that "in the health care setting, science without spirituality is incomplete, and spirituality without science is ineffective." As a specialist who works with cancer patients, Komp's experience is that oncologists tend to be more open to the power of prayer than other physicians. "Cancer puts us in touch with our mortality, even though more cancer patients are cured than die," she says. "AIDS is still seen as something that happens to other people, but cancer is metaphoric for our greatest fear." Because of this, Komp sees medical illness as a gateway to faith. "The diagnosis of cancer has started many patients on a spiritual journey. We see Bibles on bedstands; we see spiritual books that people read, the greeting cards that people send them. Faith is not a taboo subject in the face of cancer." Dr. Matthews says, "There is a growing disillusionment with the limitations of science. Therefore, the possibility exists for the reunion of religion and medicine, the twin traditions of healing, which have been separated for centuries." "Imagine the effects this could have on managed care, malpractice, and other medical and social issues. The time has come to bring down the wall between science and religion, and together work toward resolving much of the suffering that we have seen in the daily lives of our patients." Dempsey's suggestion that the medical community should start "consulting" with members of the clergy may gain more momentum as the McSherry study gains wider notice. More than comforters, members of the clergy may be seen as active participants in the healing process. Perhaps in anticipation of this, the Christian Medical and Dental Society offers a "Prescribe a Resource" program that allows doctors to write prescriptions for patients who then order resources that provide counsel from a Christian perspective. Recognizing the evangelistic impact inherent in this confluence, CMDS is hosting seminars to train doctors how to share spiritual principles with patients in an ethical and non-threatening way. The beauty of this "synthesis" is that more and more physicians are not arguing whether prayer or traditional medical practice should be emphasized but how they can complement each together. This complementary approach assumes the expertise and contribution of the clergy or trained layman, but not in exclusion to the physician. A person's health is thus treated holistically (but biblically), and the long-denied spiritual element of a person's being is finally being given the attention it deserves. An Emphasis on Community What followed was a transformation--not just in Toni's life, but in the life of the church. The transformation is seen in the fact that, since Toni's experience, it has become normal for people at St. Cronan's who are facing hospitalization or major medical tests to request anointing and prayer. "Church members are much more public about their illness," Krings notes, "and Toni's experience seemed to give everybody permission to be ministers to each other rather than wait for the 'professional clergy' to meet their needs. Our people always had the ministerial instincts, but Toni going public set them all free to use them. "The parish has never been the same," Krings adds. "It's the single healthiest parish I've ever seen because the whole array of human experience is welcome, including sickness and funerals." The nature of disease is such that faith can be stretched on a daily basis. A community of support gives an individual the opportunity to lean on others during low times and after negative diagnoses that make faith difficult and hope seem pollyannish. Toni showed dramatic improvement and enjoyed periods of remission. After a number of months, the cancer came back, was defeated once again, and then returned for yet a third and final time, eventually taking Toni's life. Even so, Toni gained several additional years of life and the parish gained a radically different orientation toward fellowship, support, and love. A community may be even more important when prayer doesn't result in healing. "The bottom line is to follow after God, not just to feel good," Tan adds. Patients and family will therefore particularly need the support of a believing community when it looks like nothing but death will take the illness away. It may be this lack of certainty that leads many church leaders to be somewhat ambivalent when it comes to openly and publicly engaging in healing prayer, but that is precisely why the Church needs to interact with the current interest in spirituality and medical practice. Theological truths, such as the sovereignty of God, are essential to understand the practice and purpose of prayer. "Church communities should be less afraid of illness," Krings asserts, "including cancer and heart disease. It should be a normal part of church life for people to be prayed over. Don't make it a spectacular event, just a normal part of an average Sunday as we celebrate Corpus Christi, the body of Christ. The findings of Dr. Thomas Oxman, a psychiatrist at Dartmouth Medical School, lend credence to Krings' observation. Oxman conducted a study of 232 elderly patients who had undergone open heart surgery and found that the health of his subjects benefited from regular participation in social groups, even apart from the faith aspect. Komp has witnessed how a community can benefit by praying for an individual. "Community involvement is essential for the healing of the community, not just the individual," she asserts. "There is no congregation that will stay the same once they have participated in caring for a life-threatening situation in a child or in a church member they know and love." The Church's Response Dr. Matthews notes that rifts between medicine and religion became particularly apparent by the 17th century as church and science staked out their ground: science claiming the body as its purview, with religion grasping onto the soul. The other extreme within Christendom is what Komp calls hyper-dispensationalism. "This view doesn't allow God much more room than what an agnostic would expect. They don't allow God to do the unexplainable today. Their belief is not my observation as a physician nor the observation of what other physicians have attested to. "I have seen fewer healings than charismatics claim, and more than dispensationalists presume. When people face serious health problems, the hyper-charismatics do them a disservice by not allowing them the best that medicine has to offer; hyper-dispensationalists do them a disservice by presenting them with a God who does nothing outside of medical science. I like to go by that well-known maxim, 'Work as if everything depends on you and pray as if everything depends on God.'" From Komp's experience, there is a higher mortality rate among children from charismatic families who hold an extreme position than there is among children from other types of Christian families, due to their "higher rate of non-compliance with medical therapy." "A lack of interaction with the medical community can lead to death," she warns. With those who come from rigid dispensationalist churches, Komp has seen a number of adherents turn to New Age approaches and resources, "trying to fill the vacuum." This means that not only must Christians interact with medicine to develop a more precise definition of prayer, but also to define realistic expectations for Christians who are undergoing medical treatment. To avoid the two extremes, pastors and churches can teach a "middle ground" approach that doesn't elevate prayer to a guaranteed formula or reduce it to a wishful thinking exercise that doesn't actually move the hand of God. This preserves the mystery of prayer, recognizing that not everybody will be healed, and it also avoids the hyper-faith element, which holds that faith itself heals and that the absence of healing is evidence of a lack of faith. In my opinion, the most mature Christian position that expresses this "middle ground" approach is now being demonstrated most clearly in a study being conducted by Dr. Matthews of Georgetown. After observing the strengths and weaknesses of other studies, including Byrd's, Matthews has been able to design and secure funding for what may be the most significant study yet on the practice of Christian prayer and healing. Dr. Matthews' study will focus on rheumatoid arthritis because it is common--with over one million people suffering from the ailment--and because it has obvious physical deformities and symptoms that can be readily observed. The results of the study won't be published until the Spring of 1998, but the methods of the Matthews study are intriguing and impressive. Dr. Matthews has adopted a model of prayer which views prayer as more "surgery" than "medicine." In Byrd's study, patients didn't know if they were in the control group or not, so the prayer study resembled a "pill and placebo" approach similar to many drug studies. In Dr. Matthews study, trained Christian pray-ers from Francis MacNutt's Christian Healing Ministries are offering spiritual counsel, leading patients through forgiveness, renouncing the occult, and the like, and then engaging in a laying on of hands and prayer, in addition to traditional medical treatment. This is the model that most closely integrates a Christian approach to healing prayer. This is the model that holds the future for those Christians eager to build on previous studies--trained physicians and trained pray-ers working together, using the most advanced techniques of medicine and the most studious and comprehensive methods of prayer. It's a far cry from the circus atmosphere of some healing services that have elicited scorn from modern evangelicals and scientists and clearly presents the future of comprehensive Christian medical practice amongst evangelicals. The New Horizon But while this new interest in faith and medicine has generated some encouraging new possibilities, it has also elicited some potential dangers. Christians must now actively involve themselves in the burgeoning studies or watch as spiritual counterfeits take over. As Dr. Tan explains, the "upside" of the new interest is that people are becoming more open to religion. The downside is that they are becoming open to all religion, including "new age" varieties. Tan adds that Christian engagement--from both the pulpit and the physician--are crucial to maintain a proper balance. "We have to be very careful that we don't end up using God--'I pray because of the positive effects. If God doesn't bless me, then I don't want to have faith any more.' We must be wary of this trivialization of God." Along with that, we need to be careful that we don't convey the message that our faith needs to be validated by science. Academic studies cannot make or break the faith of the church, nor should they unduly influence the faith of an individual. In God's economy, where character is valued over comfort, pain can sometimes do us more good than healing. But clearly, this emerging fascination with spiritual answers to physical problems presents an unparalleled opportunity for Christians facing the twenty-first century.
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