The Power of Prayer

I was reminded this week of Laurie Brown, who held the distinction of serving as Professor of Psychology at three Antipodean universities, and who in retirement became a teaching colleague and a delightfully entertaining friend in Oxford. A practicing Anglican he was primarily interested in the psychology of religion and wrote many books on the subject. I recall attending a lecture he gave on the psychology of prayer in which he examined a particular controlled experiment in which the researchers appeared to have discovered that prayer in certain circumstances is indeed efficacious. I also remember that he supervised the dissertation of a student in our Theology department who was the doctor for the Bahamas’ Olympic Team. This student argued in a most convincing way that pre-event prayers enabled his athletes to achieve much higher performances in their chosen discipline. So for fifteen years now my understanding of the outcomes of prayer has been heavily influenced by the notion that even science, that old adversary of theology, provided a degree of evidence of the power of prayer.

Yet I retain a certain personal ambivalence about the subject. On the one hand my experience as a priest has taught me that when it comes to prayer there are some mysteries which I am unable to explain rationally to people. I think of the occasions in my South London parish when people felt their home was possessed by the spirit of a departed family member, and how I was just as surprised and at a loss for an explanation as the family was when the Church’s prayers of exorcism were instantly and permanently effective. Of course I could offer the Church’s theological explanations as to the nature of spirits, why they sometimes become earthbound and how the rites of the Church enable them to make the transition to their intended abode. But I can’t begin to provide a scientific account of how that process works. The same can be said for my brief experience as a hospital chaplain, subsequently confirmed by many priest friends, of the efficacy of the rite of anointing the sick with holy oil with on occasion, apparently miraculous reversals of disease which the medical profession is unable to explain. Here again one can provide a theological explanation but not one to always satisfy the scientific mind.

On the other hand, there are forms of prayer, which I simply cannot abide. I’m referring to that free and informal style of intercessory prayer which involves continual use of the word ‘just’, as in ‘Lord, we just want to thank you, and we just want to bring before you. . .’. Some forms of this prayer involve a lengthy description of the state of God’s universe presumably predicated upon the belief that God has ceased to be omniscient and is no longer aware of what is happening in the world. Other expressions seem to have the objective of self-glorification with the ardent disciple earnestly impressing his or her personal piety upon the rest of the group. And at its worst it becomes a vehicle for sanctified gossip as in ‘Lord, we just want you to be with Tom and Mary whose marriage is breaking down’. For three years I was pastor for an ecumenical congregation greatly given to this means of communicating confidential information about other people, and I came to regard this mode of praying as an abuse of trust and at times, the victimization of persons.

This week one of my mature students, himself a priest, recounted a story about being in a clergy meeting where this style of prayer was being used and where it quickly became obvious that every member of the group was expected to contribute. There was no escape. So when his turn arrived he began as was expected, ‘Dear Lord, we just thank you for bringing us together this morning, and just bless you for all your gifts to us. We just thank you for giving us Jesus, and we just thank you too for his mother Mary’. Here he paused for breath and continued, ‘in honour of whom we say together, Hail Mary full of grace . . .’ as he launched into that time-honoured prayer which is a feature of catholic worship but anathema to many of an evangelical disposition. The serious point to this story is that it addresses what we might call a culture of prayer which is imposed upon all irrespective of one’s personal understanding or preferences. Of course it could be argued that most public prayer can be construed in the same way, although at least in most forms of liturgical prayer one is not being coerced into participating.

How effective then is prayer? People were shocked when a priest I know said that to his knowledge not a single intercessory prayer of his has yet been answered. In the church’s daily offices for example, I pray daily for peace, but all the evidence shows that the world is a less peaceable place now than when I began seriously praying fifty years ago. It’s got worse, not better. On the other hand there is a good deal of reputable scientific evidence affirming the power of personal prayer, those habits of mindfulness, of meditation or contemplation, and the use of spiritual exercises, in establishing a real sense of personal peace and equilibrium.

Scientific examination of the efficacy of intercessory prayer, praying for others, hit the news this week and prompted this reflection when the results of the largest ever study into the relationship between prayer and health were reported. This research suggests that rather than improving the condition of those who are ill, prayer may instead make them worse. The decade-long study in the USA, where, let me remind you, two thirds of the population claims to pray regularly, discovered that patients undergoing heart surgery did no better when prayed for by a group of people unknown to them than those who were in receipt of no prayers at all. On the other hand almost sixty percent of people told they were being regularly prayed for developed complications. One of the possible factors in this scenario may be, as one of the researchers explained, the impact upon a person about to undergo major surgery of being told they were being prayed for. This may have had the effect of reinforcing in the patient a sense that their condition was dire, and thus raising anxiety levels, which hindered their recovery processes.

As might be expected where matters of faith are concerned, religious groups quickly attacked the findings on the grounds that science is incapable of illuminating questions of personal religious faith. And of course some scientists weighed in as well arguing that the study trivialises religion, which seems to me to be more a faith statement than a scientific statement, and claiming that the research has to be suspect because the experiment did not trace and measure the amount of prayer the 1800 patients ‘received’, which is very much an argument from science.

That this piece of scientific research will not be the final word on the efficacy of prayer, we can be sure. Meanwhile I wonder whether intercessory prayer, like cigarettes, should now convey the warning that it may be a danger to health?