An article from DukeMedNews.edu claims that a rigorous scientific examination on the results of intercessory prayer has been conducted by multiple medical institutions, and that the results show that patients who were prayed didn’t do any better (or worse, for that matter) than those who were not prayed for.
Athiests may cheer this news. Scoffers of all stripes are saying “Duh” to this. And they’re all probably hoping that this study will persuade us Christ followers that we’re just wasting our time with prayer.
I say they wasted their time with this study and that their minds are so full of foolish thoughts that they can’t see the idiocy in it. I don’t mean to sound hateful, but the brutish thoughts of a lost person can in no wise properly understand what it is to be a Christian, let alone all the wisdom that can come along with it. I want to examine the article a bit at a time, and I hope that all my brethren out there will be encouraged to not be discouraged at what lost people have to say about faith. (In all honesty, asking a lost person about faith is like trying to explain the joys of sin to God Himself… It just can’t be done.)
The study marks the first time rigorous scientific protocols have been applied on a large scale to some of the world’s most ancient healing traditions.
Well, there’s a problem right there. These intellectually elite people confuse the Bible’s command to prayer with “the worlds’ most ancient healing traditions.”
While many of us are fascinated culturally or philosophically with the mystery of healing and prayer, for the practice of medicine we need to understand these phenomena with data-driven insight.
“Data-driven insight.” Remember that. These people remove faith from the whole equation.
Per Institutional Review Board policies governing clinical research, all patients were aware that they might be prayed for by people they did not know, from a variety of faiths.
I don’t know which is more surprising: that their Institutional Review Board has policies relating to prayer, or that these educated men and women actually think the God of Heaven will have anything to do with this “variety of faiths” ecumenical nonsense.
The prayer groups for the study were located throughout the world and included Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish and multiple Christianity-based denominations.
Ah, so there weren’t any Christians involved anyway, just “Christian-based” (whatever that means) people? No Christ-honoring Christian would knowingly get mixed up in an interfaith mashup with Buddhists, Muslims, and Jews. All of them are worshipping a god (or gods or whatever) that does not exist, and you expect Yahweh to get involved in this? God forbid!
I have no respect for men who claim there is no difference between deities, faiths, religions or whatever else. There is only one God, and one Mediator between God and man, and one Way to Heaven. Only one. To suggest otherwise or even lend any credibility to another way is to prove your unbelief.
The article goes on to say that the end result for all groups involved were about the same, and I’ll say “duh” to that as well. The ecumenical gods these people were praying to are powerless because they are imaginary! (Okay, Buddha may be real, but he’s dead now. Allah and the Jewish god [who both apparently have no son] are fairy tales, as are Krishnu, Vishnu, Thor, Odin, the Easter Bunny, Santa, and Christian presidents.)
Is anyone sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit. (James 5:14-18)
That is the “formula” for healing in the Bible for the Christian. God is not obligated to heal anyone who does not follow that formula (that isn’t to say He won’t; He’ll have mercy on who He’ll have mercy).
Aside from the fact that according to the article, in the study no one was anointed by elders of the church, it was not noted whether anyone who was praying was all confessed up and ready to go. If you regard iniquity in your hearts, God does not hear you. This is why God doesn’t hear the prayers of Americans after tragedies, Buddhists, Muslims, etc. Only the penitent believer has the ear of God in prayer.
The prayer of righteous men avail much; the prayers of men involved in a study to quantify the power, if any, of prayer will do absolutely nothing except make intelligent researchers appear foolish.
..The prayer offered in faith will…