#99 – Prayer

Is prayer really a vending machine to get stuff? Or instead an introspective, meditative discipline to find out how you yourself can be the solution?

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Let’s face it. The experience of many believers, particularly listeners of this podcast, is that prayer doesn’t work. Ask for stuff — a physical healing … a solution to a problem … to ace a final exam … a parking spot!? — and the vast majority of the time you seem to only get what would typically happen if you hadn’t prayed at all.

We talked about Queen Elizabeth II, who’s been prayed for by millions of people around the globe, from lowly commoners to highly prominent clergy, numerous times every day, ever since she was born. And her health history was no different from most other people who enjoy a wealthy lifestyle and benefit from modern medicine in Britain.

We also looked at the famous “Harvard prayer experiment”, which evaluated the efficacy of prayer in the exact same rigorous way that they test the efficacy of the latest drug. And prayer came out with a big goose egg.

And yet there are some believers who are absolutely convinced that prayer DOES work. Especially for physical healings. At least, that’s what seems to happen at many faith healing services. But look more closely at the track record and you’ll find a disturbing pattern. At these healing rallies, there are always two very different groups of people.

On the one hand, there are those claiming a miraculous healing of a medical condition which often can’t be verified in any way, is known to be capable of reversing on its own through natural processes, and is often something related to pain. Who knows whether the “cancer” which was never properly diagnosed before or after the fact wasn’t an ulcer or a kidney stone — or just gas!? — all of which often resolve on their own? And even if it was cancer, cancers can also sometimes resolve on their own. And that pain? Your body can make its own natural, built-in painkillers under the right circumstances: this is why survivors of a plane crash can help carry out other wounded people even though they later find out they themselves had a broken arm or a broken ankle. Ever heard of a “jogger’s high”? The high-energy atmosphere of a healing service can easily trigger all kinds of physiological changes, including the fight-or-flight response which activates these built-in pain-suppression pathways.

On the other hand, one never hears about miraculous healings of a medical condition which has never been shown to reverse on its own. What I mean is, there’s never a restoration of amputated limbs. Never the reversal of a congenital physical abnormality (cleft palate; Down’s syndrome; cerebral palsy). Never the elimination of a straightforward, easily-verified genetic disease (cystic fibrosis; sickle cell anemia; blue-green color blindness). I guess God doesn’t do those kinds of miracles. [And by the way, when I say “never”, I’m completely ignoring all those claims that begin with “I heard from the friend of an acquaintance of mine about some unnamed guy in a far-off distant land (who you’ll never be able to track down, so you can’t follow-up on this claim), about him getting healed from ….”].

So we have natural, scientific explanations for all the kinds of healing that are often claimed, but no theological explanations for the kinds of healing that are never claimed. I mean, what theological reason could one possibly give for why can’t/won’t God restore a couple amputated legs?

But maybe that’s not what prayer is all about. It’s not about getting stuff … the cosmic vending machine … rubbing the genie’s lamp. Maybe it’s about meditative introspection to see how you yourself might need to change … or to be the change.

As always, tell us what you think…

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