Does prayer cure disease?
<b>By Hilary Bainemigisha</b><br>Two families of Born Agains in Lira District faced the wrath of court for refusing to provide medical treatment for their children.
By Hilary Bainemigisha
Two families of Born Agains in Lira District faced the wrath of court for refusing to provide medical treatment for their children. They believed God was the healer and prayer was enough. The children’s health had deteriorated.
What is faith healing?
In nearly every faith, since time immemorial, people have prayed for the sick. Many confess that prayer helped them, their friends or relatives to pull though a health condition they never expected to survive. Many people pray for their own health and that of others.
According to the Wikipedia encyclopedia, it is the use of solely spiritual means in treating disease. Sometimes known as spiritual healing, it is a form of alternative medicine.
In Uganda, it is common among some Christians (especially Pentecostals and Charismatics) whose scriptures preach that God heals people through the power of the Holy Spirit, often involving sacraments, prayer or the ‘laying on of hands’.
Measuring power of prayer
Scientists have overtime attempted to measure the effectiveness of prayer on patients’ health. Several major studies on prayer have been done and are still continuing. The New York Times says US President Bush has so far released $2.3m for scientific research on the healing power of prayer.
But many concur that prayer has quantitative positive effects on disease. One of the pioneers of spiritual healing and psychology, Carl Jung, wrote in Spiritual Healing that people who pray when they are ill and those who know that someone is praying for them, are likely to fare better than those who do not. Prayer treatment is not the same as no treatment.
Placebo effect
A placebo is a dummy drug given to a patient who believes it will work and it works. Some people generally improve when they get a sham treatment. In a 1999 study entitled “The Powerful Placebo†published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr Henry K. Beecher said he gave 15 patients dummy drugs and five found relief after taking them.
“In many rural areas people have confidence in injections for malaria,†said Dr. Herbert Mugarura of Middle East Hospital. “You give them tablets and they will not get better.â€
Unexplained healing
Mugarura also talked about spontaneous remission in diseases. “Some diseases just disappear, it is a fact,†he said. “Even serious diseases have periods of exacerbation and remission; arthritis and multiple sclerosis are prime examples. There are even cases of cancers which inexplicably disappearâ€. When this happens after prayer, it is generally natural to credit the faith for the cure. This form of reasoning is called post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this therefore because of this). Recovery from illness, whether it follows self-medication, legitimate treatment, or prayer therapies, may lead one to conclude that the treatment received was the cause of the return to good health.
The doctor, however, says this does not mean that prayer does not work. Prayer triggers off the body’s tremendous ability to defend itself. “An AIDS patient who is strongly focused, firm in Jesus is less likely to develop opportunistic infections which afflict a worried person,†Mugarura adds.
Positive thinking
Dr Norman Vincent Peale, the pioneer of the power of positive thinking says a belief that you are better or that you will improve produces significant positive changes in recovery. “Faith cranks into action the body’s natural mechanisms in healing itself,†he wrote.
“The expectation and belief that they are going to improve induces the natural healing of the body to occur and speed up. Your faith activates one of the body’s natural defence mechanisms to speed up recovery.†Peale gives an example of pain-inhibiting compounds called eukephalins in our nervous system, which are induced to work only if the patient believes that it will work.
Paracelsus, a Swiss alchemist and physician adds that the will is a powerful adjuvant of medicine. When will power embraces faith, prayer changes the meaning of the patients’ syndrome from pessimistic to hopeful, and in doing so, it induces a very powerful therapeutic effect.
Conditioning effect
Patients who have previously been convinced that prayer works become conditioned to associate prayer with power. That is why it is likely to work for believers than doubting Thomases. Research has also shown that patients who expect to feel better are more likely to feel better than those without this expectation.
Others advance the process of treatment theory. If the patient is prayed for with a lot of care, love, hope and positive energy, this attention affects the mind of the patient and can induce the body to release certain hormones, which go and effect the healing process through the body chemistry. This theory suggests that the effect on an individual is due to the way the prayer is given not the prayer per se.
Alternatives or complementary
One researcher Tor D. Wager, PhD, a psychologist with the University of Michigan, argued that prayer and medication should not be viewed as alternatives but complementary. From his brain studies, he argued that faith only makes the brain processes pain differently because relief is expected. But that the cause of pain remains and, usually, the effect of prayer treatment generally does not last. Many patients who initially responded to faith healing eventually relapse, whereas medication responses are generally maintained over time.
“Belief in prayer only can be harmful. Patients may be led to believe they are healed only to allow the disease time to consolidate or become resistant to drugs,†he said.
According to history, Semei Kakungulu’s faith in Judaism made him refuse TB treatment trusting that God would heal him. Reggae Bob Marley died of cancer after refusing treatment and trusting prayer.
Is prayer scientific?
Whatever the procedure, no one should argue that prayer does not work. Those who want scientific standards are misplaced. “You can’t study something like faith or God which, by definition, is inconsistent with the way science works,†said John Chibnall, a psychologist at St. Louis University School of Medicine who has written on faith in medicine.
But does prayer need scientific justification?
“God is not subject to scientific research,†said Emmanuel Kahunga, a researcher at Makerere University Institute of Research. “Supernatural intervention is by definition beyond the reach of science.â€
“You can’t put God to the test, and that is exactly what you are doing when you design a study to see if God answers your prayers,†said Wathum Siriako, a miracle worker and evangelist from West Nile.
The problem
However, quark unscrupulous people, who manipulate it to make money, have devalued faith healing. Others mix it with elements of magic to gain acceptance, status and material benefits.
“Faith healing should be understood as complementary to science,†says Pastor Martin Ssempa of Makerere Community Church. Otherwise it can pose serious ethical problems for medical professionals when parents decline or refuse medical care for their children preferring to rely on prayer alone.
Mugarura agrees that for somatic diseases (those that affect the body cells directly like malaria and TB) medical intervention is necessary. But for other ailments like pressure, diabetes, and cancer at some stages, as well as psychosomatic disorders, prayer and faith have been known to triumph.
“The answer is that faith creates a conducive environment for medication to work,†Mugarura concludes. “The two should go hand in hand.â€
Ends
Two families of Born Agains in Lira District faced the wrath of court for refusing to provide medical treatment for their children. They believed God was the healer and prayer was enough. The children’s health had deteriorated.
What is faith healing?
In nearly every faith, since time immemorial, people have prayed for the sick. Many confess that prayer helped them, their friends or relatives to pull though a health condition they never expected to survive. Many people pray for their own health and that of others.
According to the Wikipedia encyclopedia, it is the use of solely spiritual means in treating disease. Sometimes known as spiritual healing, it is a form of alternative medicine.
In Uganda, it is common among some Christians (especially Pentecostals and Charismatics) whose scriptures preach that God heals people through the power of the Holy Spirit, often involving sacraments, prayer or the ‘laying on of hands’.
Measuring power of prayer
Scientists have overtime attempted to measure the effectiveness of prayer on patients’ health. Several major studies on prayer have been done and are still continuing. The New York Times says US President Bush has so far released $2.3m for scientific research on the healing power of prayer.
But many concur that prayer has quantitative positive effects on disease. One of the pioneers of spiritual healing and psychology, Carl Jung, wrote in Spiritual Healing that people who pray when they are ill and those who know that someone is praying for them, are likely to fare better than those who do not. Prayer treatment is not the same as no treatment.
Placebo effect
A placebo is a dummy drug given to a patient who believes it will work and it works. Some people generally improve when they get a sham treatment. In a 1999 study entitled “The Powerful Placebo†published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr Henry K. Beecher said he gave 15 patients dummy drugs and five found relief after taking them.
“In many rural areas people have confidence in injections for malaria,†said Dr. Herbert Mugarura of Middle East Hospital. “You give them tablets and they will not get better.â€
Unexplained healing
Mugarura also talked about spontaneous remission in diseases. “Some diseases just disappear, it is a fact,†he said. “Even serious diseases have periods of exacerbation and remission; arthritis and multiple sclerosis are prime examples. There are even cases of cancers which inexplicably disappearâ€. When this happens after prayer, it is generally natural to credit the faith for the cure. This form of reasoning is called post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this therefore because of this). Recovery from illness, whether it follows self-medication, legitimate treatment, or prayer therapies, may lead one to conclude that the treatment received was the cause of the return to good health.
The doctor, however, says this does not mean that prayer does not work. Prayer triggers off the body’s tremendous ability to defend itself. “An AIDS patient who is strongly focused, firm in Jesus is less likely to develop opportunistic infections which afflict a worried person,†Mugarura adds.
Positive thinking
Dr Norman Vincent Peale, the pioneer of the power of positive thinking says a belief that you are better or that you will improve produces significant positive changes in recovery. “Faith cranks into action the body’s natural mechanisms in healing itself,†he wrote.
“The expectation and belief that they are going to improve induces the natural healing of the body to occur and speed up. Your faith activates one of the body’s natural defence mechanisms to speed up recovery.†Peale gives an example of pain-inhibiting compounds called eukephalins in our nervous system, which are induced to work only if the patient believes that it will work.
Paracelsus, a Swiss alchemist and physician adds that the will is a powerful adjuvant of medicine. When will power embraces faith, prayer changes the meaning of the patients’ syndrome from pessimistic to hopeful, and in doing so, it induces a very powerful therapeutic effect.
Conditioning effect
Patients who have previously been convinced that prayer works become conditioned to associate prayer with power. That is why it is likely to work for believers than doubting Thomases. Research has also shown that patients who expect to feel better are more likely to feel better than those without this expectation.
Others advance the process of treatment theory. If the patient is prayed for with a lot of care, love, hope and positive energy, this attention affects the mind of the patient and can induce the body to release certain hormones, which go and effect the healing process through the body chemistry. This theory suggests that the effect on an individual is due to the way the prayer is given not the prayer per se.
Alternatives or complementary
One researcher Tor D. Wager, PhD, a psychologist with the University of Michigan, argued that prayer and medication should not be viewed as alternatives but complementary. From his brain studies, he argued that faith only makes the brain processes pain differently because relief is expected. But that the cause of pain remains and, usually, the effect of prayer treatment generally does not last. Many patients who initially responded to faith healing eventually relapse, whereas medication responses are generally maintained over time.
“Belief in prayer only can be harmful. Patients may be led to believe they are healed only to allow the disease time to consolidate or become resistant to drugs,†he said.
According to history, Semei Kakungulu’s faith in Judaism made him refuse TB treatment trusting that God would heal him. Reggae Bob Marley died of cancer after refusing treatment and trusting prayer.
Is prayer scientific?
Whatever the procedure, no one should argue that prayer does not work. Those who want scientific standards are misplaced. “You can’t study something like faith or God which, by definition, is inconsistent with the way science works,†said John Chibnall, a psychologist at St. Louis University School of Medicine who has written on faith in medicine.
But does prayer need scientific justification?
“God is not subject to scientific research,†said Emmanuel Kahunga, a researcher at Makerere University Institute of Research. “Supernatural intervention is by definition beyond the reach of science.â€
“You can’t put God to the test, and that is exactly what you are doing when you design a study to see if God answers your prayers,†said Wathum Siriako, a miracle worker and evangelist from West Nile.
The problem
However, quark unscrupulous people, who manipulate it to make money, have devalued faith healing. Others mix it with elements of magic to gain acceptance, status and material benefits.
“Faith healing should be understood as complementary to science,†says Pastor Martin Ssempa of Makerere Community Church. Otherwise it can pose serious ethical problems for medical professionals when parents decline or refuse medical care for their children preferring to rely on prayer alone.
Mugarura agrees that for somatic diseases (those that affect the body cells directly like malaria and TB) medical intervention is necessary. But for other ailments like pressure, diabetes, and cancer at some stages, as well as psychosomatic disorders, prayer and faith have been known to triumph.
“The answer is that faith creates a conducive environment for medication to work,†Mugarura concludes. “The two should go hand in hand.â€
Ends