Abstract
On March 31, 2006, the New York Times published a front-page article under the headline, “Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer.” The article reported the results of a multiyear, multi-medical-center study designed to determine whether prayers offered by strangers influenced the recovery of people undergoing heart surgery—they did not. Published in the prominent American Heart Journal, this was the latest in a line of medical research studies published over the past forty years that asked this question. Lead author Dr. Herbert Benson and his colleagues were surprised by these results in light of earlier studies that showed such prayers to have an effect. While briefly acknowledging that intercessory prayer may not be effective in reducing complications in cardiac patients, Benson and colleagues pointed to aspects of their study design that might explain these findings. In addition to concerns about the duration of the study, these factors included the ways that the intercessors, members of three Christian prayer groups, were instructed to offer prayers.
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