Intercessory Prayer Research Articles

VICARIUS, CANONICUS ET EPISCOPUS : THREE LATE MEDIEVAL GRAVE SLABS FROM TARTU AND TALLINN

The article discusses three late medieval grave slabs in Estonia, which are decorated with full fgures and represent ecclesiastics of diferent ranks. By examining their visual appearance, including the inscriptions and coats of arms, some of the general trends in the production and decoration of local tombstones can be outlined and a contribution made to the discussion of the role of such monuments in the late medieval culture of commemoration. One of the slabs, actually a fragment, came to light during the archaeological excavations of the Tartu Cathedral in 2008. Its inscription added a completely new name to the list of clerics known from medieval Tartu. The monument belonged to the vicar Stephanus de Velde, who died in 1428 or 1438. The others two grave slabs are located in the Cathedral of Tallinn. One of them, belonging to an unidentifed bishop, can be dated to the frst third of the 16 century. The other marks the grave of Georgius (Jurgen) Bardin, a canon in the Tallinn and Saare- Laane (Osel-Wiek) dioceses, who died in May 1525. An important function of these monuments was to be a witness to status. The identity of the deceased was perpetuated through the proper attire and symbols, but also through the family coat of arms and the name and occupation stated in the inscription. The large and elaborately decorated grave slabs were prestigious objects, which were meant not only to mark the tomb but also to visually commemorate the deceased, to invite the viewers to contemplate on death, salvation and resurrec- tion, and to evoke intercessory prayers.

Lord, hear our prayer: Prayer, Social Support, and Well‐Being in aCatholic Convent

This article examines intercessory prayer, specifically, petitions to the divine as they are performed inMass and in prayer groups at aCatholic convent in the midwesternUnitedStates. It demonstrates that these petitions function on multiple levels. Petitions are designed primarily as a form of communication with the divine, intended to elicit divine aid. In addition to functioning as requests to the divine, the petitions function on a number of socio‐communicative levels: first, as an index of the presence of the divine; second, as a means for individuals to communicate social support to copresent participants; and third, as a mode of peer socialization. Finally, these multiple functions of prayer provide spiritual and social support that may contribute, in the context of the convent, to the inhabitant nuns’ documented success in achieving physical and mental well‐being throughout their lives.

The Politics of a Praying Nation: The Presidential Prayer Team and Christian Right Sexual Morality

Many contemporary Christian conservative projects provide a context for and invitation to believers to engage in intercessory prayer or to serve as “prayer warriors” for causes and public policies that organizations and institutions advocate. One of these is the Presidential Prayer Team, a project that encourages prayer for the president and for public officials. Because the Presidential Prayer Team is a delivery system for Christian conservative political commitments and goals, analyzing it provides information about the variety of quotidian ways in which Christian conservative political values and goals are rhetorically packaged and delivered to followers and those who are likely converts to the conservative theology and politics of the Christian right. In this article I focus on the ways in which the Presidential Prayer Team engages in priming with regard to issues of sexual morality, and particularly political issues related to LGBTQ rights and issues.

Feeling is Believing: Pentecostal Prayer and Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Sensory experience is pivotal to postmodern culture. A globalized world seems newly interconnected, yet individuals may feel more isolated than ever before. Scientific technologies and modern medicine have achieved remarkable triumphs and exhibited devastating limitations that leave people unsatisfied and searching for “more.” Modernization has not resulted in secularization, but sources of religious knowing—revealed Scripture, inherited tradition, institutional authority—have become unsettled. Postmoderns want more than intellectual certainty; they long for direct experiences of what is really real. In the United States and globally, many postmodern Christians combine “scientific” medicine with diverse touch-oriented “religious” and “spiritual” healing practices to find healing, reassurance that God is present with them personally, and hope for their future lives on earth and in the world to come. This essay draws on ten years of ethnographic research, in the United States and across globally diffuse social networks, on Christian prayer for divine healing and participation in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). I argue that touch-oriented healing practices attract adherents by promising sensory experience of the sacred. Bodily experiences in turn shape religious perceptions and may open a revolving door between religious worldviews. Ethnographic rE s E arch on p ray E r and c ompl E m E ntary and a lt E rnativ E mE dicin E Since 2003, I have been studying the global spread of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity through what I call “proximal intercessory prayer” for divine healing. The practice involves getting up close to a sick person, laying hands on their head, shoulder , or diseased body part, empathizing with their sufferings, petitioning God to heal, and commanding healing in the name and authority of Jesus of Nazareth. Many of the Christians I surveyed, interviewed, and observed sought prayer for healing both because they had physical and emotional needs and because they wanted evidence of God’s personal love and active intervention on their behalf. The pentecostal network at the center of my research—Christians influenced by the Toronto Blessing revivals of the

Therapeutic Effects of Islamic Intercessory Prayer on Warts

The present study aimed to examine the therapeutic effects of Islamic intercessory prayer on warts. Forty-five participants who are mostly Muslims and infected with warts were randomized into three groups: Group-1 (uncertain, with intercessory prayer), Group-2 (uncertain, no intercessory prayer), and control group (informed, no intervention). Stress symptoms were also measured before and after prayer sessions for these three groups. The results revealed that there were no significant differences between the groups in terms of healing. Although participants believed in the therapeutic effects of prayer, when participants did not trust the intercessor, prayer had no effect on warts.

Say one for me: the implicit religion of prayers from the street

Within the field of the psychology of prayer, there has been a growing interest in empirical studies concerned with the analysis of the content of ordinary people's private prayers, with a view to providing a more nuanced understanding of the psychological correlates of prayer among those who engage in the activity. One research tradition has focused on the content analysis of intercessory prayer requests left in church-related settings, and it is within this context that the present study is located, examining 417 intercessory prayer requests, collected on the streets by bishops in the Church of England as part of the 2011 “Say One for Me” Lent Prayer initiative. The study was informed by the constructs of implicit religion and ordinary theology, and employed ap Siôn's general analytical framework for intercessory prayer requests. Three types of implicit religion were found to be present in the prayer content: societal consensus, the source of explicit religion, and the effect of explicit religion, and the significance of these results is discussed.

A randomized clinical trial on the effects of remote intercessory prayer in the adverse outcomes of pregnancies

The scope of this article was to investigate whether intercessory prayer (IP) influences the adverse outcomes of pregnancies. A double-blind, randomized clinical trial was conducted with 564 pregnant women attending a prenatal public health care service. The women were randomly assigned to an IP group or to a control group (n = 289 per group). They were simultaneously and randomly assigned to practice prayer off-site or not. The following parameters were evaluated: Apgar scores, type of delivery and birth weight. The mean age of the women was 25.1 years of age (± 7.4), and the average gestational age was 23.4 weeks (± 8.1). The average number of years of schooling for the women was 8.1 years (± 3.1). The women in the IP and control groups presented a similar number of adverse medical events with non-significant p. No significant differences were detected in the frequency of adverse outcomes in pregnant women who practiced IP and those in the control group.

Sin and Redemption in the Hours of François I (1539–40) by the Master of François de Rohan

Sin and Redemption in the <i>Hours of François I</i> (1539–40) by the Master of François de Rohan

Close Ties, Intercessory Prayer, and Optimism Among American Adults: Locating God in the Social Support Network

Prayer is often an interpersonal phenomenon. It represents not only a form of social support shared between or among people, but also a means of embedding an unobservable actor (God) within a conventionally observable social network. This study considers whether the receipt of intercessory prayer from close network ties is associated with future‐oriented well‐being. Analyses use social network module data from the Portraits of American Life Study (PALS), a nationally representative study of American adults containing a breadth of information not available in prior studies of networks, prayer, and well‐being. Despite experiencing more instances of recent adversity (mental or physical health problem, financial trouble, and unemployment), prayed‐for PALS respondents report the highest levels of optimism. Furthermore, the association between network prayer and optimism is robust to inclusion of individual‐level indicators of religiosity. Finally, other forms of social support that an individual receives from his or her close ties do not explain the benefits of intercessory prayer.

The psychology of prayer: a scientific approach

Introduction to the Scientific Study of Prayer. Prayer in Psychological Perspective. The Many Faces of Prayer: Multidimensionality. The Individual's Development of Prayer. Prayer in Coping and Adjustment. Prayer and Health. Intercessory Prayer. Concluding Perspectives and Possibilities.

Napisy na pewnych barokowych tablicach fundacyjnych – tak zwanych „grobach dusz” w krakowskich kościołach

Inscriptions on certain Baroque foundation plaques (so called groby dusz ‘soul graves’) in Cracow churches&#x0D; The subject of this cultural-linguistic overview are more than ten epitaph plaques preserved till this day on the walls of Cracow churches. Erected far from the actual burial place, so-called groby dusz ‘soul graves’ were primarily meant to assist the soul of the deceased on its way to salvation. The set of monuments discussed in the paper is distinguished by the strictly defined construction scheme of their inscriptions, whose essential illocutive purpose was to ask the passers-by for an intercessory prayer. Here, we attempt to discover and describe the culturally and pragmatically defined characteristic features of this act of request. We are particularly interested in the linguistic strategies that the supplicants employed to increase the persuasive force of the utterance, and to efficiently obtain the receiver’s grace.

Postawa ubogiego wobec ofiarodawcy i jego daru w nauczaniu starożytnego Kościoła (I-III wiek)

The article deals with the problem of the responsibility of a poor person for the received gift. Analysis of selected writings of Christian antiquity reveals that every poor person who asks the rich for assistance is responsible to God for the received gift. All those who appeal to the benevolence of the rich and extort their help will answer at God’s judgment. In turn a poor person who is in real need is God’s altar. The alms given to the poor are a sacrifice that the rich offer on the altar of God himself. This confers a supernatural dimension upon alms. Moreover, between the benefactor and the recipient the relation of a reciprocal exchange of goods is established. The poor person who is supported with material goods by a rich person reciprocates with spiritual gifts: intercessory prayer and gratitude that continue even after the benefactor’s death. Thus, the rich person who receives the spiritual gifts benefits more than the poor person because in return for perish­able material goods he is given eternal life.

Praying ‘online’: the ordinary theology of prayer intentions posted on the internet

Astley’s construct of ordinary theology takes seriously listening to the religious expression and experience of ordinary people, both churched and unchurched. One method by which this has already been achieved is through the empirical analysis of the content of ordinary people’s intercessory prayer requests left in hospitals and churches. Building on this research tradition, the current study analyses 290 prayer requests posted on the Church of England’s ‘Say one for Me’ website using ap Siôn’s ‘general’ framework for analysing intercessory prayer requests. This general framework distinguishes between three aspects of intercessory prayer styled as prayer intention, prayer reference, and prayer objective. Results demonstrated that the ‘general’ framework performed well within the new context of online prayer requests and enabled the findings to be compared with those from two earlier prayer card studies by ap Siôn. The main findings show that, in terms of prayer reference, the majority of prayer requests were for other people known to the prayer author (57%), although a significant proportion were for the prayer authors themselves (34%); in terms of prayer intention, most prayer requests were concerned with illness (26%), relationships (24%), work (19%), and growth (18%); and in terms of prayer objective, most prayer requests employed primary control (84%) rather than secondary control (16%). When the online prayer results were compared with previous prayer card results, using the same analytical framework, online prayer authors were found to be distinctive in terms of prayer reference, prayer intention, and prayer objective. The reasons for these differences are discussed and applied to the Church’s provision for intercessory prayer.

Use of Complementary Therapies for Cancer Symptom Management: Results of the 2007 National Health Interview Survey

Complementary therapies are often used as adjuncts to conventional treatment by individuals with cancer. Patterns of use of these practices and products represent important data for health care providers in delivering adequate patient care. This study compared use of complementary therapies between the cancer and noncancer populations in the United States through secondary analyses of the 2007 National Health Interview Survey data. The analysis compared use by cancer survivors (those individuals self-reporting a diagnosis of cancer; n=1785) and individuals without cancer (n=21,585), as well as self-report of symptoms affecting health-related quality of life (HQoL). Data suggest similar patterns of use between cancer survivors and the general population; however, a greater percentage of cancer survivors use complementary modalities. Individuals with cancer reported a greater percentage of use of complementary therapies overall, with cancer status significantly associated with ever having used complementary and alternative medicine (p<0.001). The five most common complementary practices and products used by individuals with cancer and controls were vitamin/mineral supplements, prayer for self, intercessory prayer, chiropractic/osteopathic manipulation, and herbal therapies. Additionally, as might be expected, individuals with cancer experience greater frequency of deleterious symptoms associated with decreased HQoL. Individuals with cancer were more likely to sleep fewer than 7 hours (p=0.0108) or greater than 9 hours (p=0.0108), and have increased insomnia (p<0.001), excessive sleepiness (p<0.001), depression (p<0.001), and anxiety (p<0.001) versus those without cancer. The current findings may inform health care providers about the use of complementary and integrative practices and products by patients with cancer in an effort to manage symptoms of the disease. Additionally, these results may also be used to promote research to define the merits of the use of such complementary and integrative practices and products.

POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE: DEBATES OVER DOUBLE‐BLIND CLINICAL TRIALS OF INTERCESSORY PRAYER

Abstract. This article traces the intellectual history of scientific studies of intercessory prayer published in English between 1965 and the present by focusing on the conflict and discussion they prompted in the medical literature. I analyze these debates with attention to how researchers articulate the possibilities and limits medical science has for studying intercessory prayer over time. I delineate three groups of researchers and commentators: those who think intercessory prayer can and should be studied scientifically, those who are more skeptical and articulate the limits of science around this topic, and those who focus primarily on the pragmatic applications of this knowledge. I analyze these contests as examples of what Thomas Gieryn calls “epistemic authority” as medical researchers engage in what he describes as “boundary‐work” or “the discursive attribution of selected qualities to scientists, scientific methods, and scientific claims for the purposes of drawing a rhetorical boundary between science and some less authoritative residual non‐science.” (Gieryn 1999, 4 (Gieryn 1999, 4)).

MYSTERY?

MYSTERY?

Clinical services instead of sermons

Today, we are facing the decline of institutional religion. In Finland, the decrease in membership of the mainstream Evangelical Lutheran Church has been unusually rapid over the past few years, but, at the same time, the variety of religious supply has significantly increased. In addition to non-Christian spiritual and religious alternatives, innumerable lay movements, functions and practices are also offering their services within the Christian field, both in non-denominational circles and in those more or less linked to the mainstream church. The changes that occur in the religious field in Finland take place largely within the Christian cultural field. In addition to the obvious organisational changes taking place in the religious landscape of Finland, there is a certain fragmentation of contemporary religious attitudes. Such changes have been identified throughout the Western world—conventional definitions of ‘believing’ and ‘belonging’ do not seem to fit anything properly anymore. Furthermore, ‘practising’ and ‘participating’ as dynamic aspects of religiosity make the general view even more nuanced. An example of religious involvement within this frame is a Christian intercessory prayer service called the Healing Rooms. It is a religious practice that is attempting to accommodate the contemporary situation of post-secular Finland, and simultaneously advocating its traditional mission of evangelicism.

Spiritist Psychiatric Hospitals in Brazil: Integration of Conventional Psychiatric Treatment and Spiritual Complementary Therapy

In Brazil, during the XX century, dozens of Spiritist psychiatric hospitals emerged seeking to integrate conventional medical treatment with complementary spiritual therapy. This combined inpatient treatment is largely found in Brazil, where many psychiatric hospitals stem from the Spiritist movement. The present report describes the use of these spiritual practices, their operating structure, health professionals involved, modalities of care, and institutional difficulties in integrating spiritual practices with conventional treatment in six leading Brazilian Spiritist psychiatric hospitals. These hospitals combine conventional psychiatric treatment with voluntary-based spiritual approaches such as laying on of hands ("fluidotherapy"), lectures regarding spiritual and ethical issues, intercessory prayer, spirit release therapy ("disobsession") and "fraternal dialogue". The non-indoctrination and optional nature of these spiritual complementary therapies seem to increase acceptance among patients and their family members. In conclusion, the Spiritist psychiatric hospitals in Brazil have, for more than half a century, provided an integrative approach in the treatment of psychiatric disorders, associating conventional and spiritual treatments, more specifically Spiritist therapy. The lack of standardized treatment protocols and scientific studies remain a barrier to assessing the impact of this integrative approach on patients' mental health, quality of life, adherence, and perceived quality of treatment.

Outcomes of Intercessory Prayer for those who are Ill: Scientific and Pastoral Perspectives.

Intercessory prayer for those who are ill is a common religious practice not only by individuals but also by communities of faith. Although such prayer has much religious meaning, is there scientific evidence that it brings about the outcomes for which it asks? The scientific literature investigating the efficacy of intercessory prayer for the ill and the difficulties in putting prayer to scientific scrutiny is explored in this article. Overall, studies have yielded mixed results and have been criticized (on a scientific basis) as having methodological flaws such as small sample size, varied end-points, varied definitions of prayer, and varied expertise of "intercessors." Such studies have also been critiqued on metaphysical and religious grounds, namely, that God's actions cannot (and should not be) subjected to scientific scrutiny.

Nurses' experiences, expectations, and preferences for mind-body practices to reduce stress

BackgroundMost research on the impact of mind-body training does not ask about participants' baseline experience, expectations, or preferences for training. To better plan participant-centered mind-body intervention trials for nurses to reduce occupational stress, such descriptive information would be valuable.MethodsWe conducted an anonymous email survey between April and June, 2010 of North American nurses interested in mind-body training to reduce stress. The e-survey included: demographic characteristics, health conditions and stress levels; experiences with mind-body practices; expected health benefits; training preferences; and willingness to participate in future randomized controlled trials.ResultsOf the 342 respondents, 96% were women and 92% were Caucasian. Most (73%) reported one or more health conditions, notably anxiety (49%); back pain (41%); GI problems such as irritable bowel syndrome (34%); or depression (33%). Their median occupational stress level was 4 (0 = none; 5 = extreme stress). Nearly all (99%) reported already using one or more mind-body practices to reduce stress: intercessory prayer (86%), breath-focused meditation (49%), healing or therapeutic touch (39%), yoga/tai chi/qi gong (34%), or mindfulness-based meditation (18%). The greatest expected benefits were for greater spiritual well-being (56%); serenity, calm, or inner peace (54%); better mood (51%); more compassion (50%); or better sleep (42%). Most (65%) wanted additional training; convenience (74% essential or very important), was more important than the program's reputation (49%) or scientific evidence about effectiveness (32%) in program selection. Most (65%) were willing to participate in a randomized trial of mind-body training; among these, most were willing to collect salivary cortisol (60%), or serum biomarkers (53%) to assess the impact of training.ConclusionsMost nurses interested in mind-body training already engage in such practices. They have greater expectations about spiritual and emotional than physical benefits, but are willing to participate in studies and to collect biomarker data. Recruitment may depend more on convenience than a program's scientific basis or reputation. Knowledge of participants' baseline experiences, expectations, and preferences helps inform future training and research on mind-body approaches to reduce stress.