Healing and Religion Converging?
Written By: Donald W. Ingwerson
Whenever I’m talking with a reporter or editor, invariably I am asked for concrete data to support the value of prayer on health. (Occasionally, the words spirituality, faith, and alternative medicine are used instead of prayer.) Usually, I’m disappointed by not having that data at my fingertips so that I can share it during the interview – because I know there are studies containing that information.
Here are a couple of the questions where I could have used that data in my answers:
Is there a relationship between religion & longevity/health?
Are medical science and spiritual healing converging?
David G. Myers, Professor of Psychology at Hope College, gives some of these answers in an article titled Spirituality and Faith Communities http://www.davidmyers.org/Brix?pageID=52, where he writes about this topic based on data from research studies. The next time I sit down with a reporter or editor, I will have some good answers to share. Here are a few highlights from Myers’ article:
Jeremy Kark and his colleagues (1996) reported that over a 16-year period “belonging to a religious collective was associated with a strong protective effect,” which was not explained by age or economic differences.
McCullough & others (2000, 2005) followed 5280 Californians over 28 years and found that “frequent religious attenders were 36 percent less likely to have died in any year.”
Harold Pincus (1997), deputy medical director of the American Psychiatric Association, believes these findings “have made clear that anyone involved in providing health care services cannot ignore the important connections between spirituality, religion, and health.” Maybe this is why Myers reports that of America’s 135 medical schools, 101 offered spirituality and health courses in 2005, up from 5 in 1992 (Koenig, 2002, Puchalski, 2005).
Through prayer, I have experienced healings of a broken bone and of a son’s impaired vision, to name a few. These conditions were medically diagnosed. Healing prayers are as “old as the hills,” taught and demonstrated by Jesus and then by religious leaders such as Mary Baker Eddy, who wrote a book on the subject. I have personally found prayer to be a special quality in my life.
Are religion and healing converging? Is the public looking for choice in selecting what works best for them? The statistics seem to suggest that.
DonDonald W. Ingwerson
Media and Government Relations
Christian Science in Southern California
