The Effect of Prayer on the One Who Prays

Often persons in the Foundry's large 1300 member congregation would ask clergy about these services to determine what kind of order was observed. Unfortunately many have heard of so-called healing services in which enthusiastic extremes occur, often with glorification of an individual who claims to be a healer endowed with special powers by God. Often these persons ask for and receive financial gain personally, such as in the well known tent ministries.

An example of such abuse is powerfully presented in the film Leap of Faith²² in which a charismatic con-artist faith-healer, Jonas Nightingale (played by Steve Martin), uses the latest scientific tools of communication to extort money from gullible attendees. In the movie he is shown with a small receiver in his ear which gives him information gained by his staff from persons as they arrive at the service. The staff has collected and collated this information so that he can appear to be miraculously in tune with an individual's needs. He primes the crowd by having a few cronies who feign illnesses and are then apparently suddenly healed when Jonas lays hands on them and prays.

In the story a young boy who works as a custodian has a congenitally malformed foot which causes him to limp badly. After witnessing many services he comes in full faith to the healer and asks Jonas to heal him from his lameness. Jonas, of course, does not believe in the possibility of such miraculous cures and dismisses the boy's request. However, the boy is persistent and to get rid of him Jonas finally agrees to pray over the boy and attempt to heal him.

What occurs then destroys Jonas' cosmology, because to his utter amazement the boy is actually healed and walks away with no limp. In the final scenes of the movie Jonas is seen walking down the highway thumbing a ride to the nearest big city to become a taxi driver earning an honest livelihood. After the experience of a real miraculous cure he can no longer bilk gullible persons for their money.

What is a miracle? The usual answer given is that it is an occurrence which goes against the natural laws which govern all of us. A disease is suddenly arrested, or a specific request for financial help occurs, a person escapes danger, or suddenly a promotion and recognition occurs at work, or one finds a longed-for life partner.

In my ministry, I often simply respond that a miracle is anything which increases the faith of a believer. It is evidence that God is at work for one directly. Such questions involve a pursuit of what we understand by providence. In a scientific world more and more of what we once understood to be the province of God has been relinquished to an understanding of the underlying mechanisms by which such events occur with the result that many have concluded that our belief in God is only a result of our ignorance.

In my ministry events have occurred which seemed miraculous. For example, one evening a woman approached the altar with an inner ear disturbance which prevented her from being able to walk normally. After prayer for healing she walked from the chapel stating that she no longer was dizzy.

However, many persons pray for a specific cure which does not occur. These prayers may extend over long periods of time and a frequent question which must be dealt with in meditations and conversations is why God does not answer every request. Ultimately, it is a matter of faith. In Foundry's healing ministry we would often say that God often heals but does not cure specific symptoms. By this is meant that a person can be made whole spiritually, emotionally and psychologically while still evidencing the symptoms of a disease.

TIME/CNN published the results of a telephone poll of 1004 adult Americans, asking the following questions:

Do you believe in the healing power of prayer?

Yes 82%; No 13%

Do you believe praying for someone else can help cure their illness?

Yes 73%; No 21%

Do you believe God sometimes intervenes to cure people who have a serious illness?

Yes 77%; No 18%

Do you believe in the ability of faith healers to make people well through their faith or personal touch?

Yes 28%; No 63%

Do you believe doctors should join their patients in prayer if the patient requests it?

Yes 64%; No 27%

Commenting upon these data, Marty Kaplan, former speechwriter for Vice President Mondale and Hollywood studio executive, wrote in the Medicine section of TIME magazine an editorial titled "Ambushed by Spirituality."

It was tooth grinding that got me to God. I didn't know I was on a spiritual path at the time. I couldn't face the prospect of wearing a night guard to protect my teeth from stress, and the alternative which I had stumbled onto was meditation . . . I got more from mind-body medicine than I had bargained for. I got religion.

. . . I thought I would spend my life: a cultural Jew, an agnostic, a closet nihilist. Of course I didn't like it. Who wants to face death without God? Who wants to tell the kids that the universe is indifferent to them? But the alternative—faith—was unavailable to me.

What attracted me to meditation was its apparent religious neutrality. You don't have to believe in anything; all you have to do is do it. I had worried that reaping its benefits would require some faith I could only fake, but I was happy to learn that 90% of meditation was about showing up.

The spirituality of it ambushed me. Unwittingly, I was engaging in a practice that has been at the heart of religious mysticism for milleniums [sic]. To separate 20 minutes from the day with silence and intention is to worship, whether you call it that or not. To be awakened to the miracle of existence—to experience Being not only in roses and sunsets but right now, as something not out there but in here—this is the road less traveled, the path of the pilgrim, the quest.

The God I have found is common to Moses and Muhammad, to Buddha and Jesus.

It is known to every mystic tradition. In mine, it is the Tetragrammaton, the Name so holy that those who know it dare not say it. It is what the Cabala calls Ayin, Nothingness, No-Thingness. It is Spirit, Being, the All.

I used to think of psychic phenomena as New Age flimflam. I used to think of reincarnation as a myth. I used to think the soul was a metaphor. Now I know there is a God—my God, in here, demanding not faith but experience, an inexhaustible wonder at the richness of this very moment. Now I know there is a consciousness that transcends science, a consciousness toward which our species is sputteringly evolving, a welcome development spurred ironically by our generational rendezvous with mortality.²³

Discussion Questions:

• Do you believe prayer has helped you find a parking space when you needed it?
• Do you believe prayer has helped you pass an exam?
• Do you believe prayer has helped you prepare a sermon or a lecture?
• Do you believe miracles occur?

22. Leap of Faith, Paramount Pictures, 1992, directed by Richard Pearce and written by James Cercone. Steve Martin stars as fake faith healer Jonas Nightingale.
23. Marty Kaplan, "Ambushed By Spirituality." TIME, Medicine, p. 62, June 24, 1996.