New York Times article on Prayer

This morning in Church the pastor referenced this article in the New York Times from March 31st. The headline grabbed attention by proclaiming "...Medical study Questions the Power of Prayer."

There are inherent flaws in the study such as:

• "The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion," said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia.
  

• Dean Marek, a chaplain at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a co-author of the report, said the study said nothing about the power of personal prayer or about prayers for family members and friends.
  

• But they said that being aware of the strangers' prayers also may have caused some of the patients a kind of performance anxiety."It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?" Dr. Bethea said.
  

• But experts said the study could not overcome perhaps the largest obstacle to prayer study: the unknown amount of prayer each person received from friends, families, and congregations around the world who pray daily for the sick and dying.

It continues to amaze me that the scientific community tries to "put God in a test tube" (My Pastor). By it's nature Faith is believing the unseen.

Philippians 3:9
9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

A few more to chew on in this debate:
Rom. 3:22, 25; Gal. 2:16;Phil. 3:9; John 3:16-36; Acts 10:43; 16:31

We are called to pray because prayer changes things:

Job 8:5-7
5 But if you will look to God and plead with the Almighty, 6 if you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore you to your rightful place. 7 Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be.

Prayer has changed many things in my life and I have seen it change things in people around me. Maybe someday I will post on some of the miracles I have seen God perform in my life.