I have an ongoing interest in the benefits of faith, especially a genuine faith in Christ. In my devotional last August, entitled "The Healing Power of Words," I described some new medical evidence for the healing power of love and support relationships. I drew heavily on the book entitled, Love & Survival by a physician named Dr. Dean Ornish. To me this evidence is amazing. Today I want to look with you at the remarkable effects of faith and prayer on mental and physical health.

Two experiences from my past have given me an interest in this subject. First, as a young teenager, I had a strong ambition to become a research chemist. Since my high school was too small to have a course in chemistry, I built my own laboratory and worked through a college text on chemistry, making careful records of the outcomes of my experiments. That procedure gave me a healthy respect for scientific observation. The second experience was a serious illness I endured for fifteen months around the time of my graduation from high school. Medical treatment did not seem to help. At a time when I should have been developing the strength of young manhood, I suffered severe loss of weight and a debilitating fatigue. I was desperate to find healing. During those months of suffering I pursued a course of recommitment, prayer, and Bible reading. Finally one day, after a time of concentrated prayer, I felt a warmth sensation throughout my body and a special sense of being loved by God. I knew I was healed. Immediately my ability to eat returned. Within a few months I had regained my normal weight and strength. These two experiences gave me an interest in the power of faith to affect health and the belief that while scientific research cannot study spiritual reality, it should, at least, be able to corroborate the physical and emotional outcomes of spiritual disciplines.

The Scripture teaches that healing can come through faith. The Gospels record many instances of healing that Jesus performed. James tells us in chapter 5, "The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven." The references in the Gospels are to instantaneous, direct healing. Such miraculous healing is experienced by only a few people. But is there also a healing power in faith, prayer, fellowship, and worship that increases immunity and fosters physical and mental health?

There is a growing involvement today among doctors in finding answers to this question. Some of them became interested when they observed that religious people seemed to have better resources for recovery or even for enduring the debilitating effects of illness and approaching death. Since about 1970 hundreds of carefully designed medical studies have been published that show striking correlations between faith and health. Many of these studies have been published in the most prestigious medical and psychiatric journals. Hundreds of these studies have been reviewed by Dr. Dale Matthews, associate professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine, in Washington D.C. He published the results of his examination in a 1998 publication, called The Faith Factor. Dr Matthews writes about "clinical studies that demonstrate one simple fact: faith is good medicine." (p. 1)

To give you an idea, I can cite only a few of the studies that Dr. Matthews describes.

- In a study carried out at the San Francisco General Hospital 393 patients were given standard treatment in the coronary care unit. In addition all were told that they would be involved in a study of prayer. Half of the patients were prayed for by name by a group of committed Christians, but no patient or doctor knew just which ones were the recipient of this intercessory prayer. Efforts were made to control for all possible variations in the severity of their heart disease, so that these factors would not distort the results. At the conclusion of the study it was found that those patients who were the subjects of intercession by the prayer group, were only half as likely to suffer complications as were the others. (pp. 199-200)

- At the Public Health Service Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, among 248 patients with a history of years of heroin abuse, those who were given a religiously-oriented drug abuse program were found after one year to be almost ten times more likely to remain abstinent than those given a secular drug abuse program. (p. 26)

- In a 1995 study of 232 elderly patients with open-heart surgery, after six months it was found that regular church goers had only one-third the mortality rate of non-church goers and of those who had described their faith as giving them significant "strength and comfort" not one had died. (p. 23)

- In Alameda County, California almost 7000 people were followed for 23 years, given regular physicals, and examined for a large number of factors that could affect length of life. It was found that those who attended religious services at least once a week, had a mortality rate 36% lower than those who attended services less frequently. (p. 158)

Dr. Matthews includes one example of instantaneous healing. A routine mammogram, performed on a woman named Kathy, revealed the presence of a growth. Her doctor recommended a biopsy. Anxious and worried as she waited for the biopsy to be performed, Kathy requested prayer. Two coworkers and then an elder from her church came to the hospital to pray for her. She said that if it was God's plan for her, she was resigned to having breast cancer. When the doctors began the biopsy procedure with another mammogram to locate the exact position of the lump, they were completely unable to find it. They compared the original x-ray, consulted with other radiologists, took more x-rays, and then did a probe with a biopsy needle, but were still unable to find the tumor that was clearly present in the first x-ray.

After reviewing these and other studies, Dr. Matthews talks about a spiritual program to maximize the power of faith for physical and mental health. He speaks openly as a Christian who has faith in Jesus Christ, but extends his scope to all Christians, Jews, Muslims, and to people with spirituality but no involvement in organized religion. While he recognizes the value of an individual spirituality, he stresses that that many of the studies indicate that the most effective faith includes participation in a congregation. He attempts to define what there is about faith that promotes health. Among the twelve factors he enumerates are a greater respect for one's body as God's temple, a sense of purpose in life, the harmony brought by worship, confession and forgiveness, the strength that comes from fellowship with other believers, caring for others, a sustaining hope, and openness to the all-powerful and loving God.

Dr. Matthews summarizes: "Being religiously involved actually reduces incidences of illness, assists significantly in recovery, and in some cases appears to prolong life. Of course, no one-no matter how holy-can count on an existence free of illness and suffering, but people of faith have been found to meet these challenges with greater resiliency than do their nonbelieving counterparts." (p.142)

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