Faith

From an article in The Onion:

President Bush, already facing the lowest approval ratings in history, is coming under fire from former supporters over what they call his "ineffectual and incompetent" use of prayer for national guidance and assistance. "Every time the president is criticized, he insists that the nation is in his prayers," said the Family Research Council's Bob Jensen. "That may be, but it's becoming more and more clear that these prayers are either too infrequent, too brief, or not strongly worded enough to be effective." Despite assurances from the president that he "prays every day" for the nation's interests both at home and abroad, the mounting crises of recent months-escalating gas prices, the botched Dubai port security deal, ethics scandals, and the rising death toll in Iraq-have left many unimpressed with the effectiveness of his devotion. While newly released portions of White House prayer logs show that Bush's praying has actually gone up in recent months, critics are seeking to subpoena the documents in their entirety to determine the strength of those prayers. The harshest criticisms continue to come from members of the president's conservative base, who insist that the proper devotional words must be used in prayer. "There is a real possibility that the president misrepresented the number of times he invokes Jesus' power each day in accordance with the strict guidelines of scripture," said Henry Holbrook, senior fellow at the Intercession Institute, a leading conservative prayer tank. "Is he clasping his hands together tightly enough? Is he using the proper forms of the pronouns 'thine' and 'thou'? What about the verb 'hast'?"

A joke (a good one IMHO) of course, but there is some meat there...an illustration of how the non-religious look at those of us who pray as silly...and I can almost understand it if (since?) prayer so often seems so ineffectual?

From an AP story on msnbc.com:

A youth minister in Missouri has been charged with assault for for allegedly knocking down a 16-year-old boy and kicking him in the groin during a dodgeball game. Authorities say the teen had missed David Boudreaux with one throw, but then knocked his glasses off with another. The boy apologized, but authorities say Boudreaux pushed him backward and then kicked him in the groin when the teen got up again.

The Center for Reason recently published a study that claims that the percent of viable pregnancies that are terminated is the same in more-"Christian" regions of the U.S. as it is in other regions. From the press release here:

A new study by The Center For Reason (www.CenterForReason.com) finds that Christians have just as many abortions as their non-Christian counterparts. The study concludes that in the year 2000, Christians were responsible for 570,000 abortions. Catholics were found to be the worst offenders, with abortion rates higher than the national average. San Francisco, Calif. (PRWEB) March 12, 2006 -- With over one million abortions being performed in the US each year, this issue has dominated the political landscape. In recent years the rhetoric has escalated, with the pro-life movement becoming a flagship for Christian morality and ethics. The prevailing Christian doctrine--that abortion is murder--has polarized the issue, firmly placing the vast majority of Christians on the pro-life side of the debate. Incendiary comments by some of the more outspoken Christian figureheads have sought to portray abortion as an "evil" perpetrated by the non-Christian left. In response to this, The Center For Reason, a private research group, undertook a study to test the premise: "Christians have fewer abortions than non-Christians". The results disproved the premise. The study, available as a downloadable report, reveals that Christians have just as many abortions as non-Christians. Data analyzed for all fifty states show that the rate of abortion is the same in the most-Christian segments of the population as it is in the least-Christian. The most-Catholic segments, on the other hand, showed significantly higher abortion rates. All data sources used in the study are publicly available, and are referenced in the report. All raw data and calculated values are tabulated in the report, to allow full verification of the results.

This is the result that the Center would hope to find, so there is some danger of bias. However, I would guess that the result is probably not too far from the truth and isn't that big of a surprise. We've heard the same thing in the past about divorce. And we know that the large percentage of Americans that claim to be Christians doesn't exactly translate to Christian behavior being observed as the dominant norm in our society. Unfortunately, it may be that many Christians aren't exactly diligent in applying in applying Biblical principles to our own lives. Our lives really aren't that different from those of others. The report is for sale for $10. About the Center for Reason from their web site:

Our mission is to raise the level of public discourse by bringing reason, knowledge and scientific analysis to topics of public concern. We are a group of private citizens, and are not affiliated with any political party, church, corporation or any other organization. We conduct research into topics that we believe have been misrepresented in public debate. We sell our research reports for a nominal fee to help defray our costs. We also accept donations, and suggestions for future topics of research.

The Pew Research Center recently published a study "A Barometer of Modern Morals" regarding the American public's view of different behaviors as being morally wrong, morally acceptable, or not a moral issue.

The activity that drew the most widespread moral disapproval, 88%, was "married people having an affair," while the one that drew the least was "overeating" - although a sizable minority (32%) said that activity was morally wrong. Two moral issues that have had the greatest political resonance in recent years - homosexuality and abortion - divide the broad public in almost exactly the same way, but are seen differently by some sub-groups in the population. Men are more morally disapproving than women of homosexuality, but both genders have similar views about abortion. Likewise, the old and the young judge the morality of these two behaviors in different ways. On the question of homosexuality, the old are more disapproving than the young. But on the question of abortion, there is no clear difference between the old and the young. Catholics are more disapproving of abortion than they are of homosexuality. Married people are more disapproving of abortion than are those not currently married, but there is no clear difference between the married and unmarried on homosexuality. Majorities of three groups - weekly church-goers, white evangelical Christians and those ages 65 and older - say that nine of the 10 behaviors are morally wrong. Among these groups, overeating is the only behavior not judged by a majority to be morally wrong.

From an AP story on cnn.com:

In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications. Researchers emphasized their work does not address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. The study can only look for an effect from prayers offered as part of the research, they said. They also said they had no explanation for the higher complication rate in patients who knew they were being prayed for, in comparison to patients who only knew it was possible prayers were being said for them. The work, which followed about 1,800 patients at six medical centers, was financed by the Templeton Foundation, which supports research into science and religion. It will appear in the American Heart Journal. Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School and other scientists tested the effect of having three Christian groups pray for particular patients, starting the night before surgery and continuing for two weeks. The volunteers prayed for "a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications" for specific patients, for whom they were given the first name and first initial of the last name.

James 5:16 says that "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." Also, I've never felt too comfortable/motivated praying for someone that I didn't know at all, someone I had no connection to. I guess I have to generally agree with the perspective of the dude from Duke:

Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center, who did not take part in the study, said the results did not surprise him. "There are no scientific grounds to expect a result and there are no real theological grounds to expect a result either," he said. Science, he said, "is not designed to study the supernatural."

Update: April 2, 2006 10:24 PM:
Of all coincidences and all places, the power of prayer to heal was quoted to Tony Soprano tonight...