VELMA MOORE: In seven years, he's almost died 12 times.
BOB ABERNETHY: At the Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, Benjamin Moore is recovering from kidney failure, and his wife has no doubt about why he is getting better.
Ms. MOORE: I knew that if the prayers went up, the blessings would come down.
ABERNETHY: Near Raleigh, North Carolina, Andy Delbridge is convalescing from surgery to remove a brain cancer so advanced he was given just a year to live.
ANDY DELBRIDGE: There is no growth. There is no evidence of cancer. I think I'm cured. I think God has given me time.
ABERNETHY: Andy and his wife, Nancy, credit God, their prayers, and the prayers of their church. I asked Nancy, with two young sons to raise and her husband terminally ill, was she ever angry at God?NANCY DELBRIDGE: How could I be angry with the one who was carrying me? You know, no.
ABERNETHY: Moving as personal testimonies can be, many scientists consider them anecdotes, not evidence. Nevertheless, in recent years there has been a surge of interest in finding a provable connection between religion and health. One of the leaders of the research is Duke psychiatrist Harold Koenig.
Dr. HAROLD KOENIG (Co-director, Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, Duke University Medical Center): The enormous number of studies all suggest that religious involvement and practices actually result in better health.
People who are more religious have greater well-being, lower anxiety, more purpose and meaning in life, so that religious people tend to have lower blood pressure, tend to have stronger immune systems and, oftentimes, will live longer.ABERNETHY: But correlation does not mean cause.
Dr. KOENIG: You cannot say that it's proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that religion makes you healthy; that's correct, but where there is a lot of smoke, there's probably some fire.
ABERNETHY: Koenig says many doctors who used to dismiss a role for religion in medical practice are becoming more open to a connection. But in New York, psychologist Richard P. Sloan at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital brands most of the new research "bad science."
Dr. RICHARD P. SLOAN (Psychologist, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital): The evidence is, by and large, extremely weak and inconclusive. We can't say for sure that religious involvement causes better health. We may be able to say that there's an association, but we don't understand it.ABERNETHY: Professor Sloan also questions whether science can ever measure spirituality.
Dr. SLOAN: Medical science deals in facts -- observable facts, testable hypotheses. Religion deals in faith. Faith doesn't require proof.
ABERNETHY: Koenig partly agrees.
Dr. KOENIG: You cannot prove, in my opinion, anything about God or that God answers prayer or anything that is supernatural. What we can show, though, is what impact does believing in God, in going to church, reading the Bible, going to synagogue, mosque -- what impact do those beliefs and practices have on a person's mental and physical health? That we can study.ABERNETHY: But, Sloan says, the studies must be broad.
Dr. SLOAN: There are lots of cases in which people pray devoutly and don't get better. And there are lots of cases in which people do get better and they don't pray. And only a systematic evaluation of that can lead to conclusions that are definitive.
ABERNETHY: Sloan argues that it may be the healthy lifestyle of many religious people that enhances health, not religion itself. He says any kind of social engagement helps, not just belonging to a faith community. He also asks, if religious belief produces healing, what does that imply if there is no healing? That a patient's faith was inadequate?Dr. SLOAN: It's bad enough to be sick; it's worse still to be gravely ill. But to add to that the burden of remorse or guilt over some supposed failure of devotion is simply unconscionable.
Dr. KOENIG: You can never conclude that a person is sick because of a weak faith.
Dr. KOENIG: In this culture, people who believe in a loving, merciful, compassionate God who is present with us and who helps us bear our burdens -- that is probably healthier than people who believe in a God that is a punishing God, is a vengeful God, is a judgmental God.
ABERNETHY: There is general agreement that because most doctors are untrained in spiritual care, they should refer patients with spiritual needs to a chaplain or pastoral counselor just the way they would to any other specialist.
Rev. MORGAN: I take seriously the healing power of prayer. But I would broaden that healing to include not just curing, which is what we want -- it's what I want if it's my leg -- but sometimes healing goes beyond that. And it means that a person is empowered to keep moving, to get on with their life even though they don't have a leg, and to feel that God was present with them in a way that made it tolerable.
Dr. KOENIG: My prayer is that God would heal me miraculously, completely -- so I could run and play with my kids and sleep at night. But, "Thy will be done" -- that sense of humility that I don't know everything. It's okay that I'm not in control, because I trust that God is in control and God will take care of things. And healing may not be physical healing. Healing may be social, it may be emotional, it may be spiritual. And God may decide that we need that more than we need the physical healing.
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