I have read with interest recent correspondence regarding the efficacy of prayer. The presupposition is that if one prays for something, there should be evidence of answered prayer. When a study shows that there is no such evidence (Letters, 16 March), it is fair to say that prayer, so understood, doesn’t work.
I wonder if there is a study to measure the effect that prayer has on the person praying? Prayer, for many of us, is not magic, not seeking the intervention of a lofty god whose reluctant arms need to be twisted. It is, rather, a participation in and a growing in compassion. It is we who are changed, through contemplation and stillness, centred on divine love.
Painfully slowly (in my case at least), we then become better able to act compassionately and justly. We become the answer to our own prayer. That, truly, has the potential to change everything.
Rev Kenneth Cross
Minehead, Somerset
• When arguing for or against the efficacy of prayer, account has to be taken of the nature of the request involved. If one drives at speed into a brick wall, one cannot expect the prayer to escape unscathed to be effective. So the person praying for peace, while supporting their country’s policy of providing combatants with lethal weapons, which prolong confrontation, should not be surprised when peace does not ensue.
However, a prayer to be able to understand better the enemy’s point of view, their hopes and fears, while honestly examining one’s own side’s possible prejudices and misguided policies – such a prayer could be answered and indeed prove effective in stemming the horrors of armed conflict. Jesus did not say “Blessed are the victorious” but “Blessed are the peacemakers”.
Rev Rachel Larkinson
Abbotts Ann, Hampshire
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