This is a moment when anyone who believes in prayer would be praying. But would it do any good? Even if it couldn’t change the course of events, would it make people feel better? Might it even make them healthier? The thinktank Theos has now ground through 139 studies of these questions to discover whether there is a link, and if so, what is linked to what. This isn’t just a question of interest to believers but one that has wider implications for our horribly disrupted political life.
Obviously it would be wrong to believe in anything just because it makes you feel good. But what the Theos analysis makes clear is that belief is the least important of the various aspects of religion that affect wellbeing. This is just as well, since otherwise only the followers of one particular religion could benefit from it; although it does appear that there are certain characteristics which any religious doctrine must display to benefit us: at the very least a certain optimism and benevolence towards humans.
Not for nothing was “religious melancholia” a term for major depression among Victorian Protestants. The clearest beneficial effects come from regular social participation: collective prayer and collective action.
Just as attendance at football matches has a much stronger emotional effect than watching them alone on television, believers need to affirm and to act out their faith for it to work in them. The lesson for politics, perhaps, is clear. It’s not enough to have the right ideas. We need to work for them in our everyday lives as well.
