Baylor study on prayer and healing finds it more common than you might think

Chances are that, somewhere along the line, you have prayed for healing.

I say that not just because, as a reader of this blog, you’re likely to be a Baylor Bear, or a Baptist, or even a Christian. Rather, we know that most readers of this blog live in the U.S. — and a new Baylor study reports that almost 90% of Americans have prayed for healing at some point in their lives.

That’s about 290 million people who have used prayer as at least part of their healing process. It’s worth noting that the study didn’t find that all these people were using prayer in place of medical treatment. “Interestingly, most people who use prayer for healing do so alongside regular medical care, rather than as a substitution, as has been presumed up to now,” explains the study’s author, Dr. Jeff Levin, director of the Program on Religion and Population Health at Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion.

Levin isn’t the only one intrigued by these findings; his research has been covered nationally, including such outlets as CBS, CNN, Yahoo!, Huffington Post and FOX News. The next step in Levin’s work? Figuring out how prevalent prayer is across different religions and denominations. But, he says, his research thus far suggests prayer is everywhere — regardless of religious background or belief.

Sic ’em, Dr. Levin!