Discovering Who I Am

Science has proven over and over again how powerful faith can be. Here are some examples of the power of belief from the book Biology of Belief, by Bruce Lipton.

Dr. Bruce Mosely of Baylor School of Medicine tested the power of belief on a group of patients suffering from Arthritic knees. He shaved the cartilage in one group, flushed out the knee joint in another group and made incisions and faked the surgery on a third group. All three groups improved & the placebo group improved just as much as the other two groups.
Dr Mosely said, “My skill as a surgeon had no benefit on these patients. The entire benefit of surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee was the placebo effect.” One member of the placebo group, Tim Perez, had to walk with a cane before the “surgery” but can now play basketball with his grandchildren.

Psychiatrist Walter Brown of Brown University has proposed that placebo pills be the first treatment for patients with mild or moderate depression. Studies have shown that even when people know they’re not getting a drug, the placebo pills work. Professor of Psychology, Irving Kirsch, from the University of Connecticut, had to invoke the Freedom of Information Act in 2001 to get information on the clinical trials of the top antidepressants on the market today. The data shows that in more than half of the clinical trials for the six leading antidepressants, the drugs did not outperform placebo sugar pills. Antidepressants have performed better and better in clinical trials over the years, suggesting that their placebo effects are in part due to savvy marketing. The more the media and advertisers have touted the miracle of antidepressants, the more effective they have become. People believe that antidepressants work, and so they do.

A California  interior designer, Janis Schonfeld, after suffering 30 years of depression, took part in a clinical trial in 1997 for Effexor. She was absolutely stunned when found out she had been on a placebo. The brain scans she received throughout the study found that the activity of her prefrontal cortex was greatly enhanced. She even experienced nausea, a common Effexor side effect.

Dr. Clifton Meador talks about his patient, Sam Londe, who was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus– considered 100% fatal at the time (1974). Sam was well aware that everyone in the medical community “expected” that his cancer would recur. No surprise when Londe died a few weeks after diagnosis. However, an autopsy showed no esophageal cancer. Dr. Meador concluded that Londe died because he believed he was going to die.

If what we believe is so powerful in the area of disease and physical health, I wonder how our views of God impact who we become and how we interact with the world around us. I have often heard the idiom, we become like the god we believe in. I believe in a God of love, grace, compassion and creativity; one who accepts and approves me regardless of my mistakes and flaws… or do I? If this is the God I believe in, then why do I not demonstrate the same love, grace, compassion and acceptance towards others?

David Kinnaman, Barna Group president and author of the book, UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity, conducted a study of young people, ages 16-29. He found that the vast majority of non-Christians — 87 percent — said Christianity was judgmental and 85 percent said it was hypocritical. Even the majority of active church-goers surveyed agreed, with 52 percent saying Christianity is judgmental, and 47 percent declaring it hypocritical. Is God judgmental? If most Christians were believing in a God of love and acceptance, would the majority of non-Christians see Christianity as judgmental?

Kinnaman said, “The anti-homosexual perception has now become sort of the Geiger counter of Christians’ ability to love and work with people.” If Christians response to homosexuality is any indication of the nature of the God we believe in, then I fear the majority of us are not seeing God as loving and gracious, but as judgmental and disapproving. Our inability to love and accept someone because of their sin is a reflection of our belief that God does not love and accept us when we sin.

Kinnaman said “When Jesus pursued people, he was much more critical of pride and much more critical of spiritual arrogance than he was of people who were sinful. And today’s Christians, if you spend enough time looking at their attitudes and actions, really are not like Jesus when it comes to that.”

Another survey of U.S. adults who don’t go to church, even on holidays, finds 72 percent say “God, a higher or supreme being, actually exists.” But just as many, 72% percent, also say the church is “full of hypocrites.” Most of the unchurched, 86% percent, say they believe they can have a “good relationship with God without belonging to a church.” And 79 percent say “Christianity today is more about organized religion than loving God and loving people.”

“These outsiders are making a clear comment that churches are not getting through on the two greatest commandments,” to love God and love your neighbor, says Scott McConnell, associate director of LifeWay Research. “When they look at churches … they don’t see people living out the faith.”

I would suggest that Mr. McConnell is wrong in his assessment. I believe that, too often, Christians are living out their faith– they are reflecting the very essence of their belief about God. And if it is true that we become like the God we believe in, many of us might want to reevaluate our view of God before we poison our own spiritual being and alienate others from the love of God. Are you becoming like the God you believe in?