The Placebo Effect of Faith

Last updated on: January 3, 2011 at 12:00 pm by Guest Contributor

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The Placebo Effect of Faith 2011-01-03T12:00:07+00:00 Guest Contributor

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By Jim Burklo

My first ministry job was as the summer fill-in preacher for a congregation in Michigan, just before I started seminary. I subjected the folks at Pine Hill Congregational Church at Orchard Lake to sermons in which I felt compelled to condense all my youthful ruminations about matters theological. I was humbled that the people were neither bothered nor much inspired by the ideas in my sermons. It almost didn’t matter what I said, as long as I said it with sincerity and enthusiasm. The ideas I thought were so important were not the “active ingredients.” I was performing a ritual for them that had a positive value distinct from the words I was saying.

I just discovered what might be a scientific confirmation of this observation. The Discovery Channel reports that a recent study shows that the placebo effect works even when the subjects of the research are told that the medication they are taking is indeed a placebo. Believing that the pill is real medicine, even when it is not, is not required. It appears that the “active ingredient” of the placebo effect is going to the doctor, getting attentive care, getting a prescription, and taking the pill. “This is the specific effect of the ritual of medicine,” says the reseacher, Ted Kaptchuk, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

For a long time, I and other progressive Christians have been saying that you can be a faithful Christian without believing that the Bible is literally true, that God is a supernatural being violating the processes of nature, or that our religion is superior to others. In the churches I have served, I have made this point of view explicit in my sermons. I have been surprised at how few people have objected. People raised to hold very traditional beliefs often don’t blink an eye when I contradict many of the doctrines they were taught as essential to the faith. They don’t blink because those doctrines aren’t what really matters to them. They aren’t bothered because we still use the Bible and the rituals and traditions and music and iconography of historic Christianity. The positive intentionality, the warm, caring community, the overt and subtle harmonies of the music and the art and the beautiful liturgies of the faith have their own power and value. In Christianity, as well as in other religions, ritual is at least as much the message as what people declare the ritual to mean. Rituals train our hearts and bodies to practice our religion in everyday life. They put us through the motions, both physically and imaginatively, that exercise our faith.

“Take comfort in rituals” said the sign pasted on the Starbucks coffee shop a few months ago, when I went in the morning for a hot chocolate. Indeed, I value the process as much as the actual substance in the cup. Standing in line with other people who are seeking comfort is itself comforting, and it builds up the satisfaction in the awaited hot beverage. It is a ritual that starts my day with warmth and conviviality.

I take comfort in going to church and standing in line to get communion. Even though I don’t believe there is any supernatural transubstantiation of the elements of the ritual, it has great power for me. I often find myself on the edge of tears as I receive communion from my fellow church members at the altar table. I have no doubt that it makes a positive difference in my life and in the lives of the other members of Mt. Hollywood Congregational Church. My morning hot chocolate actually provides me with substantial nutrients that communion does not. But I get much, much more inspiration and courage at church than at the coffee shop. The “faith effect” of ritual is strong, whether or not a particular meaning is assigned to it. Communion puts me through the motions of showing humility, gratitude, and compassion toward others, and that is the “active” ingredient. I’m already sure it exercises my spiritual muscles, but it’s nice to know that this experience also might have a scientific basis!

Jim Burklo is an ordained United Church of Christ pastor who serves as the Associate Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Birdlike And Barnless: Meditations, Prayers, and Songs for Progressive Christians (2008) and Open Christianity: Home By Another Road (2000). Jim’s blog Musings appears at The Center for Progressive Christianity. This post is reprinted with permission from his blog.

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