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Professor Says Prayer Study Was Flawed
It's being called the largest study ever to examine the effects of prayer, but a Southern Baptist professor says it's not much of a barometer.

"Anyone who seeks a prayer life guided by Scripture will not take this study seriously," said Don Whitney, associate professor of biblical spirituality at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. "Prayer is based upon a relationship, namely a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and prayer is itself a part of that relationship. And relationships cannot properly be evaluated by scientific methods."

The study, which appears in the April issue of American Heart Journal, found that prayer by others has a neutral effect on the risk of complications after bypass surgery and that people fare worse if they know others are praying for them.

Doctors began the study on intercessory prayer nearly a decade ago when they asked volunteers from one Protestant prayer group and two Catholic prayer groups to lift up the names of patients in the trial using the phrase, "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications."

For the full text of the Baptist Press article see
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/religiontoday/1387219.html.

Assemblies of God, Mormons Among Fastest-Growing
The Assemblies of God, the Mormon church and the Roman Catholic Church were the fastest-growing major denominations in the United States last year, according to the just-released 2006 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches.

The Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal church, grew 1.81 percent to just under 2.8 million members. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) increased 1.74 percent to nearly 6 million people. The Catholic Church, by the far the largest denomination in the United States, grew by a small 0.83 percent to 67.8 million parishioners.

The Southern Baptist Convention remains the largest U.S. Protestant group, with 16.3 million members. It is the second-largest denomination in the country, behind the Catholic Church.

The Top 10 (Number of members in millions):

1.	Roman Catholic Church (67.2)
2.	Southern Baptist Convention (16.3)
3.	United Methodist Church (8.2)
4.	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (5.9)
5.	Church of God in Christ (5.4)
6.	National Baptist Convention, USA (5.0)
7.	Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (4.9)
8.	National Baptist Convention of America (4.9)
9.	Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (3.2)
10.	Assemblies of God (2.8)

The yearbook has been published for 89 years by the National Council of Churches, which represents 35 mainline Protestant, Episcopalian and Orthodox Christian groups, and is available at http://www.electronicchurch.org/