Do you want to make more money? Of course, we all do! Clayton Cramer links to an article about a study that appears to show that church attendance leads to increased wealth.
"Doubling the frequency of attendance leads to a 9.1 percent increase in household income, or a rise of 5.5 percent as a fraction of the poverty scale," Jonathan Gruber of the economics department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote in his study."Those with more faith may be less 'stressed out' about daily problems that impede success in the labor market and the marriage market, and therefore are more successful," Gruber wrote in the study, which was released by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
I haven't read the actual study -- so it may merely show correlation rather than causation, as Mr. Cramer assumes -- but the language chosen by Mr. Gruber implies otherwise. The bolded phrase above says "leads to", which implies that his study demonstrated more than correlation; researchers are generally careful to distinguish (or they should be, at least). I may track down the paper itself when I have the time.
Even if it's just correlation, if there's an underlying common factor, this might help us to locate it -- and to tap into it.
There are many things no one understands about religious faith and prayer. Or perhaps I should say "no one CLAIMS to understand." They work in mysterious ways. But then, so does God.