About the Author: Candy Brown
Professor Candy Gunther Brown was educated at Harvard University, where she earned B.A. (summa cum laude), M.A., and Ph.D. degrees. An associate professor of religious studies at Indiana University, Dr. Brown teaches courses on Sickness and Health; Religion, Health, and Healthcare Management; and Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity. She is the author of Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing, as editor (Oxford University Press, 2011), The Word in the World: Evangelical Writing, Publishing, and Reading in America, 1789-1880 (University of North Carolina Press, 2004), and Testing Prayer: Science and Healing (Harvard University Press, forthcoming spring 2012). Books-in-progress include The Healing Gods of Christian America: Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the Mainstream; and Miracle Cures? Divine Healing and Deliverance in America.
Drawing on medical records, surveys of prayer recipients, prospective clinical trials, and multiyear follow-up observations and interviews, Brown shows that the widespread perception of prayer’s healing power has demonstrable social effects which can in some cases produce improvements in health that can be scientifically verified.