Chris Gunderson — 16 Years of Feeding-Tube Dependence Resolved After Prayer (2011)
Illustration: AI-generated dramatization (Gemini Flash Image)
The story
Skip to the verdict ↓A young man fed exclusively by j-tube since infancy due to congenital gastroparesis reported an immediate ability to eat after intercessory prayer at a 2011 church service; a 2019 peer-reviewed case report documents the resolution and seven-plus symptom-free years.
Chris Gunderson was diagnosed in infancy with severe gastroparesis — paralysis of the stomach's ability to move food onward. From age 11 months he was fed through a jejunostomy tube, and for 16 years every attempt to transition to oral feeding failed, with vomiting and pain documented across repeated hospitalizations.
In November 2011, at sixteen, Gunderson attended a prayer service in Virginia. A man placed his hands on Gunderson's abdomen and prayed — the practice researchers call proximal intercessory prayer. Gunderson later described a sensation like electricity passing from his shoulder through his stomach. That evening he ate a full meal without symptoms, something he had never done. Four months later his feeding tubes were removed. He has eaten normally since.
The Case Report
In 2019, Complementary Therapies in Medicine published a formal case report by Clarissa Romez, David Zaritzky, and Joshua W. Brown, working with the Global Medical Research Institute (GMRI). The authors reviewed Gunderson's medical records from infancy onward and documented the seven-plus symptom-free years that followed the prayer service.
Genuinely contested — both whether it happened and whether nature explains it.
Reviewer Notes
Miracles Jar weighs each claim two ways — how extraordinary it would be, and how strong the evidence is.
Assessed by Miracles Jar AI
Peer-reviewed, records-based case report of an abrupt, durable resolution after prayer; spontaneous or expectancy-mediated resolution of a motility disorder remains possible and is conceded by the authors.
Why this case ranks high for documentation
This is arguably the best-documented modern American faith-healing case. The case report (Complementary Therapies in Medicine 43:289-294, 2019; PMID 30935546) passed formal peer review with the patient's lifetime medical records on the table — one of a very small number of modern healing claims to clear that bar. The baseline condition is documented to a standard most faith-healing claims never reach: a congenital diagnosis and a 16-year objective baseline that a jejunostomy tube cannot be explained away by expectancy. The two facts that strain a gradual-improvement or natural account are the abruptness (resolution the same evening, after 16 years of failed oral feeding trials) and the durability (tubes removed within months, symptom-free for over seven years at publication).
The natural account is also live
Gastroparesis has a functional, gut-brain component; expectancy and conditioning demonstrably modulate GI motility, and pediatric-onset cases sometimes improve or resolve. The most credible natural pathway is a powerful expectancy event acting on a neurally mediated motility disorder. The authors themselves concede that spontaneous resolution at exactly that moment cannot be excluded.
Limits on inferential weight
This is a single case report (n of 1) from the Global Medical Research Institute, an institute founded specifically to find and document Christian healing claims — selection effects are present. The journal is legitimate but mid-tier. One case report cannot carry causal weight. The Faithwire (2019) coverage is advocacy-leaning and useful for biographical details only.
The peer-reviewed documentation is real, the natural account is also real, and neither forecloses the other — a genuine standout, well above anecdote but honestly short of proof.
Evidence ledger — what the verdict rests on
Lifetime medical records (congenital diagnosis, 16 years of exclusive j-tube feeding, repeated failed oral trials) were reviewed by the case report authors
The baseline condition is documented to a standard most faith-healing claims never reach
Resolution was same-day and durable: full oral feeding that evening, tubes removed within months, symptom-free for over seven years at publication
Abruptness plus durability is the hard part for a gradual-improvement account
Gastroparesis has a functional, gut-brain component; expectancy and conditioning demonstrably modulate GI motility, and pediatric-onset cases sometimes improve
The most credible natural pathway — a powerful expectancy event acting on a neurally mediated disorder
Single case report from an institute founded to document Christian healing claims; authors concede spontaneous resolution cannot be ruled out
Source motivation and n of 1 cap the inferential weight
What would raise the meter: Documented recurrence in cases with no expectancy pathway — or records ruling out functional overlay — would raise the meter.
What would lower it: Evidence of symptom relapse, revised diagnosis, or undisclosed treatment would lower the evidence bar.
How we weigh every claim — the full method, deductions and all →
The natural explanation
The leading natural account for this case is expectation, suggestion & the placebo response. Read what it explains — and where it stops.
Sources
Tagged by proximity to the event. Primary sources are direct or contemporaneous; tertiary are downstream retellings.
- 1.Primaryacademic
Complementary Therapies in Medicine 43:289-294; medical-records-based, peer-reviewed primary source
- 2.Primaryacademic
Romez C, et al., "Case Report of gastroparesis healing (full text)", 2019
Full text including history of failed oral feeding trials and post-event course
- 3.Tertiarynews
Faithwire, "New Scientific Case Study Reveals Role of Prayer in Patient's Miraculous Healing", 2019
Advocacy-leaning coverage naming the patient; useful for biographical details only
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