Thinking Christian

An atheist who goes by the nom de blog “ylooshi” raised this question about my pre-Christmas post on Wishing and Celebrating:

Then it occurred to be, even before I left the paragraph above, that if you replace “wish” for “prayer,” you really haven’t changed the criticism….

The author both criticizes ineffectual wishing the world was different and then appeals to an ineffectual superstition to make the world different. The kettle has thus referred to the pot as blacker than he. Perhaps “Christian” in the blog title was an adjective and not a noun after all.

My “wish” for the holidays: that more people begin to think and rise above superstition. But we cannot just wish for this sort of thing. We must make efforts to spread inquiry and rational thought; reach out to those around us -inspire them to think and engage them in discussion and debate, and, where appropriate, push them into both.

His posted was titled “Coffee pots, kettles, and several shades of black.” There’s a neat play on words there (the whole thing started with something I had found written on a Starbucks coffee cup). I wish I could write headlines that well. I posted a comment in response, or tried to, but today I see it never showed up there. That happens sometimes.

So is there a real difference between Christian prayer and ineffectual wishing? I think every Christian wonders about that sometimes—even Christians who blog about reasons to believe. Even Christian leaders.

A while ago I was having lunch with a small group of Christian leaders at a conference. One of them was an author and speaker with a worldwide reputation; he is a leader in his field of study. Many of you who read this have read his books or heard him speak. Another was a somewhat recent convert from another religion. This second person was telling us the story of how he decided to follow Jesus Christ. He was (as he told us) being led toward belief through the lifestyle and the persuasive arguments of a close friend, but the distance from his former religion to Christianity was great. He asked the Lord for a vision to confirm the reality of Christ, and he was granted one. In spite of that he wasn’t ready yet, so he asked for a dream as additional confirmation. Very soon he experienced a dream that other members of his religion (quite unintentionally, on their part) interpreted in a way that clearly pointed toward Christianity.

That still wasn’t sufficient for him, though, so he asked for another dream, and the same happened: he had a dream that he shared with other members of his religion, and again they (not he) gave an interpretation that was clearly Christian. And even that wasn’t enough for him. He asked God for one more.

At this point in his story the other listener in the group, the world-renowned author and speaker, slapped his knee and laughed, and said, “I can’t even get a prayer answered, and there you go asking for a fourth sign from God!”

The fourth sign did come, and that convert from another religion has become a very bold witness for Christ. But it was striking to hear a prominent Christian leader say, “I can’t even get a prayer answered.” No, that was not an absolute statement; he was joking with us when he said it. Still I think every Christian has sometimes wondered whether his or her prayers were anything more than wishes. The Psalmists asked repeatedly, “How long, O Lord?” Unanswered prayers are no deep dark secret in Christianity: even the Bible’s authors asked hard questions about prayer. They show up all over the Bible’s main prayer book, the Psalms.

Several months ago I began keeping a prayer journal on my computer. Some of my prayers are what I call “ongoing,” which would include things like health, family members’ spiritual and character development, and other important yet non-specific matters of that sort. They are the sort of prayers for which quick and distinct answers are not expected. Some, on the other hand, are quite specific requests. Many of them have by now come to a conclusion such that I can tell how the prayer came out. I’ve recorded a total of 89 with a “yes” answer, and 13 that didn’t turn out the way I had prayed they would. I certainly would not say that “I can’t even get a prayer answered.” I’m sure the other leader I mentioned above wouldn’t say that either, if he were speaking in a more serious context.

And yet I keep waiting for God to answer other prayers: prayers for specific financial needs, prayers for a magazine to accept an article I’ve submitted, prayers for people to follow Jesus Christ, and much more. Every new prayer is a new test, in a way: Will God really act? Or are these prayers anything more than pious wishing?

That all depends on one question: Is there a God who answers prayer? (I also wrote something to that effect last time.) If not, then ylooshi is right: prayer really is just rationalized wishing. If there is a prayer-answering God, though, then at least some God-directed desires are considerably more than wishes. There could still be misdirected, false prayers based on pure selfishness or misapprehensions of God’s will, but there can also be real prayers that really get answered by the real God.

The Psalmists believed the prayer-answering God really existed. Still they asked “How long, O Lord?” I ask the same question about my unanswered prayers, and yet I remain convinced that God is and that he answers prayer in his time and according to his good wisdom.

The Psalms were not written as apologetical treatises, and (in case it has escaped notice) neither is this blog post. (This might be confusing for readers who are accustomed to me writing on reasons for belief.) This post is less about “why believe;” and more about “what it’s like to believe.” Could I mount a reasoned defense for God’s existence in spite of unanswered prayer? I think so. My apologies must go, however, to those who would like me to do that, so that they could argue against it. I have decided not to do that in this post. Apologetics is not my only purpose as a blogger and a Christian. Sometimes I fear that by focusing on it so much here, I’m falsely communicating that it’s all there is to belief or to a relationship with God.

This is what it’s like to believe: it means to be confident of much and yet to remain unsure of much. It is to know that God is real and that living in relationship with him through Jesus Christ is the greatest thing in the world. Yet it is also to wonder, frequently, what God’s purposes are. It is to be sure that prayer prayed according to the will of God will be answered, and yet to spend much time puzzling over his will for specific matters. It is to be constantly aware that God is in control, which means that I’m not, and neither are my prayers.

One thing is certain: the Christian faith is a lot more sound and secure with some prayers going unanswered. Apart from putting us as usurpers in the place of God in the world, and besides the obvious absurdities (no sports team would ever lose a game), getting every answer we want would also undermine God’s relational purposes for us. If all we had to do was toss a thought skyward and get what we wanted, why then, that’s all we would do. Instead, however, we find we must persevere in prayer. Many speak of “wrestling with God,” or “agonizing in prayer:” struggling through questions and enigmas, searching out God’s guidance over long periods, pursuing difficult answers in the midst of much mystery. “Answers” to hard, earnest prayer like this, in whatever form they come, are often incidental to its main effect in us: deeper intimacy with God and knowledge of him.

And this is the final answer to ylooshi’s question. Is praying any different than wishing? Yes, real prayer is very different; for the one who really prays in Christ knows that it’s not just about getting what we want. It’s about growing up in the deep knowledge and infinite love of God. You can’t just wish for that.

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In response to this comment and those preceding:

I am sure there is much manipulative prayer prayed by Christians. I am equally certain there is no truly Christian manipulative prayer. The difference is in “Not my will but thine be done.” Prayer is as much a searching for God’s perfect, good, and wise will as it is asking for things; and to ask while so searching, in submission to God, is not to manipulate anything or anyone.

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You wouldn’t expect a talk on Jesus and the University to start in Calcutta, India, but that’s the context in which Mary Poplin presented her thoughts on this topic. Poplin was at one time Dean of the School of Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University in southern California, and continues today working on social justice issues related to education. She took a lengthy sabbatical in Calcutta to work with Mother Teresa there, and relays part of that story in this talk. How does that tie in to the university? I’ll let you discover that for yourself. I think you’ll find it well worthwhile.

What especially caught my attention in this message was how well it illustrates four strategic principles I’ve been emphasizing for deep social change:

1. Discover God afresh
2. Call on him through extraordinary prayer
3. Expand our acts of sacrificial love
4. Increase our intellectual engagement

Apparently she also gave a followup talk, which I just discovered while writing this blog post (iTunes didn’t pick it up for some reason). Here too is a lengthy list of other talks she has given.

P.S. If you haven’t subscribed to the Veritas Media podcast yet, what are you waiting for?

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Four Strategies for Christians In a Changing World
A talk given this morning at the Chapel at Kingsmill, Williamsburg, VA.

Sometimes the culture wars are about specific topics in dispute: defense of marriage, sanctity of life, what’s portrayed in the media, and so on. For Christians, there’s also another, completely different front in the battle: experiencing God and living his life to its deepest, and demonstrating that life in its full attractiveness to the rest of the world.

Click To Play:

 

Or Download Here

Links to articles mentioned in the talk:
The Coming Evangelical Collapse
Christianity Today’s Response
Deep Social Change

At about 26 minutes I communicated visually in such a way that, with audio only, it’s hard to guess what I meant by the word “this” at that point. It was a reference to God’s Word, the Bible.

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Christ Otto, the founder of the Red Envelope Project , sent me this email today:

As I was praying this morning, I had the sense that these envelopes were one way the God wants to reinvigorate a nationwide prayer movement. I have begun asking people to pray the “life prayer” while they send their envelopes. Would you mind putting that on your blog?

Here is the prayer:

Jesus, I plead your blood over my sin, and the sin of my nation. God end abortion and send revival to America.

Thanks.

This is particularly an encouragement directed toward Christian readers of the blog; there is theology contained in it that may not make immediate sense to others. (It might be a great topic for me to blog on someday but not right now.)

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Here in condensed and more convenient form is a reprise of four priorities for the church in 2009. I will continue to blog on all four of these throughout the year.

We need deep social change. Few of us need convincing of that. It seems to me, though, that we have not taken seriously enough the depth of social change needed, or the magnitude of the challenge. We have especially not reckoned properly the need for change among ourselves, we followers of Jesus Christ. Our credibility outside our own communities is low, and is it any wonder? We have failed to fully employ our real power: the power of God, the power of lives lived well, and the power of excellent engagement in the realm of ideas.

I suggest four priorities for deep social change. You may be wary of simple four-point solutions for any major change. I am too. None of these are simple. I am a beginner in all of them. These are broad categories, so they may coincide with existing church or parachurch priorities—or they may lead some groups to re-think their priorities.

In part, these priorities echo those mentioned by J.P. Moreland in Kingdom Triangle (2007, pp. 111-112). He refers to conclusions drawn by Michael Green, who said the church’s explosive growth in its first four centuries came from (1) her ability to “outthink her critics, (2) “the transformed character and biblical compassion of believers,” and (3) “the manifest power of the Kingdom of God by the Spirit…”

1. Recover a true understanding of God.
It is not just the non-Christian but the follower of Jesus Christ who needs to discover afresh who God is. We’ve domesticated God, made him a member of our own parties, and forgotten his sovereign majesty. Seeking change for our country through worldly means, we’ve neglected to call on God’s power and righteousness.

At the risk of being overly obvious: God is God! He is the perfectly good and powerful Creator, Sustainer, Ruler, Judge, Teacher, Shepherd, and Lover of the entire universe! We are fools if we proceed without taking him into account, and greater fools yet if we believe we already know and understand him well enough, cognitively or relationally.

My friend Brad Bright is undertaking an initiative to help believers and non-believers discover God. I think he’s onto something crucial there. A growing understanding of the true God is essential for the other priorities I will propose here.

2. Call on God through extraordinary prayer.
Deep social change is not ultimately the product of votes or organizing or rallies or letters to Congress or editorials in newspapers. It comes from the hand of God. From the human side, this is a matter of prayer. The time is now for us to step up to extraordinary prayer, meaning just what the word suggests: more than ordinary. More than we have been doing, with a clearer focus on God and on our country’s needs, and greater intensity. Extraordinary prayer for many will include regular fasting, possibly for a meal or even a full day every week.

We cannot hope for real impact on society without God being the one who produces it, and we cannot expect God to produce it unless we call on him urgently to do so. Chuck Colson is urging us to pray for the Church first, rightly so, for it is among Christians that God must show himself first, and it is the Church that must lead the way in deep change. And we must pray for our neighbors. Who knows what God might do in response? The top two reasons Muslims come to Christ in Muslim homelands are the lifestyles of Christians (for which see point 3) and experiencing the power of God in answered prayers and healing.

3. Expand our acts of sacrificial love.
Jesus said (Matthew 5:16): “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” God is glorified in his people shining his light, and there is no human light brighter than that of one who gives sacrificially for another. This is particularly incumbent on political conservatives who distrust the government’s effectiveness and efficiency in meeting human need. To say that government should not be so involved is to say that individual Christians and churches must be, and on an even greater scale than we have been; for the need is real. Otherwise conservatism is seen (to a great extent rightly so) as thinly disguised selfishness.

This is not to develop an apologetic for conservatism, but to express a correction to some forms of it. Much more than that, though, this is about letting God be seen in action through his people.

4. Strengthen our mental awareness and engagement.
Western Christianity—especially Protestant Christianity—has been plagued for at least 150 years with anti-intellectualism. It is as if we thought we had no case to make for our faith, and for its importance in the world, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Our intellectual heritage for many centuries was strong, but then it’s as if we walked off the playing field. As a result we’ve lost the universities, the media, and the centers of decision-making.

There is encouraging news on this front. Christian scholarship is surging where it has not done so in recent years. Christianity remains hobbled, however, by a simple Sunday School mentality that too often expects little actual study. We spend years and years and thousands of dollars learning how to make a living. I present this challenge to you who have been to college: go back and look at some of your textbooks. How light and easy were they to get through? Could you have prepared for class by reading over a few pages lightly with your morning donut or Instant Breakfast? What if there were quizzes and final exams in Sunday School—or in other words, what if we expected ourselves to learn something new and challenging at church? Why don’t we value that as much as chemistry or computer science?

Our mental life involves imagination as well as scholarship, by the way: it is about the arts as well as the academy. If we were to step up to the table with great ideas, we would be heard.

Echoing that, this is my challenge to myself and to all of us: Grow in understanding God, Call on him through extraordinary prayer, Increase our acts of sacrificial love, and Strengthen mental awareness and engagement.

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We need deep social change. The U.S. election cycle that just ended has once again reminded all Americans of that. For Christians, three issues at the forefront are the economic pain spreading across much of our country, the pending “Freedom of Choice Act” that could open a much wider door for abortion to be practiced, and the continuing clash over the definition of marriage. There is more, obviously.

It seems to me we have not taken seriously enough the depth of social change needed, or the magnitude of the challenge. We have especially not reckoned properly the need for change among ourselves, we followers of Jesus Christ. We have forgotten that God is great enough to bring it about. Our credibility outside our own communities is low, and is it any wonder? We have failed to fully employ our real power: the power of God, the power of lives lived well, and the power of  ideas presented from a base of truly excellent thinking.

I am a strategist for a multi-faceted Christian mission organization. My day-to-day work involves helping various ministries within Campus Crusade for Christ define their goals, develop plans, and assess their own progress–things that are particular to certain focused ministries, like our inner-city ministry, the “JESUS Film” Project, and more. I cannot help thinking about strategies on a broader scale, though. What can American Christians do to be more strategic, more effective, more godly, in a time when change is so urgently needed?

I suggest four priorities for deep social change in America (this probably applies to any country but I will speak only for my own). You may be wary of simple four-point solutions for any major change. I am too. None of these are simple. I consider myself a beginner in all of them. Nevertheless I believe that intentional, focused growth in these would produce the change we long for. These are broad categories, so they may coincide with existing church or parachurch priorities—or they may lead some groups to re-think their priorities. I list them in short form here, but I plan to work through all of them at length throughout the coming year.

In part, these priorities echo those mentioned by J.P. Moreland in his landmark book Kingdom Triangle (2007, pp. 111-112). He refers to conclusions Michael Green drew in his 2003 book, Evangelism in the Early Church. The church’s explosive growth in its first four centuries came from (1) her ability to “outthink her critics, (2) “the transformed character and biblical compassion of believers,” and (3) “the manifest power of the Kingdom of God by the Spirit…”

1. Recover a true understanding of God.

It is not just the non-Christian but the follower of Jesus Christ who needs to discover afresh who God is. We’ve domesticated God, made him a member of our own parties, and forgotten his sovereign majesty. We’ve left him out of our strategizing. Seeking change for our country through worldly means, we’ve neglected to call on God’s power and righteousness.

At the risk of being overly obvious: God is God! He is the perfectly good and powerful Creator, Sustainer, Ruler, Judge, Teacher, Shepherd, and Lover of the entire universe! We are fools if we proceed without taking him into account, and greater fools yet if we believe we already know and understand him well enough, cognitively or relationally. There is so much more of him to know and to explore.

My friend Brad Bright is undertaking an initiative to help believers and non-believers discover God. I think he’s onto something crucial there. A growing understanding of the true God is essential for the other priorities I will propose here.

2. Call on God through extraordinary prayer.

Deep social change depends on God at work. It’s not ultimately the product of votes or organizing or rallies or letters to Congress or editorials in newspapers. From the human side, this is a matter of prayer. The time is now for us to step up to extraordinary prayer, meaning just what the word suggests: more than the ordinary. More than we have been doing, with a clearer focus on God and on our country’s needs, and greater intensity. Extraordinary prayer for many will include regular fasting, possibly for a meal or even a full day every week.

We cannot hope for real impact on society without God being the one who produces it, and we cannot expect God to produce it unless we call on him urgently to do so. Chuck Colson is urging us to pray for the Church first, rightly so, for it is among Christians that God must show himself first, and it is the Church that must lead the way in deep change. And we must pray for our neighbors. Who knows what God might do in response? The top two reasons Muslims come to Christ in Muslim homelands are the lifestyles of Christians (for which see point 3) and experiencing the power of God in answered prayers and healing. Is there any reason not to call on God to work in power in the West, too?

3. Expand our acts of sacrificial love.

Jesus said (Matthew 5:16): “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” God is glorified in his people shining his light, and there is no human light brighter than that of one who gives sacrificially for another. This is particularly incumbent on political conservatives who distrust the government’s effectiveness and efficiency in meeting human need. To say that government should not be so involved is to say that individual Christians and churches must be, and on an even greater scale than we have been; for the need is real. Otherwise conservatism is seen (and to a great extent rightly so) as thinly disguised selfishness.

This is not to develop an apologetic for conservatism, but to express a correction to some forms of it. Much more than that, though, this is about letting God be seen in action through his people.

4. Strengthen our mental awareness and engagement.

Western Christianity—especially Protestant Christianity—has been plagued for at least 150 years with anti-intellectualism. It is as if we thought we had no case to make for our faith, and for its importance in the world, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Our intellectual heritage for many centuries was strong, but then it’s as if we walked off the playing field. The result has been that we have lost the universities, the media, and the centers of decision-making, because quite rightly they place a premium on good thinking, and we have not been producing.

There is encouraging news on this front. Christian scholarship is surging where it has not done so in recent years. Christianity remains hobbled, however, by a simple Sunday School mentality that too often expects little actual study. We spend years and years and thousands of dollars learning how to make a living. I present this challenge to you who have been to college: go back and look at some of your textbooks. How light and easy were they to get through? Could you have prepared for class by reading over a few pages lightly with your morning donut or Instant Breakfast? What if there were quizzes and final exams in Sunday School—or in other words, what if we expected ourselves to learn something new and challenging at church? Why don’t we value that as much as chemistry or computer science?

Our mental life involves imagination as well as scholarship, by the way: it is about the arts as well as the academy. If we were to step up to the table with great ideas, we would be heard. The third and fourth priorities here, taken together, will set the stage for us to tell the good news of Christ with much increased credibility; and with increased prayer, the power of our message will increase tremendously as well.

Echoing that, this is my challenge to myself and to all of us: Grow in understanding God, Call on him through extraordinary prayer, Increase our acts of sacrificial love, and Strengthen mental awareness and engagement. It may seem rather overwhelming. It does to me. There is another factor to be added to this, which is that it’s not about going solo. I will discuss that further in the very near future. Even with the church working together it will still be challenging, but what less can we expect if we are going to hope to bring about the deep social change that’s so desperately needed?

A final word: these are not exhaustive priorities; they are not all we should be doing. We need to be sharing our faith, standing up for justice and righteousness, and much more. To try to do all the rest without attending to these four priorities, however, would be like an army trying to re-capture their country’s capital without taking adequate time to supply and situate themselves for battle. Let’s get ready to make a difference in our world, and let’s do it with our priorities settled in the right place.

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