Prayer and World Problems

Be still and know. Civilization is littered with unsolved problems, baffling impasses. The best minds of the world are at the end of their tether. The most knowledgeable observers of our condition are badly frightened. The most relevant contribution that Christians make at these points is the act of prayer -determined, repeated, leisurely meetings with the personal and living God. New life is conceived in these meetings.

Eugene H. Peterson

A Short Trip to the Edge

In his article, “A Short Trip to the Edge,” in Books & Culture, March/April, 2007, pages 16ff, Scott Cairns describes his trip to an ancient monastery in Greece. The article is full of colorful descriptions of the monastery and its history, as well as its spiritual ethos. If you are passionate about prayer, then you will benefit from this article.

You can read the article at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/002/4.16.html

Is Ending the War a Matter of Faith

In his blog on Friday, March 16, 2007, Jim Wallis wrote an article entitled: “Ending the War is a Matter of Faith” in which he argued that the War in Iraq is morally wrong and cannot be justified. He says that it cannot be justified by the teachings of Jesus or by Augustine’s just war doctrine. He feels that not only is the war un-Christian, but it is an offense to all the young men who have been sent to fight, to the Iraqis, and to all who have been shortchanged by the diversion of funds from more important projects and concerns. Jim calls for all Christians to pray and seek the end of the war by mobilizing the faith community in our country to change the current wind of public opinion.

St. Augustine said that protection of one’s own life or property is never a just reason for killing one’s neighbor. However, this applies only to individuals and not to the leaders of nations who have the obligation to maintain peace and order. He states, “The natural order conducive to peace among mortals demands that the power to declare and counsel war should be in the hands of those who hold the supreme authority.” He continues, “A just war is wont to be described as one that avenges wrongs, when a nation or state has to be punished, for refusing to make amends for the wrongs inflicted by its subjects, or to restore what it has seized unjustly.” The intention of the war is very important for St. Augustine. He says, “The passion for inflicting harm, the cruel thirst for vengeance, an unpacific and relentless spirit, the fever of revolt, the lust of power, and such things, all these are rightly condemned in war.” St. Augustine emphasizes the idea of restoration of peace as the main motive of war. He says, “We do not seek peace in order to be at war, but we go to war that we may have peace. Be peaceful, therefore, in warring, so that you may vanquish those whom you war against, and bring them to the prosperity of peace.” So in St. Augustine's thinking a war "was limited by its purpose, its authority and its conduct.”

Preemptive strikes are not considered justified by this doctrine. Iraq never attacked the United States or threatened our security. However, President Bush claimed that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction that he intended to give to terrorists to use against the United States and its allies. The prospect of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons being used against American civilians is a scary prospect, and unfortunately it is very likely to happen in the near future. It is debatable whether the war in Iraq has reduced or increased the chances of this kind of attack happening, but the ends don’t justify the means.

With such a real and imminent threat our government has the moral obligation to act to deter such an attack to protect its citizens. Attacking Iraq was put forth as an essential element in our government’s plan to end global terrorism. The questions that needs to be asked are: Is ending global terrorism within the moral and legal rights of the United States and is it just to pursue military action to secure that objective? Is attacking another sovereign nation justified if it harbors and aids global terrorists that have clearly declared war on the United States? Is military action the best course of action to secure these objectives? Can diplomacy, sanctions and other nonviolent means be used effectively to stop global terrorism?

While I agree with Jim Wallis that indiscriminate war is unchristian and unjustifiable, I am not sure that the war on global terrorism fits that label. International terrorist organizations have clearly and repeatedly declared war on the United States. These organizations have carried out numerous deadly attacks on U.S. citizens, military and civilian, around the world. These organizations have attacked and killed thousands of civilians and military personnel on our own soil. These organizations have publicly vowed to carry out more of such attacks in the future. These organizations are actively seeking out nuclear, biological and chemical weapons to use against civilian and military targets overseas and within our own borders. Whether we like it or not, we are at war. Even if we do not strike back, we are still at war.

The difficulty comes not in determining whether we are at war and if we should defend ourselves, but how doe we defend ourselves against attacks against our civilians that come not from other nation states with clearly defined borders, armies, and governments but are transnational and often are indistinguishable from the civilian populations around them. There are not clear military targets, definitive armies or simple borders as in the past. Our understanding of warfare needs to be updated and changed to reflect the new realities. We cannot evaluate wars in the same way as we have in the past. As Christians, we need to spend more time studying these realities and evaluating what biblical responsibilities a government has towards its citizens and how Christian principles should guide decision-making in this new situation.

I agree with most of what Jim Wallis says, yet I feel that his evaluation of the current situation is too limited. I agree that Jesus has clearly laid down principles of non-violence and Christians must not strike back at those who strike them. However, governments have the moral obligation to protect their citizens and to maintain order. The Apostle Paul says, “For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:3-4). The context is concerned about Christians obeying the government, yet there are some principles in this passage that are applicable to war. Governments are divinely appointed to maintain order and peace and have been invested with the authority to punish wrongdoers. It would be immoral for a government to not punish crime or to allow wrongdoers to continue to hurting citizens. The government has been given divine authority to “bear the sword” both in civil and international affairs. Therefore, it is not always wrong to go to war. In fact, there are times it is wrong to not go to war.

Therefore, the question we should be asking is whether the war in Iraq is essential to bringing criminals to justice and to prevent these criminals from committing future crimes against our citizens. Jim Wallis doesn’t believe that the war in Iraq meets these criteria and therefore should be stopped. I am very sympathetic to his call to peace, but I am still doing more research on the current situation before I make a final decision about the legitimacy of the war. Since I am coming at this years later that Jim, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and hold my judgment in humility. However, I must still do my own research and make my own decision based upon as much correct information that I can obtain.

So, is the war in Iraq a matter of faith? Definitely. Should we pray for it to end? Yes. Was it a political and military blunder? Maybe. Is it a just war?

You can read Jim Wallis' article at: http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/godspolitics/2007/03/jim-wallis-ending-war-is-matter-of.html

Breach

The movie “Breach” was well made and Chris Cooper put on one of his best performances ever. It is based on the true events of the greatest security breach in American history. Robert Hanssen had been selling vital U.S. secrets to the Soviets and other enemies for nearly 25 years, causing untold damage to our national security and the lives of agents and informants around the world. The story centers around Hanssen’s capture, aided significantly by rookie FBI agent Eric O’Niell. O’Niell has been assigned to Hanssen as an aide in order to spy on him and help catch his boss in the act of passing on secret documents. O’Niell is a rookie with very little field experience and he must outwit the smartest and trickiest spy in U.S. history. The movie was edited superbly in order to maintain the tension even when the ultimate outcome is known.

Several things struck me as I watched this movie. First, it revealed how the public image of a man can be totally opposite of his private image. Hanssen was so good at projecting a righteous, loving and patriotic image, that O’Niell initially was so fooled that he actually admired Hanssen. This is a reminder that all men are fallen and hide behind masks, including ourselves. Integrity is living in such a way so that your public image is the same as your private image. Beware of power, because it often tempts you present an image that is not your true self, especially when your power is threatened.

Second, others will exploit your weaknesses in order to control you. The movie didn’t spell this out, but it is likely that Hanssen was turned by the Soviets not only by money but also because they exploited his sexually deviant behavior. Hanssen videotaped his sexual encounters with his wife and sold them to an internet site without his wife’s knowledge. The Soviets most likely threatened Hanssen with exposure if he didn’t cooperate with him. Men will do almost anything in order to keep their secret lives hidden lest their careers, families and social status be destroyed.

Third, O’Neill realized the price he would have to pay in order to become a successful FBI agent and chose not to pay that price. He saw how his assignment to spy on Hanssen nearly destroyed his marriage and decided that becoming an FBI agent cost too much. He also saw how the price the other agents had to pay to become successful and he realized that he wasn’t willing to give up the things that mattered the most to him. So after being an integral part of capturing the biggest spy in U.S. history, he had the integrity to walk away from fame and success in order to build a strong marriage with the woman he loved.

Forth, the movie clearly portrayed the guilt and shame that Hanssen had to deal with because of the choices he had made. While in public Hanssen put on a religious front that had everyone convinced he was a sincere, devout Catholic. He went to church every morning to pray, attended mass every week, and studied Catholic doctrine. Yet in the end Hanssen is tormented by guilt at confession, revealing the true inner struggle he was going through. The last scene in the movie powerfully shows O’Niell just about to enter the elevator until he sees Hanssen in it with a guard on each side. Hanssen is clearly dejected and beaten, and the movie ends as the elevator doors close as Hanssen asks O’Niell, “Please pray for me.” This is a powerful reminder that we need to pray for each other and to build strong, transparent relationships in order to help people escape their prison of guilt and find freedom from sin before it is too late.

Spirituality

In his article, “The Wild West: Studying Christian spirituality,” Bruce Hindmarsh reviews two new books on the study of spirituality: Minding the Spirit, edited by Elizabeth A Dreyer and Mark S. Burrows, and New Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality edited by Philip Sheldrake. This article is helpful in defining some of the issues at stake in the methodology used to study spirituality.

One of the biggest problems with the study of spirituality is defining what it is. Hindmarsh points out that the words we use are often devoid of any concrete meaning, making intelligent discussion and study difficult. He quotes Uwe Poerksen, author of Plastic Words, to illustrate how words lose their meanings. Words have denotation, the concrete meaning, and connotation, feelings, associations and valuations the word evokes. It is like a rock thrown into a pond that causes ripples. The denotation is the rock and the connotations are the ripples. “Plastic words” are words that have only connotations since the denotation has been lost, much like having the outer ripples on the pond without the rock. Such words sound like they are full of meaning, backed by scientific research and study, but actually are devoid of any concrete meaning.

“Spirituality” is such a word, full of connotation but lacking denotation. When someone uses this word, we think we know what he means, and assume it has scholarly and scientific support, but it actually is vacuous and empty of meaning. It is more meaningful, therefore, to talk about prayer, which is concrete and has denotation, instead of spirituality, which lacks denotation.

Another problem in the study of spirituality is the methodology. How does one study spirituality? There are three basic approaches given by Dreyer: historical, theological, and anthropological. The historical approach studies spirituality as it has developed throughout history. The theological approach studies spirituality according to the biblical and theological norms of a particular denomination. The anthropological approach studies spirituality from the natural human quest for that which is beyond the material, and would include Hinduism, Buddhism, Animism, and all other forms of spirituality and not just Christian spirituality. While it is helpful to note these distinctions, Hindmarsh feels that this approach obscures some fundamental questions.

This brings us to the third problem: spirituality cannot be studied merely from the outside, but must be studied from within the practice and experience the worshipper. This will distort one’s findings, making it difficult to do objective historical and theological research. On the other hand, if one is totally objective, then one’s study is also distorted and leaves out the most vital elements. Knowledge requires participation in the event, not just observation of the event.

Here are a few quotes that I found summed up this dilemma:

Each believer making his or her own that engagement with the questioning at the heart of faith which is so evident in the classical documents of Christian belief." Once again, we are back to spiritual theology as a self-implicating enterprise. This sort of sensitive historical approach to the study of Christian spirituality demands that we see Christianity as a lived faith. Knowledge here requires participation and not just observation.

To separate the study of Christian spirituality from Christology in a purely anthropological way, seems to me, at minimum, to engage in a different sort of discourse with a different sort of ecclesia. I think it remains important for Christian spirituality to be studied first and foremost within the context of Christological confession, ecclesial participation, Scriptural authority and classical credo. Such study would still be interdisciplinary and public, rooted in theology and history, and focused on experience, but confessional commitment would not need to be smuggled in as contraband.

The critical mode of reflection upon Christian spirituality must be unique, since the sources we work with assume participation. One can stand outside of prayer and study it, but then that really is a different discourse. I am more interested in the sort of discourse where one studies prayer, even in a fully interdisciplinary way, but without ceasing to pray.


You can read the article at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/001/9.22.html

Morning Prayer

Here is a good prayer to pray each morning to get you started on the right foot:

“Dear Lord, so far today I have been doing all right. I have not gossiped, lost my temper, been greedy, grumpy, nasty selfish or self-indulgent. I haven’t whined, cursed or eaten any chocolate. But I am going to get out of bed in a few minutes, and I will need a lot more help after that. Amen.”

Prayer & the Cross

Here is an excerpt from a helpful article by Laureen F. Winner entitle “Prayer and the Cross” that reviews Philip Yancy's book, Prayer: Does it Make Any Difference, and David Crump's book, Knocking on Heaven's Door, in Books & Culture, January/February 2007, page 9:

In the last chapter, Crump draws together several overarching, constructive conclusions: the Bible tells us that we pray to a personal God, who responds to our prayers. Indeed, the New Testament suggests an intimate relationship with God, a God who cares even about the small details of our lives. Crump insists that God is "personally available to hear and to respond to each individual's requests in a two-way relationship of personal give and take." Those who charge that such a view somehow undoes God's sovereignty are themselves, says Crump, captive to a "Neoplatonic theological prejudice that substitutes … philosophical smoke and mirrors for the truth plainly revealed in Scripture."

Crump dwells on the eschatological emphasis of New Testament prayer. Jesus taught us to pray "thy will be done," a petition that underscores the fact that we live, and pray, in in-between times, and most New Testament prayers focus on "things that matter for eternity." Paul's intercessions, for example, typically found him praying that others would be eschatologically formed and eschatologically minded, that they would finish the race well, and come to the throne of Christ where they could hear the praise, "Well done, good and faithful servants." Taken as a whole, the New Testament—which is filled not with requests for miracles so much as pleas for endurance during times of trial—seems to suggest that "suffering [is] the norm for God's people." Today, many of the prayers that go unanswered are prayers that, one way or another, ask to evade suffering. Hence in his last few paragraphs, Crump offers a radical affirmation of the centrality of the Cross to Christian prayer. Powerful prayer, he says, is not prayer that leads to bodily healing and riches. Rather, the Bible's model of powerful prayer is Paul's petition, in prison, that we "may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ."

One wishes only that Crump's provocative concluding remarks were not so brief. His clearly circumscribed purpose is to address prayer as it appears in the New Testament, not as it appears in people's homes and churches today—yet, his words about eschatology and suffering are so unsettling that one wishes he had teased out more explicitly the implications of New Testament prayer for the lives of ordinary Christians in the 21st century.

Perhaps the implications for us are this: without dissenting from the notion that prayer can make a difference in human events, we can, as Crump suggests, affirm that the essential shape of our prayer is cruciform. When we suffer, a miraculous answer to prayer is not out of the question, but our hopes for a miracle ought to be secondary. The primary hope with which we pray, in our sufferings and our darkness, is the hope of the Resurrection.


Read the complete article at:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/001/2.8.html

Naming God & Prayer

Here is an excerpt from an article (“Naming God” by Virginia Stem Owens, Books & Culture, January/February 2007, page 10) that I thought was helpful:

As for the generic term, god, talk about God can get by with that designation, but addressing God directly seems to require something more. Prayer bonds us to God with a peculiar intimacy. It is what brings us to the point of actually needing to name this Person in whose image we are made.

If God is no more than concept or, as some theologians like to say, construct, then there is little point in naming him. One does not cry out to a concept or a construct. One may respect or admire it, even preach about it or advertise it, trying to attract converts to its cause. But one does not expect an answer if one were to address it or try to communicate with it. Only a person can do that. Calling God's name in the expectation or maybe just the hope that he hears, the supplicant recognizes God, if only fleetingly or even unwittingly, as a person, a person who can respond.


You can read the whole article at:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/001/1.8.html