Thoughts on Atheism and Prayer

This was written in response to a friend's blog, who formerly was a believer, but who now, through the "The Truth of Rational Thought" has arrived at "ultimate truth":  that there is no God.  He had a recent post on the "power of prayer," as a response to those in his family, and those of his friends who are praying for him.  He closed the post with these words:  "If you are reading this, and you are one of the ones praying for my salvation, thanks, but no thanks. Why don't you instead go for a walk in nature, or help feed a hungry person, or teach some child to read, something, anything that would be constructive. While I appreciate the concern, you should know that no amount of prayer for me would/could never work, because your prayer's are unheard by anyone but you."

Two thoughts come to mind regarding what appears to be naïve and irrational thinking of people who “excuse” unanswered prayers by saying that “God’s answer is no,” or that “God has something else in store.” It is often caricatured by atheists as being absurd, as well as being inconsistent with a God who said, “Ask and you shall receive whatever you ask for in my name.”

It all runs into the example of Christ, who for any Christian, obviously needs to be the example and source of all thinking on prayer. As you know, when he was asked by the disciples how to prayer, the fundamental request was, “Thy will be done.” All other requests, in the Christian tradition, have this single caveat above all considerations.

When you look at the most poignant prayer that Christ prayed as well, we are confronted with unanswered prayer: “May this cup pass, but thy will be done.” Christ, the self-proclaimed Son of God’spetitional prayer was not answered, but his overarching prayer was, i.e.,, "Thy will be done," so why should the belief that God sometimes says, “no,” be absurd or naïve, in relation to determining whether or not Christianity is true or not? It may be absurd, but it is no case against Christianity since his example is clearly the Christian ideal, and contained within that ideal is unanswered petitional prayer. In his case, it’s clear that the answer was “no,” and it is also clear that God had something better in store, namely the redemption of the world.

It has always seemed strange to me when atheists attack Christian beliefs in prayer because their experience with it is completely consistent both with what Christianity has always taught, and secondly, that it consistently follows the very example that Christ showed in the Garden of Gethsemane. It seems that usually, atheist attacks on prayer stem from arguing against what atheists think prayer should be, if it means anything at all, rather than on what Christendom, stretched out over 2,000 years has always believed and taught about prayer. It seems to be the case in your post as well.

As to suffering, in the prayer that Christ prayed in Gethsemane can be found the answer to suffering that alluded Bart Ehrmann in his book, particularly in his chapter on Redemptive Suffering where he finds the belief that “others might need to suffer for my salvation” as personally repugnant. What he doesn’t get, despite his lauded position at Princeton Theological Seminary, is that “redemptive suffering” has nothing to do with others and their suffering for me, it has everything to do with my personal response to suffering, and what my suffering can do for others. The view of redemptive suffering is an invitation to the sufferer to find a purpose and a dignity in his suffering. He has flipped the entire history of the Church’s teaching on suffering on its head, and so of course it seems absurd to him and his expose against suffering is against something other than the Christian view of suffering.

Christ suffered for the redemption of the world, so the Christian answer is the best and only answer to the question of suffering that has ever vexed the world: out of suffering can come the greatest good, and the only surety that this can, and will happen, is contained within the heart of the sufferer, which in the Christian tradition, as you know, calls the sufferer to unite his suffering with Christ’s. Being a “living sacrifice” entails suffering, so within Christianity, even a man suffering from Ebola virus can rejoice in the very suffering he endures, for the redemptive good that can come from it, for others he loves, just as Christ willingly endured the travails of the Cross out of His love for us.

Athanasius

I'm doing a little light reading--reading about Arianism. Go figure. Regardless, I've stumbled on a description of a man that is very admirable. If more people could be like this, I think the world would be a better place:

"But the faith of Nicaea, though silenced, was not dead. Athanasius played a leading role: one clear head is enough. He was a whole Church by himself, as certain generals are worth an army. The people recognized him as 'a good Christian and a true bishop.' His mind was clear and could clear other minds. His character was like steel. He was impervious to threats, subtleties, tricks or compromise. He drew fresh strength from every obstacle. He never yielded. In the teeth of the seeming success of the powers and of seemingly unanimous false decisions, in the teeth of the seeming 'dialectic of history' he stood up to defend 'pure quality', the truth. By his intelligent loyalty to the past he shaped the future. His voice was clear and steady and never dismayed, though he was condemned again and again in psuedo-councils."

A couple of phrases from this paragraph appeal to me. "By his intelligent loyalty to the past he shaped the future." This resonates with a passage in Chesterton that I like immensely, and have quoted here before: "Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about." This has direct implications to the book I'm working on, where traditional viewpoints about a particular area of life have been completed turned on their head. I desire, in part, to point out, in intelligent ways, how the past can inform our way of viewing a certain part of modern life today, and to hopefully make a case to defend "'pure quality', the truth," as understood by the church for two millennia, at least one particular area.

I think it's a good thing to have an intelligent loyalty to the past. And all Christians owe a debt of gratitude to Athanasius for defending the faith. It's clear he was a 'good Christian and a true bishop.'

OK. Back to reading.

...and I've come to modify this.

This is the author's conclusion about Athanasius:

"The feat of Athanasius is astounding. Clear-headed, intuitive, and indomitable, he looms across the distance of history like another Abrahan, the man in whom the future resided, and who stood alone."

I think we'll all need to go shake his hand and say thank you when we meet him on the distant shore.

The Star of Bethlehem

OK...if you're a Netflix user, you should put something into your queue right away. I just finished watching something that I approached rather skeptically, as is my wont, but now I'm blown away. I mean, really blown away.

You should put this in your queue.

A lawyer decided to decipher all he could about the Star of Bethlehem, and concludes, convincingly so, that from the very foundations of the universe, God knew when He would redeem mankind, the exact moment when His Son would enter earth as a man, and the exact moment when He would die, for all of it was written in the skies. The lawyer calls it celestial poetry, and it's goose bump producing stuff that he uncovers.

Really?

I was reading this on a Christian forum somewhere:

Whether it is sin or not, each person is to follow Jesus (the Cloud in the Desert) of their own life. The best we can do is teach a person how to listen to God and hear His voice for themselves and let GOD tell them what is right and wrong and how to deal with it and support each other, love each other and accept each other...with our many differences right to Jesus. No agendas. No judgments. No expectations. Just a healthy expectancy of Jesus showing up in each of our lives.

What? Everyone is just to "listen" and decide how God's telling us to live? I think if I was interested in ending a marriage where I wasn't happy, it could be very easy to convince myself that God was telling me to end it, as well as a whole slew of other hogwash that has nothing to do with anything God would tell us, whatsoever.

Thomas Merton on "Who We Are"

The longer I read from those men and women who have gone before us, and who "have already been through the test with flying colors," as Clement puts it, the more I see that they're all all telling the same story. What I like so much about C.S. Lewis is how he speaks to our dignity as sons and daughters of God, as he so eloquently does in The Weight of Glory. This opening passage of Thomas Merton in Life and Holiness resonates deeply with me on the same theme.

Every baptized Christian is obliged by his baptismal promises to renounce sin and to give himself completely, without compromise, to Christ, in order that he may fulfill his vocation, save his soul, enter into the mystery of God, and there find himself perfectly "in the light of Christ."

As St. Paul reminds us (1 Cor. 6: 19), we are "not our own." We belong entirely to Christ. His Spirit has taken possession of us at baptism. We are the Temples of the Holy Spirit. Our thoughts, our actions, our desires, are by rights more his than our own. But we have to struggle to ensure that God always receives from us what we owe him by right. If we do not labor to overcome our natural weakness, our disordered and selfish passions, what belongs to God in us will be withdrawn from the sanctifying power of his love and will be corrupted by selfishness, blinded by irrational desire, hardened by pride, and will eventually plunge into the abyss of moral nonentity which is called sin.

Sin is the refusal of spiritual life, the rejection of the inner order and peace that come from our union with the divine will. In a word, sin is the refusal of God's will and of his love. It is not only a refusal to "do" this or that thing willed by God, or a determination to do what he forbids. It is more radically a refusal to be what we are, a rejection of our mysterious, contingent, spiritual reality hidden in the very mystery of God. Sin is our refusal to be what we were created to be-sons of God, images of God. Ultimately sin, while seeming to be an assertion of freedom, is a flight from the freedom and the responsibility of divine sonship.

Every Christian is therefore called to sanctity and union with Christ, by keeping the commandments of God.

Late night musings on Theology

I sometimes dwell on who I believe myself to be. The current question: Am I first and foremost a Christian or am I first and foremost a man?

I've begun to think that who I am primarily is a man, and that being a Christian is secondary, in a categorial way. My Christianity informs my humanity, not the other way around.

I've got a heck of a lot in common with my fellow man, and I want to keep it that way.

It may not make much sense, but of late, I've begun to feel a tremendous desire for fraternity with those in the world around me, for living life unfiltered, as a fellow traveler in this crazy world, though a traveler who happens to be a believer in Jesus Christ.

For some reason, I find tremendous relief in this.

I'm just a man, not someone who has the answers for the rest of the world.

Putting your money where your mouth is

The more I learn about Rob Bell, the more I admire him. I suppose one of the criticisms leveled at the "Mega Churches" is the fear that they are more about a cult-like following of one man than they are about the pursuit of Jesus. When I think about Rob Bell, and Mars Hill, what I'm thrilled about is what God is doing through the church, and Rob happens to be the spiritual leader. He's a compelling speaker, and I must admit that I prefer weeks when he is teaching, but more than anything, I'm excited to see how God is using Mars Hill and Rob Bell.

Today was a bit of a question and answer session, where Rob was interviewed using questions emailed in from members of the congregation. One question was quite personal, asking Rob where he felt Christ was working in his life right now. He answered by talking about his and his wife's passion for the oppressed in our city. In the past year or so, as they struggled with the question of what to do about that oppression, they felt that God was calling them to do more, to take a bold step outside of their comfort zone.

They sold their four bedroom house in suburbia and bought a two bedroom house in the inner city. They enrolled their children in the local public school. Drug deals happen on the corner, and a policeman who attends Mars Hill learned where Rob lives and told him to be careful. But what Rob said is that he wants to be where darkness is, that he wants the light of Christ to shine where people are hurting and in desperate need of relief from their painful lives.

I was blown away by this example of sacrificial living, and it became one more reason why I'm convinced Mars Hill is the place fore me.

As I've reflected on my return to the church over the past couple of months, I've become aware of why church has become important to me. It's not so much the need for community--I haven't yet really gotten "plugged in" at Mars, and I feel that my closest friends are in a very real sense my community right now. What I realize is that church each week is a reminder of what's truly genuine and authentic in this world, and an injection of passion and zeal to see this earth healed. When I am at church, hearing about the need to give of ourselves to the world around us, to lay down our lives for others, to give generously of our resources and of our lives, there is a stirring within me of recognition, a recognition and a knowing that this is what our lives must be about. As the week passes, I so easily forget this, but each Sunday, this becomes rekindled in me, and hopefully, some of that passion and zeal will stick with me throughout the week.

It seems each week as I sit at church, there is always a moment where I just say, "yup...I kinda forgot this week what it's all about, didn't I?" All the competing jetsam of life is blast to smithereens in the face of what God wants to do with this world, and I suppose more importantly, how I can be involved in that work.

I think that's a reason to keep going to church.

Thoughts this Easter

Is there a right way to celebrate Easter? As I drove home tonight from playing the Easter vigil service at the Cathedral in Lansing, I found myself asking this question. In the car, I had on NPR's American Roots program, and I heard Aretha Franklin singing with a gospel choir, belting out a song, praising Jesus for what he's done, followed by a Dixieland group playing When the Saints Go Marching In. All three were so different, yet they all focused on the same message.

A bizarre ritual performed by the Eastern Orthodox Church was also on my mind, since I heard about it earlier today on All Things Considered: the ritual of the Holy Fire. Have you heard of this? This has been going on every Easter for over 1,200 years. I think it's one of the strangest and most fantastical rituals in all of Christendom.

According to the Eastern Orthodox Church, every Easter, Holy Fire descends into the tomb of Jesus (which tradition says is located at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem). Apparently, early during the day, the tomb is inspected for any device that might produce flames, to ensure that no human means could produce the Holy Fire. The entrance to the tomb is then sealed with wax.

At the appointed hour, a somber procession of priests will circle the tomb three times, once for each member of the Holy Trinity. Then, the patriarch of the church will be stripped of his ceremonial robes, leaving him clothed only in a white robe. He will enter the tomb, and pray for the fire to be sent down from heaven, a sign that Christ has not forgotten humanity. In a few minutes, his hand is extended out a portal, and he holds a lighted torch. The assemblage screams with joy, and the flame is passed from person to person as candles are lit throughout the church. The flame is then transported all across the world to light candles in Orthodox churches everywhere.

Bizarre, don't you think? And what a strange tradition and way to celebrate Easter. I'm of course a skeptic, and think it's a bit absurd (though I certainly don't doubt the possibility--I just don't believe that God operates that way today). Regardless, all of these different traditions and forms of worship made me wonder about what we think of the rituals of others, and if there's a "right way" to celebrate Easter.

I like the diversity I see. I'm glad some people in the Orthodox Church believe that Holy Fire comes down from heaven once a year. I'm glad that gospel choirs all across the nation will be hooting and hollering in praise of God on Easter, and that somewhere in New Orleans, a Dixieland band will be leading people in worship. And I'm glad that rich liturgies will be employed in churches all across the land too. I wonder what Easter celebrations are like in Peru, or in South Korea, or deep in the heart of Africa. My church will have it's own flavor--I'll be hearing a rock band lead Mars Hill in praise to God for what he's done. Not my cup of tea, but I recognize that it's a way for a lot of people to connect with God in ways that other churches don't provide.

I sometimes think about what worship is going to be like in heaven. Will it be the somber and noble atmosphere that I witnessed in the Cathedral tonight, rich with ritual, tradition and symbolism? Will it be the exuberance of Aretha Franklin? Will it be the postmodern sound of a rock band? Will it be the singing of some good old Southern Baptist hymns? Will it feature some ritual Holy Fire? Could the sounds of Love Supreme, played by John Coltrane, make an appearance? Will we hear the St. Matthew Passion of J.S. Bach, sung by choirs of angels?

I don't know--I just hope there's a mix of it all. We're all celebrating the same thing, after all, in our own way, aren't we?

He is risen indeed.

Happy Easter, everyone.