Before we dive into the Fight Club series, let me warn you that this is going to get ugly in some places. I have not been hesitant to criticise certain aspects of evangelical Protestant-dom on this blog, but here my critiques are going to be especially focused and especially ugly. So be prepared. After all, this is the Fight Club.
Now then. In this edition, I am going to talk about prayer.
I would like to start out by linking a post from Michael Spencer’s blog which details a lot of his frustrations with the evangelical approach to prayer. Read it now, and check back with me when you are done.
Next I would like to direct your attention to a post by Alastair at Adversaria on liturgical prayer versus freestyle prayer. Go ahead and read this one too, and then check back when you are done. I’ll wait.
I hope that these two posts have moved us down the road that I want to go. Which is this: I am tired of prayer. I know that communion with God through prayer is vital to the Christian life, but I am tired of all the silliness and nonsense that goes along with the evangelical approach to prayer. Prayer meetings (except maybe if Chick-Fil-A is being served. I admit without shame that I would come to a prayer meeting to eat Chick-Fil-A rather than to pray). Prayer concerts. Prayer closets. Prayer warriors. Spending hours in prayer. Praying down the Spirit. Praying in the Kingdom. Praying until revival comes.
Puh-leez.
As evangelicals, we believe that spontaneity is the mark of authenticity in our relationship with God. We believe that God calls us to authentic relationship with Him and that anything which differs from that is dead, dry religion which He detests. Thus our prayers have to be spontaneous. We cannot depend on anything composed in advance, because that’s dead, dry religion.
And so prayer has become this free-for-all, the results of which are maddeningly hilarious. People get up in church and give these long, flowing prayers which are clearly calculated to impress. People talk about spending hours on their face before God–I just don’t get that. What do you do all that time? Just say what you intend to say to God and get on with it! People fill their prayers with all sorts of evangelical code words and jargon–for instance, every other word is “Lord” or “God” or “just” (”God I just pray that you would just move in power Lord, just…”–Don’t even get me started on this). Prayer meetings degenerate into a time of cataloging endless requests for Billy Bob’s wife’s aunt’s son’s cousin’s father’s third cousin twice removed’s twenty-seventh cousin fifty-nine times removed who has a cold, Billy Joe’s daughter’s friend’s uncle’s daughter’s friend’s great-aunt’s ten favorite relatives at the bottom of the ocean who all have sinus infections…–you get the idea. People talk about groaning and weeping in intercession for the lost. People talk about not wanting to go out or do anything because they feel they ought to be in their prayer closet.
Puh-leez.
Let me give you some examples of prayer from my own experience that I hope will move us farther down the road.
Example 1: Somebody needs prayer because his/her back is hurting. A typical evangelical prayer in this situation would go something like this: “Father I’m asking in the name of Jesus that you would just be with X right now. I just ask Lord that you would just pour out your healing anointing on X, that Lord you would just cause connection to form, bone to bone, muscle to muscle, that you would just cause strength to rise from the bottom of X’s back to the top, that you would just drive the pain away. We just stand Lord on your promise that you have borne our infirmities for us, and we just claim by faith Lord, total healing for X, from the top of his/her head Lord to the bottom of his/her feet. We ask all of this in the mighty and powerful and precious name of Jesus Amen.”
Here’s the prayer I would pray in that situation: “Lord, please heal X’s back.” What’s wrong with that?
Example 2: A few weeks ago the apartment at the front of my building was vacant. The standard evangelical prayer that I ought to have prayed in that situation would have probably gone something like this: “Lord I just call down Your Spirit upon this place. Satan I cast you out: You have no power here. I rebuke you. I stand against all your plans and schemes for the people who will live here, I declare in the name of Jesus that all your schemes are thwarted. Lord I just pray that You would just put a holy hedge of protection around this place. And I just pray for the people that You have chosen to live here: You have ordained from the beginning of time that they would live here. I just pray that all Your plans and purposes for them would be fulfilled. And if they don’t know You I just pray Lord that you would just draw them to Yourself. I just pray Lord that they would just come to know You Lord and that You would Lord just destroy anything that comes in the way. I just pray Lord that You would just place a burden Lord on my heart for those people, to just fight for them every day Lord until You just break through and win them to Yourself. I just pray all these things in Jesus’ name.”
I did not pray that prayer. Nor did I pray any prayer even remotely resembling that. I felt no such burden for the future inhabitants of that apartment. I resolved that if I ever met them I would be gracious to them and try to live a life that models Christ to them, but I just could not bring myself to pray the prayer or feel the burden. That just ain’t me. Am I any less of a Christian because of that?
Example 3: Whenever evangelicals go out to eat or attend any function where food is involved, the rule is this: Lay off on the food until it’s been blessed! The requisite blessing is a prayer similar to this: “Father God I just ask that you would just be with us in our time together. (Insert prayers for specific requests at this point, according to the usual evangelical formula) Bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies. Bless the hands that prepared it. Bless our time together in Jesus’ name.”
News flash: I DON’T say a blessing before I eat! If I am in a large group I will wait for someone to say the blessing if it is a situation where one person says the blessing for the entire group. If I am called upon to say the blessing, I will offer a short prayer (What’s wrong with “Lord, thank you for this food, please bless it”?). But otherwise I am not going through the act of praying a prayer before I eat. Call me greedy. Call me ungrateful. But I am not what evangelical Protestant-dom says I ought to be in regard to food, and I don’t even want to try to be that.
Puh-leez.
At this point I am going to introduce what I expect to be one of the recurring themes of the Fight Club series: There is a HUGE disconnect between what we are and what God is. So huge that we can’t begin to know or even suspect the nature of it.
I linked the Alastair post because he makes the point that our words are not good enough for God. Given that there is such a huge disconnect between what we are and what He is, it is wrong for us to think that our own spontaneous words are good enough for Him. In light of that, why not resort to liturgical prayers drawn mainly from the Psalms and the Lord’s Prayer–praying to God in the words He has given us?
Yes there are pitfalls to liturgical prayer. Yes it can become dead, dry religion if the words become nothing more than words on a page to be repeated at the appointed time. But I think that the present evangelical approach to prayer reveals an unacceptable level of arrogance–to walk into the presence of a God who is completely and totally other than what we are, and assume that our own words that we make up on the spur of the moment are good enough for Him.
I know that it is vitally important for me to be connected to God through prayer on a regular and consistent basis. But I also know that I can’t rely on the evangelical way of doing things in regard to prayer to move me forward in my relationship with God. I am not what evangelical Protestant-dom says I should be. Even if I could be what evangelical Protestant-dom says I ought to be, I don’t think I would want to . I have nothing to prove to anyone regarding how many hours I can log in the prayer closet. I have nothing to prove to anyone regarding the intensity of burden that I can feel for the lost.
Going forward, I have no idea what my prayer life is going to look like. But I do know this: I am not going back to what evangelical Protestant-dom says I ought to be in regard to prayer.
