Prayer, The Force, Energy, and Causality

First, I think I need to start this entry by saying that I’m a personal believer in prayer (although I must confess that I didn’t really know how to pray until I was forty, even though I grew up in a Christian home—but that’s another story), and a practitioner. In fact, I believe in prayer such that I don’t make it a practice to open class lectures with prayer for fear that it become reduced to merely a utilitarian function of quieting a roomful of students, getting their attention, and signaling the “start” of class. Prayer has its place and its function, and it isn’t utilitarian. I believe in prayer, but I don’t believe in “magical thinking.”

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I’ve been watching the print on the “scientific” studies of prayer with both interest and skepticism. I find attempts to “prove” the validity of prayer as a practice an unnecessary activity, and ultimately, perhaps misguided. The experiments are interesting insofar as I’m interested in research methodology. But the findings, as David Haas reports in Prayer: A Neurological Inquiry, are, not surprisingly, “inconclusive.” Haas’ short article can make for an interesting conversation starter for a class discussion.

He makes one point (which, when I’ve raised in the company of “spiritualists,” would-be Jedi masters, and martial art aficionados has stopped the conversation dead and marked me as an unbeliever (yeah, I need to hang out with a different crowd of people) that can help put things in perspective, namely, there never has been scientific evidence for ESP, cosmic Chi, telekinesis, or other cosmic mind-over-matter phenomenon. But then, like my spiritualist, Jedi, and Kung Fu friends—as it is with any true believer—it’s a matter of faith, not proof.

Haas wrote:

Like all mental states, prayers are neither matter nor energy. Thus, they are not transmissible to or readable by another being by any means within the laws of nature. Whether they can be known to a supernatural being hinges on the effects of the prayers’ solicitations as judged by proper scientific studies.

I believe that people want to believe; in fact, it’s probably more true to say that people need to believe. But I think it’s important to believe for the right reasons. And I think it’s important to be clear about upon what it is that one sets one’s faith. My hunch is that those who require constant “proof” or “evidence” for their beliefs or faith are on shaky ground to start with. After all, the opposite of faith is not doubt, it is certitude.

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“I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.”

About igalindo

Israel Galindo is Professor and Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning at Columbia Theological Seminary.
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3 Responses to Prayer, The Force, Energy, and Causality

  1. Here’s an interesting article from the New York Times Magazine this spring on research into the evolutionary function of religion. It’s from a few months ago, but I just finished it. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/magazine/04evolution.t.html?ei=5090&en=43cfb46824423cea&ex=1330664400

    I don’t think it has a lot to do with faith as such, but I found it fascinating to observe the conversation among scientists.

  2. Ben Wagener says:

    Hospitality Also Means REALLY Welcoming the Stranger

    More than a few times I hear that some of us do a splendid job at our church in welcoming guests after worship services in our spacious foyer that includes providing refreshments and offering name tags at a later time. Indeed little kids love our Krispy Kreme donuts which leave ample evidence on their smeared pants and white lips. However, for the most part, our hospitality tends to be an extracurricular activity that dwarfs in comparison to our attention to friends and acquaintances, which indeed is natural but not very inclusive.
    At a day retreat last year our discipleship group decided that from a biblical perspective our objective would be to be more to expansive in our vision and practice of hospitality. With Kayla McKlurg, a staff member of the Church of the Saviour, leading us, we came up with these questions to guide our practice of hospitality:

    Who is on God’s list?
    What are our resistances to ‘loving the stranger’?
    What kind of ‘spaces’ allow and nurture a spirit of hospitality so the stranger is received as a gift and not an annoyance?

    Kayla taught us that the Greek words phileo (close personal relational affection) and xenos (stranger) combine to become philoxenia (hospitality). Is not hospitality an integral part of our Christian history and identity as the people of God and a fundamental expression of being the gospel people?
    Being gospel people certainly ties into our church covenant calling “to proclaim the gospel through words and deeds to those that our lives touch and provide the resources necessary for others to do so throughout the world”

    ** For the last year our mission groups and hospitality team have been more intentional in reaching out to the “stranger.” We have been to the Gulf Coast twice now to rebuild homes for those devastated by Hurricane Katrina. In our two trips to the Gulf Coast last year, we invited guests to become a part of a rebuilding team.
    ** We have responded to homeless people by going to where they were sleeping in churches during the winter months and serving meals. Now a homeless couple that we served is coming to our Wednesday night suppers and our worship services.
    ** We now have an even more active outreach team that follows-up with guests/strangers by calling and sending notes to them each week.
    ** We have revitalized a ministry called GAP (Getting Acquainted, People). In this ministry, we invite people to form in groups of four families or couples so guests can join members in having fellowship through meals in homes or restaurants. In these groups, strangers become friends and experience a deeper sense of belonging to the faith community.

    Our mission team, outreach team, and hospitality team is wondering how far have we come in welcoming the stranger? After each specific ministries and the general response to guests after worship,we are beginning to reflect on how well we have practices our hospitality.

    The words in Matthew 25:38 I hope will continue to haunt us: “When was it that we saw you (Christ) a stranger and welcomed you?”

    Ben Wagener

  3. igalindo says:

    Thanks, Ben. I appreciate your concrete examples of what your church is doing. Tossing rotten tomatoes out of my academic ivory tower is a lot of fun, but ultimately not as helpful as entries like this.

    You may want to check out the Greenville Aea Interfaith Hospitality Network at: http://www.gaihn.org/ where my friend Tony McDade is ministering.

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