Recently, Heidi left the following comment (slightly edited):
I love coming up with my own practical deconstructions, such as: Why does God care more about popular people? Every time there’s a prayer chain for someone, isn’t it just an admission that God is keeping a tally, and once the prayee is sufficiently supported by the numbers, then that person will be healed? I guess the person with few friends is out of luck where God is concerned.
For the uninitiated, a “prayer chain” is a group of Christian church members who agree to pray for a person or circumstance when the chain is activated either by the pastor or whoever is in charge of it. Typically, a church member calls the pastor with a prayer request, asking others to pray for him, or a member is made aware of a “need” someone has and passes that need along to the pastor or whoever is in charge of the prayer chain. The pastor then calls one or more people on the chain, who then call one or more people until everyone on the prayer chain knows about the need. Sometimes, one person handles the chain activation, calling everyone on the list. The goal, of course, is to get as many people as possible begging God to save/heal/deliver someone or meet some sort of need. The thinking is that the more people who bug God in prayer, the more likely it is that God will favorably grant the prayer request.
The Bible diverges in two directions when it comes to God answering prayers. On one hand, the Bible portrays God as an instantaneous prayer-answering deity. Ask and it shall be given to you, right? Most Christians learn early on that God rarely, if ever, answers prayers immediately. Believers are encouraged to have faith, pleading with God without ceasing to answer their prayers. These prayers rarely, if ever, get answered either. Christians love to trumpet to the world that their peculiar deity answers millions, billions, and gazillions of prayers every day, but when pressed for evidence for their claim, believers turn deaf and dumb.
When my partner and I deconverted seventeen years ago, one of the first things we wrestled with was our past prayers. Both of us were praying people — morning, noon, night, before meals, at church, in the car, together, and alone. I suspect between the two of us, we uttered over 100,000 prayers for ourselves and other people. Yet, when we gave an honest accounting of our prayers, we concluded that only a handful of prayers couldn’t be explained naturally. Most of our prayers went unanswered, and those we thought were answered by God were actually answered by self, family, church members, or friends. Virtually every answered prayer was of human origin. And the few that weren’t were not enough to convince us that the God of the Bible exists, that he is personally involved in our lives, and that he answers our prayers. What we were left with was a few experiences we could not explain. Live long enough and you too will have similar experiences; things you can’t explain.
Heidi raises an excellent point about prayer chains. The same can be said for corporate prayer meetings. Evangelical churches often set aside one day a week for members to gather together and corporately pray. I grew up in an era when Baptist churches typically held prayer meetings on Wednesday or Thursday evenings. Some churches take praying seriously, spending an hour or more beseeching God, while others give lip service to the notion of a prayer meeting, taking requests from the congregation and then offering a single prayer, usually given by the pastor, for the people and needs mentioned. Sadly, most church prayer meeting nights are long on gossip and short on prayer.
The thinking goes, that the more people who pray for a person or need the more likely it is that God will answer their prayers. God is waiting and willing to answer prayer, but only if enough prayers come into Prayer Central. Picture God sitting in Heaven with a scorecard, putting a “I” on the card every time a Christian prays for Sister Bertha’s gallbladder or Brother Ernie’s hemorrhoids. Once the prescribed number of “I” are marked on the scorecard, God answers the prayer in the affirmative. As Heidi notes, pity the poor person who has few friends or isn’t well known. They never get healed because they don’t have enough people praying for them.
Why does God operate this way? Why doesn’t he help and heal people the moment they ask? Why does praying seem to be an exercise in futility; a practice that may comfort people, but rarely brings healing and deliverance? As with most things, Christians only count the “hits’ when deciding whether God answers prayers, ignoring the “misses” — which are statistically far more common than affirmatively answered prayers.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
