Prayer call lists raise questions about God’s role in misfortune

Q: Lately I have been asked to add my name to calling lists or to pray for a specific sick baby, cancer patient or accident victim whom I don't know personally. My heart goes out to all of these causes but I am uncomfortable with the mental picture of God using a clipboard to keep score of how many prayers are sent for each person and then dispensing comfort and healing accordingly. What happens to those who have no one to pray for them?

--L., Las Vegas

A: All right, L, you'd better appreciate this, because answering religious questions gets me into more trouble than any other kind of column I write. The last time I wandered into theological territory, a guy wrote me and said, "I never read your column except when you pretend to know something about Christianity." Which I thought was pretty funny, because I guess he must have, like, a personal assistant who reads my column and then alerts him when the content includes Christianity. If he never reads it, how else would he know?

As I often do, let's first answer your question literally. Because, if taken literally, your question answers itself. If God dispenses comfort and healing according to the clipboard score of quantity of prayers, then, if no one is praying for you, you won't get any help from God. I'm saying, if your "mental picture" is accurate, then you've answered your own question.

And if this is an accurate depiction of God, I would feel more than merely uncomfortable. I would conclude that God would not be worthy of worship. God withholding love, care and intervention until we ask for it with sufficient sincerity or in the right form or with sufficient critical mass of numbers is like a parent not feeding a toddler until he can ask for food properly. It's ridiculous and offensive.

In 1988, the roof tore off Aloha 243 (Boeing 737) just after takeoff. In a spectacular act of heroism and skill, the pilots landed the plane safely. Only one life was lost, that of the lead attendant who was unlucky enough to be standing directly beneath that part of the fuselage torn off. The decompression pulled her out of the plane. She was dead long before she hit the Pacific Ocean.

I recall watching the live news coverage of deplaning passengers, all stunned and grateful to be alive. Over and over again I heard those passengers talk of prayer, of how prayer had brought them home safely, of how God had responded faithfully to their prayers. And I remember thinking, "Hmm . . . so, if I'm the mother, father, husband or child of the dead flight attendant, what am I to conclude? She swooshed out of the plane before she had time to pray, so God was obliged to let her plummet into the sea? And what percentage of passengers needs to be praying for God to be obliged to save the entire airplane? Is one enough, assuming the prayer is stellar?"

L, your question focuses on who God is. But I would encourage you to reshape the question into "What is prayer?"

At the heart of this discussion are spiritually immature ideas about prayer. It stuns me -- and I mean stuns me -- how many sincere religious people have never thought through the difference between prayer and magic. I am especially astonished when I consider historically that Jews and Christians are particularly scornful of magic. But every time I hear the phrase "the power of prayer," I shake my head. If prayer has power, then prayer is magic, no different from "Open Sesame" or "Abracadabra."

Prayer is not magic. Prayer doesn't have power, L. God does. So here's a working definition of prayer that makes more sense to me: Prayer is a primordial language by which we surrender our will (our power) to make way for the will (the power) of God. See, it's not about clutching after what we want; rather, it's about relinquishing wants altogether. It's about getting connected to our spiritual source whether the plane lands safely or crashes in a fireball.

And let's throw this in for that guy I mentioned in the first paragraph: Jesus himself models my definition of prayer the night before he dies. He kneels alone in a garden, and makes his fervent plea, which is pretty much THIS STINKS, GET ME OUTA HERE! Then, in prayer, he surrenders that desire by saying, "but, not my will, but thine be done."

And he suffers. And he dies. Not in the power of prayer, but in the power of his Maker.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and cousenlor at Clear View Counseling Wellness Center in Las Vegas and author of "Human Matters: Wise abnd Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right thing" (Stevens Press). His column appears on Tuesdays and Sundays. Questions or comments can be e-mailed to skalas@reviewjournal.com.