Letters
posted 3/05/2001 12:00AM
Caution: Set Prayer Zone
That people from around the world are being drawn to places that practice common prayer is encouraging, but this movement needs to be looked at with caution ["Learning the Ancient Rhythms of Prayer," Jan. 8].Common prayer without the Holy Spirit could lead to praying by rote. If we do this, the life that comes with praying in the Spirit will be missing.
God gave his people fresh manna every morning when they were in the desert. His mercies are new every morning. His Word is alive, sharper than any double-edged sword.
This freshness is what should come forth in daily prayer.
Life and energy are given to our days, and when we pray in the Spirit we are giving our Lord's words back to him.
Mary V. Nelson
St. Louis, MissouriWhy was it that Arthur Paul Boers's genuine attempt to convince us of the importance of this new discipline of prayer could only be made at the expense of criticizing—albeit mildly—the evangelical practice of devotions?
I understand that for many, choosing the daily office tradition helps to reestablish or even discover an enjoyable communion with God, so I can only rejoice.
If I read the Bible correctly, however, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with praying "prayers that are ad-hoc and self-directed, made up along the way, according to the mood, and not paying attention to the Christian year."
In fact, for Jesus and the early Christians, praying often was instantaneous or motivated by immediate circumstances.
Aurelian Botica
Cincinnati, OhioI read with interest and delight your cover story and sidebars on evangelicals' growing interest in the daily office and other related liturgical traditions.
I am a United Methodist pastor and small-church consultant who's always found the daily office to be a central resource for prayer and scriptural meditation. No other resource that I know of so naturally and easily combines prayer (both personal and communal) with Scripture.
Yet the current evangelical interest in the daily office is not a new phenomenon. Despite its liberal Protestant reputation in the last century, the Methodist movement was birthed by John Wesley's wedding evangelical pietism with Anglo-Catholic sacramental theology and liturgical practice.
Randy Beeler
Chriesman, Liberty, and Milano United Methodist Churches
Caldwell, TexasThough many people are obviously enthusiastic about praying a liturgy, for years it was liturgy that kept me from God. When I finally realized that I could relate to God without liturgy, that was a profound spiritual breakthrough.
Pete Unseth
Duncanville, TexasI am a Roman Catholic and have been praying the Liturgy of the Hours (the office) for many years. Its beauty and its grounding in daily prayer is a blessing; I cannot imagine my life without it.
Mark Plaiss
LaPorte, IndianaHip-Hopping AwayBobby hill's remark in "Hip-Hop Kingdom Come" [Jan. 8] that "We often confuse the content and the wineskins … We should be conservative fundamentalists when it comes to content and liberals when it comes to containers" assumes that it is possible to separate the container from the content. Neil Postman's brilliant book Amusing Ourselves to Death argues persuasively that it is not.Ironically, Jesus' wineskin metaphor suggests the same thing. Jesus' point was precisely that wine and wineskins have to match. The medium often, if not always, is the message. How we say something is an intrinsic part of what we say.
March 5 2001, Vol. 45, No. 4
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