2 of 3

Meanwhile, I recently had the privilege of serving on CRPC's pulpit nominating committee, and am excited about the arrival of Pastor Tchividjian. We look forward to seeing what God will do with the church and this gifted man.

Jerry Newcombe
Senior Producer, Coral Ridge Ministries
Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Kudos to Coral Ridge's leadership for taking a risk on a young, bold leader like Tchividjian. He will challenge the culture there in some healthy ways, and I am praying that the church once again becomes a place where those who feel far from God can focus on what's most important: understanding God's great love for them.

Tchividjian's launch into the limelight will present challenges for him and the church, I'm sure. But we owe it to Coral Ridge's legacy to give him time to prove himself as a leader and communicator.

Rich Barrett
Jacksonville, Florida

Augustine's deep concern that "biblical interpreters might get locked into reading the Bible according to the scientific assumptions of the age" is valid, and it is one readers of Alister McGrath's article "Augustine's Origin of Species" [May] should heed.

But why not instead question the assumption that the widely accepted Darwinian view of origins reflects reality? Christians would need to wrestle with the incompatibility of the Darwinian and Genesis accounts only if proof for the large-scale evolution that Darwin suggested had, in fact, been found in the 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species. It has not.

Why try to harmonize two opposing ideas when there is no compelling scientific reason to do so? In the "patient, generous, and gracious reflection" that McGrath urges, let's rely on what God has said about who we are and where we came from.

Beth Webster
Stockholm, Sweden

Although I have quibbles with Augustine, he is a forebear I am proud to claim. Alister McGrath's May article is an excellent introduction to Augustine's important way of approaching such volatile subject matter. Ancient wisdom can be and often is so helpful. With Anselm, "I believe in order that I may understand," and, as the Voice Bible translation of John 1:1 puts it, "before time was measured, the Voice was speaking. The Voice was and is God."

Darrell A. Harris
Franklin, Tennessee

A couple observations about Gregory and Christopher Fung's "What Do Prayer Studies Prove?" [May]: First, as the authors acknowledged, the Harvard study does not account for immeasurable variations, such as how the pray-ers' depth of belief affected the outcome, and how the prayed-for ones' depth of belief also affected the outcome.

Second, the authors assume that prayer can affect God's behavior, which puts the cart before the horse.

In the cause-effect relationship, it is believed that man may affect God's behavior—that we, through sheer sincerity of belief or concerted numbers, may change the course of history. True, "the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" (James 5:16), and it's amazing what prayer does for the one bowing before the omnipotent and loving God of creation and redemption. But can the pray-er alter the course of history? No.

David Winchester
Cave Junction, Oregon

The article on prayer studies didn't mention the most important thing about intercession: keeping it secret. The nearest mention was citing the study in which one group's members did not know that they were being prayed for. But the point is that the praying person needs to be completely free of egocentricity when interceding. The only way for that to happen is to enter the closet and pray in secret. Neither "we will pray for you" nor "we prayed for you" should enter the picture at all.

next page... |  2 of 3

share this page

July 2009, Vol. 53, No. 7