Praying (Preying?) More Specifically
Our Wednesday night “prayer-and-share” services have become extremely popular since someone introduced the concept of “praying more specifically.”
People used to share general, rather veiled requests. Someone they knew needed “strength to endure” a tough situation, or “power to resist” a habit or temptation. These petitions were always rather vague, and quite unrevealing.
But now that we have learned to pray more specifically, we don’t let anyone get by without spilling all the details they know—and occasionally some they don’t.
If someone needs strength to endure, we want to know all the details of the tough situation he or she is enduring, how long that person has been enduring it, and a list of possible transgressions that may have been the cause. If someone needs power to resist a temptation, we want to know the precise nature of the temptation, the specific people involved in the tempting, and exactly what happened the last time the person was tempted.
Photographs and other documentation are very helpful in praying more specifically, especially since about 95 percent of the “sharing” is about people who are not actually present. Intercession seems to be our calling.
Attendance at prayer-and-share has really increased lately, and why not? Being there is the only way to really know the “specific” ways we pray for you.
EUTYCHUS
Childlike Faith
The article by Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles about being mystified by a six-year-old’s faith certainly has its roots in Scripture [“The Inexplicable Prayers of Ruby Bridges, Aug. 9]. A simple, childlike faith can never be understood by a savant until he or she becomes like a child. Ruby and her parents epitomize Isaiah 26:3. Each of us has to come to the same acceptance in order to become a true follower of Christ. Simple? Yes; but oh, so difficult.
MARK T. PATTIE, JR.
Bowie, Md.
Does “Ex-Gay” Equal Heterosexual?
There is something I find somewhat difficult to understand in Randy Frame’s recent “The Homosexual Lifestyle: Is There a Way Out?” [News, Aug. 9]. He writes that when “an ex-gay is trying to help a struggling homosexual, the temptation to fall is great.” I am curious as to why this should be the case. Since the implication is that heterosexuals would not experience the same temptations in counseling homosexuals as “ex-gays,” it is apparently the case that to be “ex-gay” is not fundamentally the same as to be heterosexual. I think there is an equivocation on the term “ex-gay.”
As well, the article cites examples of homosexuals who have become heterosexuals—the proof being that they are married and have had children—who nevertheless confess that their “real intrapsychic orientation is very much homosexual.”
RON MCCAMY
Calabasas, Calif.
The answer to your question, “Is there a way out,” is yes, and the yes is Jesus. My heart cries for my Christian brothers and sisters. On the right are unchristian bigots keeping gays from Jesus, and on the left are churches perverting the Word to fit a perverted lifestyle.
Moberly hits the nail on the head. I should know: I was homosexual for 38 years (gay from my first memory, I believed I was born gay and God made me that way), with the same lover for 21 years. Jesus delivered me out of the hands of Christian rightists and leftists who, through their tactics, helped keep me gay. It took the love of a true Bible-believing Christian family to bring me out. The church must face the problem and support delivered gays ministering to gays.
BOB CARR
Columbus, Ohio
Why can’t CT at least be honest about homosexuality? Disagree, but tell the truth. You speak of “former gays” and those who have “become heterosexuals.” If your reporter had been more honestly investigative and listened more closely to the “ex-gay” people themselves and not their promoters, he could truthfully report only that the “ex-gay” story is about homosexuals who are trying to keep from engaging in genital acts with persons of the same sex. You trivialize testimony that homosexual orientation continues in the “ex-gay.”
DR. RALPH BLAIR
New York, N.Y.
Why should a loving God condemn a man for a condition he did not ask for and cannot change?
GLENN HEDSTROM
Mesa, Ariz.
It seems to me that evangelicals who want to help homosexuals had better have a good stable character and know what they are trying to do. It seems to me that many evangelicals are letting up on their views of homosexuality as sinful, as the Bible plainly states.
JASON HALLOPETER
Selins Grove, Pa.
A school for gays should exist [“New York Tax Dollars Fund a High School for Homosexuals,” Aug. 9]. Gays are threatened, assaulted, and emotionally abused by heterosexual students in school. I have seen and experienced all three.
ANONYMOUS
What bothers me about the Harvey Milk School is the fact that the institute’s staff and volunteers are avowed homosexuals. I am concerned that the staff is merely gaining new sexual partners under the pretense of education. I believe that homosexuality is spreading because every other person of the same sex is fair game in the mind of the homosexual without any conventional limitations being established by society or otherwise.
ROBERT W. SHYTLES
Dallas, Tex.
Our Nebulous Verbiage
Bless you, Eutychus, for sharing the foibles of Christian jargon (“Learning the Lingo,” Aug. 9). You really spoke to my heart. With caring people such as you reaching us at our point of need, we may repent of our nebulous verbiage and go on to speak the gospel to the world—in language it can understand.
LARRY PAVLICEK
Richfield, Minn.
What Have We Won?
Your editorial, “Winning Isn’t Everything,” by Tom Minnery [Aug. 9], raises the question: What have evangelicals won? Has Minnery been away for a long time? Yes, the Supreme Court has allowed for some freedom of religious expression, but I hardly think our country is about to see our ambivalent Court strike down the so-called freedom of speech rulings that allow mostly for freedom to the grossly indecent.
I question Minnery’s mind-reading abilities when he cynically states Mr. Reagan quoted John 3:16 and “… spoke in public of a Savior,” and states that Reagan’s design was to “… turn pastors into patriots.” Where did Minnery arrive at such special knowledge? Shouldn’t we rejoice when any national leader quotes John 3:16 and claims Christ as his Savior?
JOHN BURWELL STONE
Etowah, N.C.
May I venture a squeak of protest? Tom Minnery’s editorial places Britain’s “bleak, early days of World War II” in November 1942. By that time Britain had been at war for more than 38 months. We are grateful to Americans, but sometimes pressure of space keeps you from telling a more complete story.
J. D. DOUGLAS
St. Andrews, Scotland
Understanding The Supreme Court
Two statements in Beth Spring’s “U.S. Supreme Court Restates Its Commitment to Separation of Church and State” [Aug. 9] require clarification. First, the third prong of the “three-part test” traditionally used by the Court is not simply whether a statute “advances religion.” The test, accurately stated, is whether a statute has the principle or primary effect of advancing religion. The added qualifiers are crucial.
Second, the Court has not ruled that “private religious groups must abide by federal minimum-wage laws.” The Court in reality held that purely commercial businesses staffed by nonvolunteers must abide by minimum wage laws, even if the owners and workers are all religious and the “profits” of the ventures are used to fund religious work.
DAVID J. MYERS
Des Plaines, III.
“Promoting Dialogue”?
In response to Mark Galli’s article, “Living with Those Who Disagree” [Ministries, July 12], I would like to suggest that it is not always the job of a pastor to “promote dialogue.” God did not give Moses the Ten Commandments to serve as discussion starters for the children of Israel. Jesus’ words often stifled conversation and angered the Pharisees.
It troubles me that there is little conviction of sin in our churches. Perhaps we are more concerned about retaining members than that they live holy lives.
REV. MARTIN R. KNAPP
Bellingham, Wash.
Our Responsibility
Concerning “Foreign Missions: Next Door and Down the Street” [July 12], it doesn’t seem reasonable for foreign mission agencies to “order a few of their troops home” to help evangelize “the newcomers flooding our shores.” There isn’t a tithe of the workers needed overseas in many countries now. With millions of North American Christians living practically on top of immigrant “ethnics,” how can we assign to foreign missionaries our own responsibility?
DR. G. DAL CONGDON
Carol Stream, Ill.
How could sending missionaries home even be considered when there is only one missionary per 450,000 people worldwide? Ninety-four percent of all ordained pastors worldwide minister to 9 percent who speak English. No, we don’t need to pull our troops back home. We Christians at home need to wake up to the needs of the world and go to the unreached people wherever they are.
ROGER KUIPER
Kalamazoo, Mich.
Refusing To Admit Error?
I am at a loss to explain why Kenneth Kantzer felt compelled to rationalize President Reagan’s morally unconscionable gesture [“Bitburg: Must We Forgive?” July 12] and then, in fact, to ground that view in Scripture. Moreover, he failed to grasp Jewish objections, and misconstrues them entirely.
We Jews agree with the President’s sound motivation to “make a powerful affirmation of good will to the German people.” Israel has extensive, excellent relations with West Germany. American Jews similarly support American reconciliation with that nation. But that is not the issue! The President could have chosen any number of other gestures; why lay a wreath at a site bearing the graves of the Waffen SS?
In truth, that site was selected for logistic, not ideological, purposes by staff who failed to grasp the moral gravity and obscenity that would be reflected in such a symbolic visit. The President’s failure lay in the fact that when the presence of those graves became known and the outcry was heard, he inflexibly refused to admit error, reverse his decision, and visit an alternative site.
Certainly, there are fundamental theological distinctions between forgiving and forgetting. But forgiveness is for God and the evildoers’ victims to grant. It ought to be extended toward individuals, not groups or nations.
RABBI YECHIEL ECKSTEIN
President, Holyland Fellowship of Christians and Jews
