There can be no mistaking the importance of Caputo's work." —Edith Wyschogrod "No one interested in Derrida, in Caputo, or in the larger question of postmodernism and religion can afford to ignore this pathbreaking study.

Prayer, the central spirituality in the theological and ethical life of Christ’s disciples, has not yet received significant attention from Johannine scholars. Although some scholars emphasised and discussed prayer in the New Testament, Johannine scholars have failed to recognise the significance of prayer in the Fourth Gospel. Using narrative criticism the article aims to uncover the relationship between prayer and koinonia in the Fourth Gospel. The research on the theme of prayer and koinonia conducted in (...) the Fourth Gospel has yielded the finding that prayer was a manifestation of abiding in Jesus. Koinonia was a form of prayer. Contribution: The article fills the lacuna in Johannine studies, more specifically, in the field of prayer and koinonia. The article, which is in line with the scope of HTS Theological Studies, and offers a new interpretation of prayer and koinonia in the Fourth Gospel. (shrink)

Analyzing Prayer draws together a range of theologians and philosophers to deal with different approaches to prayer as a Christian practice. The essays included deal with issues pertaining to petitionary prayer, prayer as reorientation of oneself in the presence of God, prayer by those who do not believe, liturgical prayer, mystical prayer, whether God prays, the interrelation between prayer and various forms of knowledge, theologizing as a form of prayer, lament and (...) prayer, prayer and God's presence, and even prayer and the meaning of life. The volume contains cutting-edge studies on a neglected topic of theological study that contributes to the broadening of themes tackled by analytic theology. (shrink)

The automation of online social life is an urgent issue for researchers and the public alike. However, one of the most significant uses of such technologies seems to have gone largely unnoticed by the research community: religion. Focusing on Islamic Prayer Apps, which automatically post prayers from its users’ accounts, we show that even one such service is already responsible for millions of tweets daily, constituting a significant portion of Arabic-language Twitter traffic. We argue that the fact that a (...) phenomenon of these proportions has gone unnoticed by researchers reveals an opportunity to broaden the scope of the current research agenda on online automation. (shrink)

This volume explores the philosophical issues involved in the idea of petitionary prayer, where this is conceived as an activity designed to influence the action of the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God of traditional theism. Theists have always recognized various logical and moral limits to divine action in the world, but do these limits leave any space among God's reasons for petitionary prayer to make a difference? Petitionary Prayer: A Philosophical Investigation develops a new account of the (...) conditions required for a petitionary prayer to be answered by employing the notion of contrastive explanation. With careful attention to recent developments in metaphysics, epistemology, and value theory, Scott A. Davison surveys the contemporary literature on this question. He considers questions about human freedom and responsibility in relation to different views of divine providence, along with the puzzles inherent in Christian teachings concerning petitionary prayer. Davison develops new challenges to the coherence of the idea of answered petitionary prayer based upon the nature of divine freedom, the limits of human knowledge, and the nature of those good things that require a recipient's permission before they can be given. He proposes new defences, building upon careful analysis of the shortcomings of previous proposals and clarifying the issues for future debate. (shrink)

Traditional theists believe that there exists an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly loving, and perfectly good God. They also believe that God created the world, sustains it in being from moment to moment, and providentially guides all events, in accordance with a plan, towards a good ending. Historically, most traditional theists have believed that God sometimes answers prayers for particular things. In keeping with the literature on this subject, these prayers are referred to as ‘petitionary prayers’. This article discusses several problems related (...) to the concept of the traditional theistic God's answering petitionary prayers. (shrink)

Why would God institute the practice of efficacious petitionary prayer? Why would God not simply give us what we need before we ask? I examine recently proposed solutions to this puzzle and argue that they are inadequate to explain why an omniscient and perfectly good God would act differently in response to prayer. I propose that God has reasons to not always maximize a creature’s good, even in a sinless world, and that petitionary prayer functions as a (...) means to reward those who trust God, to enable us to actively love those we cannot otherwise help, and to give the petitioner personal evidence of God’s existence and care for her, creating a virtuous cycle of increasing faith. I refine this proposal by responding to several objections involving human responsibility and the epistemology of divine action. Along the way, I offer several ways petitioners can recognize God’s having answered a prayer and how God might help us with some common obstacles to prayer. (shrink)

Inspired by a Danez Smith poem, this essay is a ‘little prayer’ for LGBTQIA+ people and organizers to be able to collectively grieve the family and friends they have lost, the relations they had to end, the social privileges they never had, or lost before and after sharing their queerness. It argues for the militant force of this slow-paced, ghostly, and ambiguous grief in queer lives, and in the LGBTQIA+ movements in Turkey and elsewhere. The author draws on 4 (...) years of organizing at Boysan’s House – a living memory space, and community hub in Istanbul – and the 12-hour oral history conducted with Mother Sema, who has been mobilizing her motherhood and her grief as a pro-LGBTQIA+ organizer since 2006. The essay suggests that ambiguous grief can be relearned and re-membered as a radically transformative force that is already constitutive of queer communities. It situates the histories and presents of Mother Sema and Boysan’s House amid diverse experiences of resilience and resistance through motherhood, queer kin making, and mourning. In so doing, the essay builds on the militant activisms of the Saturday Mothers/people, the Peace Mothers, the organized family members of LGBTQIA+ people, and the trans communities in Turkey. It is thus an inquiry into ways of housing and transforming ambiguous grief in the LGBTQIA+ movement, in the post-July 2016 coup attempt Turkey. (shrink)

Many maintain that petitionary prayer is pointless. I argue that the theist can defend petitionary prayer by giving a general account of how divine and creaturely causation can be compatible and complementary, based on the claim that the goodness of something depends on its cause. I use Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysical framework to give an account that explains why a world with creaturely causation better reflects God’s goodness than a world in which God brought all things about immediately. In (...) such a world, prayer could allow us to cause good things in a distinctive way: by asking God for them. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue, contrary to common assumptions, that rational atheistic prayer is possible. I will formulate and respond to two powerful arguments against the possibility of atheistic prayer: first, an argument that the act of prayer involves an intention to communicate to God, precluding disbelief in God’s existence; second, an argument claiming that reaching out to God through prayer requires believing God might exist, precluding rational disbelief in God. In showing options for response (...) to these arguments, I will describe a model on which atheistic prayer is not only possible, but is on a par with theistic prayer in many more ways than one might expect. (shrink)

In his Confessions Augustine recasts the Greco-Roman dialogue as a conversation with God. This repositioning of the premier pedagogical form of the ancient world Augustine takes as an implication of the Christian confession of God as a speaking God. Introducing Jewish forms of prayer into the Greco-Roman dialogue form transforms it in a manner that has implications for the teaching of Christian ethics today, in offering a theologically elaborated model of the formative and investigative power of conversation. Conversational learning (...) is a practice in which finite creatures lovingly explore a creation that cannot be comprehended completely. Christians understand this formative and explorative conversation as a conversation with God, mediated by Scripture, which prepares its participants to model trust-building conversation in public. (shrink)

Prayer Flags - The Life and Spiritual Teachings of Jigten Sumgön. Khenpo Könchog Gyaltsen. Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca (New York) 1984, repr. 1986. 95 pp. $6.95.

Scientists seeking hard evidence of prayer's curative powers misunderstand the nature of prayer in the Western theistic traditions. Yet theistically consonant ways in which religious belief may influence health do not figure as they should in current professional practice.

In a recent article in this journal, Michael Murray and Kurt Meyers offer us two innovative and thought-provoking responses to the important question of why God would, even occasionally, refrain from giving us that which he can and would like to give us until we request that he do so: to help the believer learn more about God and thus become more like him and to help the believer realize she is dependent on God. I argue that neither explanation is (...) adequate and thus that more work on this significant topic remains to be done. (shrink)

In this article first appeared in 1997, Jean-Louis Chrétien examines the meaning of prayer in Kierkegaard’s writings and existence. By focusing on the difficulties of this task and with meticulous attention to the vast work of the Danish philosopher, Chrétien describes prayer as a tense and agonistic experience, akin to the evangelical struggle between Jacob and the angel. Just like in his well-known phenomenological analysis, “The Wounded Word: Phenomenology of Prayer”, the author identifies in prayer a (...) paradoxical articulation of struggle and peace, gift and endeavour, speaking and listening, through which the human being is profoundly transformed and finally learns to truly say “thank you”. (shrink)

We examined the associations of different types of prayer with subjective well-being—with a religious support as a potential moderator—in a sample of Korean adults. In a cross-sectional study, 468 participants completed measures of five prayer types, subjective well-being, and religious support. After controlling for background variables, the thanksgiving prayers had positive associations and supplication prayers had negative associations with subjective well-being. In examining the potential moderating role of religious support, the current findings showed that religious support strengthened the (...) relationship between reception prayer and subjective well-being, especially among individuals who perceived moderate and high levels of religious support. These findings indicate differential associations between prayer type and well-being in Korean adults. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Michael Murray and Kurt Meyers offer us two innovative and thought-provoking responses to the important question of why God would, even occasionally, refrain from giving us that which he can and would like to give us until we request that he do so: to help the believer learn more about God and thus become more like him and to help the believer realize she is dependent on God. I argue that neither explanation is (...) adequate and thus that more work on this significant topic remains to be done. (shrink)

Prayer in Islamic Thought and Practice. By Marion Holmes Katz. Themes in Islamic History, vol. 6. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 243. $85 ; $29.99 ; $24.

The aim of this article is to study the general and contextual issues related to prayers for the departed with a focus on the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT). In 2012, the ELCT published a new hymnal, which included a number of prayers for those mourning their deceased friends and relatives, as well as prayers for the deceased individuals themselves. As a result of considerable criticism, this hymnal was replaced by a new edition in 2017, in which the prayers (...) for the departed were omitted. The article further scrutinises the historical and theological aspects of praying for the departed in Lutheranism. It studies examples of prayers for the dead in Lutheran churches in two other countries, Finland and Sweden, and relates these to the situation in the ELCT. (shrink)

The Book of Common Prayer is the first introduction to Anglican belief and liturgy for many. More specifically, the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 contains the traditional catechism of the Church of England, enjoining catechumens to receive training and instruction in basic doctrines and Christian living. This takes place in the contexts of the liturgy and the more comprehensive doctrinal statements of the 39 Articles of Religion. Anglican religion traditionally allowed its members to verbalise their faith in (...) both ritual and confession, thus serving the church and not so much life in the world. A revisit of the intentions of the catechism within its historical and prayer book contexts will show that it essentially expresses lasting truths of the Christian faith. In a world increasingly divorced from particular Christian expressions, the Anglican Church needs to rethink its particular use of the catechism for its continued relevance in meeting the questions and challenges Anglicans face daily. (shrink)

In his choice of quotations concerning fate and the good ordering of events Stobaeus gives in succession three passages which the manuscripts ascribe to the Peleus of Euripides and the Phaedra of Sophocles, but as Wilamowitz and Nauck saw, all three form a single piece, and the ascriptions to Euripides and Sophocles do not concern them. The text so recovered may be presented as follows.

In response to Timaeus’ invocation of the gods at Timaeus 27c1-d4, Proclus discusses, in his commentary on the text, the value of prayer. Heralding the fact that prayer marks the soul’s epistrophe or return to its causative principle, Proclus proceeds to exonerate those who invoke and pray to the gods, arguing that prayer enacts the emergence of human freedom in the determined world. He argues that since the gods are not only our superior causes but also the (...) ones who have wisely granted self-motion to human souls, we possess the freedom to acknowledge the role of providence or to remain, as Proclus describes, entrapped in the realm of Fate. In other words, human beings must decide (boulesis) to become what they are in the simple act of revering the gods, i.e. reverting to or knowing their divine cause. To pray is not to ask for things to be otherwise, but to pray is to fulfill providence freely, to become self-moved and self-knowing, therein becoming like and returning to our divine origins. Proclus concludes that this is the peculiar form of prayer for the philosopher as the philosophical life is dependent upon our will and the decisive commitment to articulating and communing with the highest metaphysical principles. Accordingly, for Proclus, Timaeus, in illustrating the order and providential nature of things in his “likely story,” frees himself from the trappings of fate, praying decisively and silently throughout his entire endeavor. (shrink)

Christian prayer and worship are not so much derived from as generative of the doctrine of God.

This collection of ground-breaking essays considers the many dimensions of prayer: how prayer relates us to the divine; prayer's ability to reveal what is essential about our humanity; the power of prayer to transform human desire and action; and the relation of prayer to cognition. It takes up the meaning of prayer from within a uniquely phenomenological point of view, demonstrating that the phenomenology of prayer is as much about the character and boundaries (...) of phenomenological analysis as it is about the heart of religious life.The contributors: Michael F. Andrews, Bruce Ellis Benson, Mark Cauchi, Benjamin Crowe, Mark Gedney, Philip Goodchild, Christina M. Gschwandtner, Lissa McCullough, Cleo McNelly Kearns, Edward F. Mooney, B. Keith Putt, Jill Robbins, Brian Treanor, Merold Westphal, Norman Wirzba, Terence Wright and Terence and James R. Mensch. Bruce Ellis Benson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College. He is the author of Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida, and Marion on Modern Idolatry and The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music. Norman Wirzba is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Georgetown College, Kentucky. He is the author of The Paradise of God and editor of The Essential Agrarian Reader. (shrink)

The Jola are intensive wet-rice cultivators in the Lower Casamance region of Senegal. In this study, the author examines the reasons behind startling contrasts in the organization of agricultural tasks among three Jola communities located within a 45-kilometre radius from Ziguinchor. In Sambujat, situated in the non-Islamisized region south of the river, wet rice is a monocrop cultivated by both men and women. In Jipalom, in the Kajamutay region north of the river, Islam and cash cropping have been adopted; and (...) in Fatiya, in the so-called 'Mandingized' region of the Kalunay, social relations have become hierarchical and this has had profound effects on the cropping system and on the division of labour. The author examines the shift of power relations over time, and their effects on the way in which production has been organized by age and gender, kin and class. Larger issues dealt with are Islamization, women's labour and the introduction of cash cropping. A concluding section places the history of Jola labour relations within the context of the political economy of Senegal. (shrink)

The fact that our asking God to do something can make a difference to what he does underwrites the point of petitionary prayer. Here, however, a puzzle arises: Either doing what we ask is the best God can do or it is not. If it is, then our asking won’t make any difference to whether he does it. If it is not, then our asking won’t make any difference to whether he does it. So, our asking won’t make any (...) difference to whether God does it. Our asking is therefore pointless. In this paper, we try to solve this puzzle without denying either that God must do the best he can or that petitioning God can make a difference to what he does. (shrink)

R. Marie Griffith and Sarah Coakley suggest that feminist ecumenism across the evangelical-liberal spectrum is valuable for feminist studies of religion and theologies. In this context, I trace the conversation that has arisen around the idea of adopting ‘submission’ vis-à-vis the Christian notion of kenosis, and turn it in a new direction. I argue that Coakley’s apophatically cruciform understanding of submission in contemplative prayer contrasts with womanist approaches like that of Delores Williams. Drawing on Williams’ considerations of atonement and (...) Friedrich Schleiermacher’s understanding of prayer, I offer ‘incarnational submission’ as a way to acknowledge the value of prayerful submission while avoiding its potentially oppressive features. (shrink)

Most modern readers of Aristotle's "Politics" assume that the regime "according to prayer" (kat' euchên) in Book 7 is the culmination of the work as a whole, a utopia designed to guide political reform. I say no. This polis is not an ideal to be applied to practice, but one aspiration among several to be seriously examined and consulted by political people as they deliberate about what to do in particular situations. The prayer presented in chapters 4-12 is (...) not meant to be understood as Aristotle's own, but as coming from one imagined voice among the several presented in the "Nicomachean Ethics" and "Politics." Would Aristotle pray for this regime? No. It is instead the prayer of a "real man" (an anêr) fully committed to political life, someone who, unlike Aristotle, can imagine nothing more beautiful than a beautiful polis. Aristotle's subtlety here has important implications for understanding the philosophy/politics relationship. (shrink)

Most modern readers of Aristotle's Politics assume that the regime “according to prayer” ( kat'euch ê n) in Book 7 is the culmination of the work as a whole, a utopia designed to guide political reform. I say no. This polis is not an ideal to be applied to practice, but one aspiration among several to be seriously examined and consulted by political people as they deliberate about what to do in particular situations. The prayer presented in chapters (...) 4-12 is not meant to be understood as Aristotle's own, but as coming from one imagined voice among the several presented in the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics. Would Aristotle pray for this regime? No. It is instead the prayer of a “real man” (an anêr) fully committed to political life, someone who, unlike Aristotle, can imagine nothing more beautiful than a beautiful polis. Aristotle's subtlety here has important implications for understanding the philosophy/politics relationship. (shrink)

Petitionary prayer might seem pointless. If God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, then why wouldn't God give us what is good for us regardless of whether we ask for it? I answer this question by arguing that the efficacy of petitionary prayer does not contradict the doctrines of divine omnipotence and omnibenevolence.

The parable of the widow and the unjust judge is unique to Luke. It forms part of three other parables shedding light on the coming of the Son of Man. It also bears striking resemblances with the parable of the friend at midnight, but unlike the friend of midnight, persistence is a focal point for interpreting the parable. There is an intersection between the parable of the unjust judge and resilience theory. Resilience may be understood as the ability to have (...) positive, better-than-expected outcomes in the face of adversity. The widow persists and manages to persuade the judge to aid her plight. Accordingly, this article explored the intersections between resilience theory and the parable of the unjust judge as an interpretive aid.Contribution: This article explored a multidisciplinary approach to Luke 18:1–8. Resilience theory was incorporated with exegesis, thereby offering another hermeneutical lens to the text that enriches our understanding. (shrink)

Preview: /Zofia Rosińska interviewed by Mikołaj Sławkowski-Rode/ MSR: Your book Po śladach. Doświadczenie modlitewne w ujęciu filozofii kultury [After the Traces. The Experience of Prayer in the Perspective of Philosophy of Culture] has an unusual format for an academic work. Apart from an overview and discussion of various conceptions and examples of prayer you have added an annex containing eight interviews with various people as well as five testimonials concerning the experience of prayer – some very intimate. (...) What was the motivation for choosing such a format and how did you select the texts comprising the annex? ZR: My book is not a cultural study or a work of theology, psychology, or psychiatry, although it touches the boundaries of all these disciplines. What I mean here is that it takes up topics and utilizes the categories specific to these fields. My book is a book about the human being and it is written from the perspective of philosophy of culture. You say that the format of my book is not typical for an academic work, because of the decision to include the annex containing conversations with people who pray and with others who reject it. This is true. However my book necessitates this minor structural difference. The goal of the book was to discern and understand various forms of prayer present in our culture: from set prayers through poetry, painting and music to activities like work. I call this ‘ontological prayer’. Unfortunately I could not include painting and music in this work. (shrink)