Praying when we suck at prayer.

Years ago I was reading Richard Foster’s Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, a useful book on prayer. In it he described the most basic, elementary form of prayer he could think of, which he calls “Simple Prayer.” Basically it’s just talking with God. Which is all prayer really is.

But I believe there’s a form of prayer even more elementary than Simple Prayer: It’s what I call the I-Suck-At-Prayer prayer.

It’s the prayer every new Christian prays. The prayer every pagan prays when they’re first giving prayer a test drive. The prayer even longtime Christians stammer when we’re asked to pray aloud, and suddenly we feel we’ve gotta perform… but not overtly. Christians might pray every day and rather often, yet we’ll still pray the I-Suck-At-Prayer Prayer from time to time.

It’s based on discomfort. It’s when we realize we need to pray in a manner we’re not used to.

Maybe we haven’t prayed for ourselves in a while; maybe someone else has been leading our prayers, or we’ve been praying too many rote prayers. Hey, sometimes it’s easier to use the prayer book, or the pre-written prayers in our favorite devotional. There are all these things we never think to pray, and the prayer books get us to pray ’em! But when we get too comfortable with the prayer books, we might slip out of the habit of extemporaneous prayer—praying without a script, talking to God just like we’d talk to anyone, as we should.

Sometimes it’s because we don’t feel worthy of talking to God. We sinned—either it was a really big sin; or it was a little one, but it made us feel unclean, so we put off praying, and now it’s been so long. Or we have a really big thing to ask God, but we don’t feel we’ve yet built up enough Brownie points to cash them in for a big ask. Or we have a really dumb prayer request, and we feel ridiculous asking God for it, ’cause surely he has better things to do.

So we stammer. Stumble. Suffer stage fright. And our prayers become big ol’ apologies to God for how poorly we’re doing. “Forgive my hesitation; I need to pray more often.”

Foster described Simple Prayer as the starting point of prayer. But plenty of people don’t even make it to that starting point. We get too hung up on “I suck at prayer”—too busy apologizing for our inability to express ourselves, too busy flogging ourselves for not praying enough, or “properly.”

I put “properly” in quotes ’cause we Christians often have a screwy idea of what’s proper in prayer, and get way too hard on ourselves because we don’t meet our own unrealistic expectations. Usually we’ve picked up these ideas from “prayer warriors” who make their showy public prayers sound impressive—and people assume our prayers oughta sound like that.

Hence we wind up with Christians who…

• feel we should only pray in King James Version English.
• replace every “um” and “uh” in our speech with “Father God” and “Lord Jesus,” and other names of God.
• pad our prayers because we’re not sure short prayers are effective.
• try to psyche ourselves into a prayer mood because we don’t know the difference between emotional and spiritual.

As I’ve said, prayer is talking with God. Nothing more than that. If we can talk with our family members, we can definitely talk with God. (If you struggle to talk with them, or they’re distant instead of gracious, I get why God might be a problem.) We don’t have to sound formal. We don’t have to speak in bible language. We don’t even have to be articulate—though we should make an effort, ’cause we are trying to communicate after all. We just gotta go find some privacy, open our mouths, and talk with God.

“Why are you bringing each other before corrupt judges?”

1 Corinthians 6.1-8

Paul and Sosthenes have another gripe about the Corinthians, so it merits another chapter. This one isn’t about some guy shtupping his stepmother, but about how certain Corinthians are taking their fellow Christians to court—and how they absolutely shouldn’t. The apostles even go so far as to say they should let themselves be ripped off, 1Co 6.7 rather than take it to court.

And there are plenty of Christians who think this passage still applies to Christians today—and use it to justify handling legal matters in-house, instead of getting police and prosecutors involved. I am not one of them, and I’ll explain why in a bit. Today’s bible passage first.

1 Corinthians 6.1-8 KWL

1One of you, having an issue with another one of you,

has the nerve to be judged by the unjust,

and not by the saints?

2Didn’t you know the saints will judge the world?

And if the world instead judges you,

aren’t you unqualified to rule in the smallest cases?

3Didn’t you know we will judge angels?

Not just the things of daily life!

4So, cases about the things of daily life:

When you have them,

the people thought the worst of by the church,

you sit before these people.

5I say shame on you!

So there’s no one wise among you?

—who will be able to sort you out in the midst of your family?

6Instead, brother judges against brother,

and all this in front of unbelievers.

7So this truly is a failing among you—

that you have judgments against one another.

Why don’t you let yourselves be harmed instead?

Why don’t you let yourselves be cheated instead?

8Instead you harm and cheat.

And you do this to family.

Happy Halloween. Bought your candy yet?

For more than a decade I’ve ranted about the ridiculous Evangelical practice of shunning Halloween. I call it ridiculous ’cause it really is: It’s a fear-based, irrational, misinformed, slander-filled rejection of a holiday which is actually a legitimate part of the Christian calendar.

No I’m not kidding. It’s our holiday. Christians invented Halloween.

A perfect opportunity to show Christlike generosity—and give the best candy ever. But too many of us make a serious point of being grouchy, fear-addled spoilsports. [Image swiped from a mommy blog.]

I know; you’ve likely read an article which claims Halloween got its origin in pagan harvest festivals. That’s utter bunk. Some neo-Pagan (one of the capital-P Pagans who worship nature and its gods, whose religions date from the 1960s, even though they claim they’re revivals of ancient pre-Christian religions) started to claim we Christians swiped it from them, and Christianized it. There’s no historical evidence whatsoever for this claim, but they keep claiming it. Gullible reporters repeat it every year when they write about the history of Halloween.

The story has always been hearsay, but it’s been passed around so long, people actually try to debunk me by quoting 20-year-old articles which claim Halloween was originally Samhain or some other pagan festival. But those old articles were poorly sourced. Incorrect then; incorrect now.

Samhain (pronounced 'saʊ.ən) is a contraction of sam fuin/“summer’s end.” It’s a Celtic harvest festival which dates back to pre-Christian times. It happens at the autumnal equinox, which took place last month, on 22 September. It’s totally unrelated to Halloween. It’s as if you claimed the Fourth of July was originally a celebration of the summer solstice… and the fact you barbecue and drink beer on that day, just like the ancients regularly used to cook meat and drink beer, proves it.

Oh, and neither neo-Pagan nor Christian holidays involve a celebration of creepy horror movie themes. That got added in the 20th century.

How long does hell last?

As I explained in my article “The four hells,” there are four words translated hell in the scriptures, and the one I mean by “hell” is Gehenna, the trash fire outside Jerusalem, reimagined in Revelation as a pool of fire and sulfur outside New Jerusalem. Rv 20.10-15 Into it go Satan and its angels, the Beast, the fake prophet who promotes the Beast, the personifications of Death and Hades (i.e. the afterlife), and everyone whose name isn’t listed in the life scroll—everyone who refused to accept God’s gracious offer ofhis kingdom.

The Beast and prophet are explicitly described as being “tortured there, day and night, age to ages.” Rv 20.10 Y’notice even though this lake is known as “the second death,” Rv 20.14 it doesn’t have a sense of finality like physical death. Generally death feels like an absolute stopping point—when you’re dead, you’re not alive, you’re not moving, you’re not breathing, you’re not thinking, you’re not anything; you’re dead. Whereas the second death sounds more like the beings sent into it aren’t inert, but moving, conscious… and suffering from eternal torment. Because they’re in fire. Everlasting fire, as the King James Version put it. Mt 25.41 KJV Where quite unlike the trash fires of the literal Gehenna, the worms don’t die, and the fire never goes out. Is 66.24, Mk 9.48

Yeah, I know: Certain dark Christians who love this idea of eternal conscious torment. That’s why it’s been the prevailing view throughout Christian history. Often because there are certain people they’d love to see tortured forever. Satan obviously, but a lot of them are thinking of certain political opponents—and I don’t necessarily mean government politicos, but anyone with whom they’ve struggled for power. Difficult neighbors. Workplace foes and cruel bosses. Church ladies who weren’t as Christlike as you’d expect. We all have people we don’t like. But… longing to see them burn forever? What is wrong with these people? Since God doesn’t wanna see anyone perish, 2Pe 3.9 and these people do, this sort of fleshly, fruitless gracelessness suggests these people don’t have any real relationship with God, much as they claim to. I don’t care what they call themselves.

The other reason they love the idea of eternal torment—a reason which is slightly more legit than t’other—is because they figure it’s a powerful motivator for getting people into God’s kingdom. If anyone’s on the fence about this idea of living under Jesus’s reign in peace and harmony (mainly ’cause the church is full of a--holes like me), Christians can point out the alternative: Outside the kingdom, it’s hot, stinky hell. You don’t wanna go to hell! We don’t want you there either; God doesn’t want you there either; why go there when you don’t have to? Don’t worry about the jerks in the church; Jesus’ll deal with them. Focus on Jesus. Turn to him. Let him save you.

The rest of us really don’t love the idea of eternal torment. Problem is, we don’t really see any way around it. That’s what Jesus describes in the scriptures. So that’s the reality we’re obligated to deal with: When people reject Jesus, that’s the destination they’ve effectively chosen. If people prefer a cosmetic relationship with Christianity over a living relationship with Jesus, that’s where they’re going.

It’s not like we can make up a reality we like better. (Although that’s certainly never stopped people from trying, has it?)

“Nobody wants to talk about hell anymore.”

There’s a church in town whose members really love to leave gospel tracts in my local Walmart. They especially like the really bitter, bilious tracts—the ones which inform people IN ALL CAPS that they’re totally going to hell. That is, unless they give up all their favorite things, reject the pope and all his works, and turn to Jesus. You know, typical dark Christian tracts. Especially the ones full of half-truths and conspiracy theories, ’cause they’re those kinds of wackjobs.

This particular tract caught my attention because it began with the line, “Nobody wants to talk about hell anymore.”

Sure hasn’t been my experience! Dark Christians love to talk about hell, and speculate about who’s going there, and why. Unsurprisingly it’s for doing all the things they hate, which they’re entirely sure are sins, and entirely sure Jesus doesn’t like ’em either. So they figure he’s sending them to hell. They figure he’s sending a lot of people to hell. Most people. Maybe 90 percent of the world. Not them, though!

Which “hell” does the bible mean?

As I said in my article, “The four hells,” there are three ancient Greek words we tend to translate “hell.” (Plus one Hebrew word.) These three words mean three different things… and none of them mean the pop culture idea of hell which we find in movies, TV shows, and the “Hell House” and “Judgment Day” pageants which conservative Evangelicals like to host around Halloween. Satan’s not waiting for dead sinners in some otherworldly fiery pit, ready to throw them into the flames. Satan itself is getting thrown into the flames. But that comes much later.

Okay, but in the meanwhile, if your favorite bible translation insists, as many do, in translating all these four different words as “hell,” exactly which hell are they talking about? Glad you asked. Here’s my handy-dandy chart for determining which hell they mean.

The four hells.

C.S. Lewis famously wrote a book called The Four Loves, about four of the five Greek words which tend to be translated “love.” Two are in the New Testament—ἀγάπη/agápi and φίλος/fílos. Two aren’t; they’re in the Septuagint, and only teachers of classic literature like Lewis would know ’em; ἔρος/éros and στοργή/storyí. There’s another Greek word, ξενία/xenía, which has some related words in the Septuagint… but Lewis only cared to highlight the first four, talk about their differences in meaning, and riff from them about how people “love” in different ways.

People hear of this book and assume, “Wow, Greek is so precise and exact. It’s got four different words for love!” Yeah… but so do we. These five words can easily be translated charity, friendship, romance, affection, and courtesy. Plus check out any thesaurus; you’ll find we have way more than five words for love. English is just as precise as we want it be.

I say this by way of introduction: There are three ancient Greek words we tend to translate “hell.” Problem is—same as with “love”—translators won’t always bother to distinguish between them. Some bibles do, and good on ’em. But whether our bible translations do or don’t, it’s important Christians know there’s a difference.

’Cause I’ve discovered Christians have no idea there’s a difference. Nor that they’re describing different things. Nor that none of them describe popular culture’s idea of hell as a dark, torturous underworld for bad people.

I said there were three words, right? So why’d I title this article “The four hells”? Well the fourth hell is pop culture hell. I’m gonna deal with that idea first.

Praying for your homeland without getting all nationalist.

Many churches pray for the country they’re in. Every Sunday morning, during the worship service. Mine doesn’t; we pray for the United States, or California (where we live, obviously), whenever there’s a serious crisis, like hurricanes, wildfires, floods, mass shootings, and so forth. Our prayer team does pray for our homeland on a regular basis, but otherwise it’s up to each individual Christian to remember to do it. Some of us do; some don’t.

But we should! All of us should. The people of our homelands need Jesus. Need to recognize their need for him. Oughta be encouraged to seek and follow him.

And yeah, of course, we oughta pray for the usual civic problems. Pray for our leaders to govern wisely. Pray for obvious supernatural answers to civic problems which’ll get people to give God credit, and glory. Pray for elections; that voters will choose leaders of good character, and partisans will respect the rule of law and let the election happen without incident. (Used to be we didn’t have to pray for that last thing, but times change. Namely because voters didn’t choose leaders of good character.)

The only problem with praying for our homeland, of course, is an influence which corrupts Christianity all the time, and therefore corrupts our prayers. It’s nationalism, the racist belief our country should only consist of, or be ruled by, people of one race; namely the race of the nationalists. And of course there’s the “Christian” variant, Christian nationalism, which focuses less on race and more on religion, and insists our country should only be inhabited and led by Christians. Because if it isn’t, claim Christian nationalists, God gets upset and bad things are gonna happen to us.

Obviously the prayers of Christian nationalists are gonna look way different from the sort of prayers Jesus will suggest. Their prayers exclude; his includes. Their prayers condemn and vilify; his forgives and loves. Their prayers are all about our homeland becoming great; his are that God’s will is done, on earth as it is in heaven, and heaven has no border patrol.

So if you’re in a church where the pastor and prayer leaders are nationalists, praying along with them for our homeland is gonna prove a giant waste of time; y’all are praying for stuff which runs contrary to God’s will. Hope you’re not in such a church! And if you’re not, feel free to join in with their prayers for our country and state. If they’re praying for God’s grace and compassion for the world, by all means pray that too.

Christian nationalism: The civic idolater’s religion.

NATIONALISM 'næʃ.(ə.)nəl.ɪz.əm noun. Belief a particular ethnic group (i.e. nation) should be congruent with the state, or be supreme within it; and the state’s native identity must share this ethnic group’s characteristics.

2. Exalting one ethnic group above all others; promoting its culture and interests above (or against) those of other ethnic or multinational groups.

[Nationalist 'næʃ.(ə.)nəl.ɪst noun.]

 

CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM noun. Belief Christians should be congruent with the state, or be supreme within it; and the state’s native identity must share Christianity’s characteristics.

2. Exalting Christians above all others; promoting its culture and interests above (or against) those of other religions and philosophies.

Let’s not mince words: Nationalism is a racist belief. Period.

French nationalists believe France should only consist of ethnic French people. To them, any immigrants from Algeria, Spain, Switzerland, or any other country aren’t really French, even if they were born in France, speak fluent French, have French citizenship, and contribute to society. In fact French nationalists would really rather they didn’t contribute to society, ’cause they’re “not really French.”

Turkish nationalists: Same deal. Israeli nationalists: Same deal; if you’re not Jewish you’re not really Israeli. United States nationalists: Same deal, except instead of insisting Americans be native Americans (i.e. American Indians) they insist the only real Americans are white English-speaking Anglo-Saxons like them. And they’d really like it if everybody else would just “go back to where you’re from,” and thereby make America great again. (By which they mean white again. As if it was ever only white.)

Now yeah, there are various conservatives who admit they’re nationalist, but insist they’re not racist; they’re perfectly fine with nonwhite Americans! Some of their best friends are nonwhites! The United States is a melting pot; diversity is one of our strengths; immigrants make some of the best Americans; most of all they love ethnic food. They even have nonwhite relatives.

So why on earth do they identify themselves as nationalists? Well they’re Christian nationalists. It’s the very same idea the racists have… but now let’s swap out all the racism for Christianity. To them, the United States should only consist of Christians. Any immigrants with other religions need to abandon those religions at the border, and either embrace Christianity or recognize its supremacy in American culture. And not resist that supremacy: They can practice their weird religions in private or in secret, but they must always remember America is a Christian nation.

Oh, I should mention many Christian nationalists don’t swap out all the racism for Christianity. Sometimes the racism’s still right there. They’re not so sure nonwhite Christians are real Christians… otherwise why wouldn’t they attend their nice white conservative churches? Why would they dare vote for liberal causes? Nope; if they were real Christians they’d conform to white churches and conservative causes.

And other Christian nationalists are fully aware they’re racist, and always have been. They want the United States to be a country for white Christians… but they find they get more traction if they emphasize the Christianity part and downplay the racism. Privately, they’ll tell you all about it.

No, nationalism isn’t just extreme patriotism. Some of the lousier dictionaries will define it that way… and some Christians will define it that way ’cause they don’t really understand what nationalism is. They just think it sounds patriotic. It’s got “nation” in it! But they don’t understand “nation” doesn’t mean country; it means ethnic group. It’s about race. Christian nationalism may borrow the racist term, but it still comes with all the racist baggage. Hence Christian nationalism has racism deeply embedded in it. Deeply.

“Why are you permitting blatant immorality?”

1 Corinthians 5.

Today’s passage is a whole chapter. It’s short, but yep, it’s a chapter.

It’s a little controversial among certain Christians—for the very same reason Paul and Sosthenes had to write it to the Corinthians. It has to do with sexual misbehavior in Corinth’s church, which Paul felt had gone beyond the pale—but the Corinthians were tolerating it, ’cause grace. And nuh-uh; that’s not how grace works.

I’ll start with where the apostles set up the scenario.

1 Corinthians 5.1-5 KWL

1Unchastity among you is getting reported everywhere—

the kind of unchastity which isn’t even approved by gentiles—

with a man having his father’s woman.

2You people are arrogant;

and don’t, more appropriately, mourn,

about how you should remove from among you

the one doing this work?

3For I, though absent in the body, being present in spirit,

like one who’s present, have already condemned this behavior.

4In the name of our master, Christ Jesus,

when you are gathered together with my spirit,

in the power of our master Jesus,

5hand over such a person to Satan for the flesh’s destruction,

so the spirit might be saved on the Lord Jesus’s day.

I translate the word πορνεία/porneía as “unchastity,” because that’s precisely what it means. Chastity means appropriate sexual activity; porneía is the opposite. Yes, people tend to define chastity to mean celibacy—no sexual activity at all—and that’s inaccurate. If you’re a clergy member who took a vow of celibacy, as some have, that’s what chastity means for you—you gotta keep your vows! But for every other Christian, chastity just means monogamy. You and your partner only have sex with one another, and don’t deprive one another, yet don’t make your partner do anything they consider immoral or don’t want. (It’s about loving one another, not personal gratification.)

Chastity also means you can’t just partner up with anyone, like promiscuous people will. Stay away from people who don’t or won’t or can’t love you. Stay away from people who demand you prioritize them over Jesus. And of course, avoid someone who already has a partner; and no close family members, whether by blood, marriage, or adoption.

Anyway if you know the myth of Oedipus of Thebes—and of course the Corinthians knew it, ’cause Thebes was a longtime ally, and only 85km away—you’ll know it’s an icky story. The king of Thebes had a son; his son was prophesied to kill his father and marry his mother; the king was horrified and had the baby abandoned in the woods. Except the shepherd who was supposed to abandon him, didn’t. Oedipus was adopted by a different royal family, fled from them as soon as he learned the prophecy… and happened upon his birth parents, and unwittingly fulfilled the prophecy. And the gods cursed Thebes with a plague because of it—because even pagans thought that was nasty.

Yet here it was, happening right there in the Corinthian church. And the Corinthians were letting it happen.