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.