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Article: Prayer in friendship with God.(Cover Story)
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- January 29, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IN MANY WAYS there are no problems that are more difficult to think through and therefore live through for the late 20th-century Christian of liberal sensibilities than those raised by the idea of petitionary prayer. In depicting the way we are caught both by mechanistic images of a scientific, closed universe and by our deistic sense that God not only will not but cannot break God's own natural laws, Ronald Goetz describes our dilemma very well. He is equally helpful when he points to our concern that to pray for ourselves or for those close to us may somehow be unethical because it seems to be asking for favored treatment by God. Finally, he states boldly what he ...