{"id":24723,"date":"2014-09-30T21:28:55","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T01:28:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=24723"},"modified":"2014-09-30T21:28:55","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T01:28:55","slug":"nra-prayer-chain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/09\/30\/nra-prayer-chain\/","title":{"rendered":"NRA: Prayer chain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist;<\/em> pp. 251-254<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first three volumes of the Left Behind series alternate between two point-of-view protagonists, Rayford Steele and Buck Williams. Chapter 12 ends with an unresolved puzzle for Buck, and so Chapter 13 begins by cutting back to Rayford\u2019s POV and story line. That\u2019s a good move by Jerry Jenkins \u2014 a good way of heightening the suspense he wanted to generate in Buck\u2019s story.<\/p>\n

Jenkins often shows a decent\u00a0sense of\u00a0rhythm when it comes to\u00a0switching back and forth between these two points of view and these two story lines. But he often seems to forget that switching to the second story line requires that he has<\/em> a second story line. Here, as throughout much of this book and the last one, we return to Rayford Steele\u2019s perspective only to find that Rayford really doesn\u2019t seem to be up to much lately. It\u2019s another case in which Jenkins turns away from Buck\u2019s POV for a good reason, but doesn\u2019t supply much of a good reason for returning to Rayford\u2019s POV.<\/p>\n

What we find here, instead, is an odd little homily on the importance of prayer. The chapter\u00a0begins, of course, with a phone call:<\/p>\n

Rayford was tired of being awakened by the phone. However, few people in New Babylon outside of Carpathia and Fortunato ever called him. And they usually had the sense not to disturb him in the middle of the night. So, he decided, the ringing phone was either good news or bad news. Once chance out of two, in this day and age, wasn\u2019t bad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I can\u2019t argue with the assessment that a ringing phone in the middle of the night is likely \u201ceither good news or bad news.\u201d But it doesn\u2019t follow that this presents the 50-50 odds of \u201cone chance out of two.\u201d\u00a0This phone call isn\u2019t just coming in the middle of the night, after all, but in the middle of the Great Tribulation \u2014 a \u201cday and age\u201d marked by relentless, ever-escalating wrath, woe, death and destruction.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine what \u201cgood news\u201d might mean during the Great Tribulation.\u00a0The schedule for\u00a0the remaining five and a half years of human history is all predetermined and not a bit of it involves the potential for \u201cgood news.\u201d Tim LaHaye\u2019s vision of Revelation as \u201cbiblical prophecy\u201d foretells seven seals of wrath, followed by seven trumpets of even worse wrath, followed by seven bowls\u00a0of even wrathier wrath to come. The prophecy doesn\u2019t suggest that these will be interspersed with seven Saturdays of sunshine or seven puppies of joy, so the ratio or likelihood of good news\u00a0vs.\u00a0bad news seems far more lopsided than one chance out of two.<\/p>\n

He picked up the phone. \u201cSteele,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It was Amanda. \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, right. Mrs<\/em>. Steele. She\u2019s back in Chicago, so it\u2019s maybe a little odd that she\u00a0ranks below Carpathia and Fortunato on the list of people\u00a0he expected to call.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Rayford, I know it\u2019s the middle of the night there, and I\u2019m sorry to wake you. It\u2019s just that we\u2019ve had a little excitement here, and we want to know if you know anything. \u2026 We got the strangest call from Loretta at the church. She said she was just working there alone, taking a few phone calls. She said she just had an overwhelming urge to pray for Buck.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Buck?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. She said she was so overcome with the emotion of it that she quickly stood up from her chair. She said she thought that made her lightheaded, but something made her fall to her knees. Once she was kneeling, she realized she wasn\u2019t dizzy but was just praying earnestly for Buck.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They discuss \u201cthis premonition, or whatever it was, of Loretta\u2019s\u201d for another page or so before, finally, Amanda puts her on the line to speak to Rayford.<\/p>\n

Loretta indeed sounded shaken. \u201cCaptain Steele, I\u2019m so sorry \u2019bout troubling you at this time of the night. What is it, goin\u2019 on like three o\u2019clock over there?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is one of the fun things about Loretta\u2019s rare appearances in this story \u2014 we never know what kind of accent or dialect to expect from her.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, ma\u2019am, but it\u2019s all right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it\u2019s not all right. There\u2019s no reason to raise you out of a sound sleep. But sir, God told me to pray for that boy, I just know it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rayford agrees. This sudden, overwhelming compulsion to pray for Buck\u2019s safety must be a direct message from God.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod seems to be working in much more direct and dramatic ways all the time,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t argue with that either. \u201cMore direct and dramatic\u201d seems like a good description of divine behavior in the post-Rapture world. The Rapture itself was certainly direct and dramatic, and it seems to have introduced an era of explicit, obvious divine intervention. (See, for example, the bodily presence of Moses and Elijah, who breathe fire and can stop bullets with a wave of their hands.) That accords with LaHaye\u2019s premillennial dispensationalist theology, which divides history into a set of different \u201cdispensations\u201d or ages in which God interacts differently with the world. Dispensationalism teaches that God will behave very differently \u2014 \u201cmore direct and dramatic\u201d \u2014 in the coming Great Tribulation than God does now during what they call the \u201cChurch Age.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem here, though, is that the little vignette in these pages about Loretta\u2019s premonition is based on the idea that God works this way now, today<\/em> \u2014 directly and dramatically in your<\/em> life, dear Christian Left Behind fan. That\u2019s the whole point of this section, it\u2019s a practical lesson for readers \u2014 an admonition to always be on the lookout for any sudden urge to pray, and to regard such urges as a message from God.<\/p>\n

The moral of the story gets slammed home in this exchange at the very end:<\/p>\n

\u201cLoretta, would you do me a favor?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter gettin\u2019 you up in the middle of the night? You name it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Lord prompts you to pray for me, would you do it with all your might?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Course I will. You know that. I hope you\u2019re not just bein\u2019 funny now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never been more serious.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This, the authors are saying, is how the world works \u00a0\u2014 not just in some miracle-ridden future dispensation, but here and now in the lives of the American Christians reading these novels. The Lord will sometimes prompt you to pray. Do so with all your might and miracles<\/em> will follow.<\/p>\n

The miracle, in this case, was Buck and Tsion\u2019s miraculous safe crossing of the border out of Israel.<\/p>\n

Here in the pages of Nicolae<\/em>, this raises all sorts of questions involving theology, metaphysics, physics, cause, effect, and time.<\/p>\n

\"If<\/a>
If a prayer leaves Chicago at 5 p.m. at the speed of sound \u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Buck\u2019s whole plan for getting across the border, remember, was to put his fate in God\u2019s hands and pray\u00a0for a miracle. God answered his prayers and supplied that miracle. But it turns out this wasn\u2019t just an answer to the prayers of Buck and Tsion, but also to the prayers of Loretta, Amanda and Chloe.<\/p>\n

Did God require<\/em> those prayers? Or, more pointedly, would God have been able<\/em> to provide that miracle without those prayers? Apparently not. At least God<\/em> seems to think not, because it was God who prompted Loretta (and thus also Amanda and Chloe) to drop everything and drop to their knees to pray for Buck.<\/p>\n

What would have happened if Loretta had shrugged off this prompting to pray? Would Buck and Tsion now be prisoners?<\/p>\n

What if Loretta had decided to pray not just for Buck, but also for poor Michael (Row the Boat A) Shorosh? He\u2019s already predestined to be one of the 144,000 martyrs whose fate is indelibly inked in prophecy. God has decreed that he is doomed.\u00a0Prayers that contradict that which has been prophesied must be futile in this prophecy-driven story. Are such futile prayers permissible? Are they a kind of rebellion and, thus, a kind of sin?<\/em><\/p>\n

It seems the lesson here is not just \u201cIf the Lord prompts you to pray \u2026\u00a0do it with all your might,\u201d but also\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t pray unless<\/em> the Lord prompts you to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bigger puzzle here is the apparent closed circle of divine intervention prompted by human intercession prompted by divine intervention.\u00a0This is like one of those time-loop paradoxes from a time-travel sci-fi\u00a0story. God intervenes to compel Loretta to pray\u00a0for God to intervene to save Buck. Was someone<\/em> else<\/em> praying for God to compel Loretta to pray? And, if so, was that person praying on their own, or were they also responding to divine prompting? How many loops and layers are at work here before we arrive at a place where either God or a human is acting on their own volition?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not completely sure, but this might not just be like<\/em> a time-travel story \u2014 it may actually be<\/em> a time-travel story.\u00a0The chronology here is too muddled for us to be sure that Loretta\u2019s premonition to pray for Buck came before he arrived at the border crossing. It\u2019s possible that God told her to tell God to help Buck after<\/em> God had already done so.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s assume that Loretta was already on her knees in earnest prayer before<\/em> the two border guards approached Buck\u2019s school bus. We\u2019re still going to need some time travel to accept the authors\u2019 insistence\u00a0that Loretta\u2019s compulsory prayer was efficacious. She asked God to ensure Buck\u2019s safety, and God did so, but the means by which God did so \u2014 **SPOILER ALERT**<\/em> \u2014\u00a0was the younger border guard, Anis, who turns out to be a secret convert to Christianity and a disciple of ex-rabbi Tsion Ben-Judah.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if the young Anis was an angel or a man, but he was sent from God,\u201d Tsion says to Buck later.<\/p>\n

But in order for God to pull this miracle out of the\u00a0chosen Anis, God first had to arrange for the young man\u2019s\u00a0conversion and his assignment to this border post. The wheels would have to have been set in motion long before either Loretta or Buck\u00a0prayed. The answer to their prayers was the effect of causes that had to have begun long before they ever started praying.<\/p>\n

To be fair, this problem of the efficacy of prayer in relation to cause and effect isn\u2019t unique to LaHaye and Jenkins. Christians have been wrestling with that paradoxical question since at least Augustine\u2019s time. It\u2019s actually a fascinating subject if you enjoy that sort of speculation. Some have offered theories that involve the universe as a kind of Newtonian machine expertly manipulated by an omniscient being who can account for all the variables. Other theories are as mind-bending and fantastical as string theory or spooky action. (I have discovered a truly marvelous explanation of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain.)<\/p>\n

Here\u00a0in these books, though, prayer is often presented as a simple mechanical process of cause and effect. That the problem of all these complicating questions and chronologies particularly acute. And it makes the authors\u2019 failure to acknowledge them \u2014 let alone resolve them \u2014 all the more glaring.<\/p>\n

I wonder how the fans of these books respond to the strange little lesson on prayer they\u2019ve been given in these pages. I suppose they probably just focus on Rayford\u2019s summary of the moral of the story \u2014 \u201cIf the Lord prompts you to pray \u2026\u00a0do it with all your might\u201d \u2014 and then, for a little while afterward, they seek to be more attuned to such prompting.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s hard to sustain, though, because it\u2019s hard to know what it means. What does such prompting feel like? Where is that feeling located? Does it involve paying more attention to our seemingly stray thoughts? And if so, how does one do<\/em> that? There seems to be a fine line between the kind of heightened spiritual awareness being advised here\u00a0and something that looks and feels more like neurotic anxiety.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}