Mere Discipleship:Prayer
As I am working through Lee Camp's Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World, I noticed some convergence with my earlier post on exploitation versus nurture.
Lee has a unique way of framing prayer. He underscores that our culture conditions us to make choices that are based on efficiency, effectiveness (primary values of exploitation). We discern what is "right" by calculating the greatest happiness or the greatest good for the greatest number of people. To borrow from Wendell Berry's world, we ask what will give us the greatest yield. In short, Lee seems to frame prayer within the cultural context of exploitation, in which effectiveness is the final arbiter of truth.
Within this framework, Lee reminds his readers that "the gospel calls us to the primacy of faithfulness" (165). Our primary call is not to use our cleverness and ingenuity in order to calculate what would likely be best, or to determine what might be most effective. Instead, our call is to be radically faithful to God's will, God's kingdom, even when it may not be the most efficient or effective way. Loyal allegiance is more important the effectiveness.
How does this relate to prayer?
We pray in order to submit our will to God's. The Lord's prayer reminds us, especially with the first three petitions (your name be holy, your kingdom come, your will be done), that our life is to be oriented around obeying God's will, that our call is to witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We pray in order to abandon our tendencies to use God for our own agenda. We pray to remind ourselves "not my will, but Yours be done". Lee reminds us that our decision to abandon our will in order to follow God's is rarely if ever a one-time decision. It is, instead, a daily outworking of personal discipleship.
We are called to orient our heart, soul and mind towards the affairs of God. Prayer equips us for this.
Lee has a unique way of framing prayer. He underscores that our culture conditions us to make choices that are based on efficiency, effectiveness (primary values of exploitation). We discern what is "right" by calculating the greatest happiness or the greatest good for the greatest number of people. To borrow from Wendell Berry's world, we ask what will give us the greatest yield. In short, Lee seems to frame prayer within the cultural context of exploitation, in which effectiveness is the final arbiter of truth.Within this framework, Lee reminds his readers that "the gospel calls us to the primacy of faithfulness" (165). Our primary call is not to use our cleverness and ingenuity in order to calculate what would likely be best, or to determine what might be most effective. Instead, our call is to be radically faithful to God's will, God's kingdom, even when it may not be the most efficient or effective way. Loyal allegiance is more important the effectiveness.
How does this relate to prayer?
We pray in order to submit our will to God's. The Lord's prayer reminds us, especially with the first three petitions (your name be holy, your kingdom come, your will be done), that our life is to be oriented around obeying God's will, that our call is to witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We pray in order to abandon our tendencies to use God for our own agenda. We pray to remind ourselves "not my will, but Yours be done". Lee reminds us that our decision to abandon our will in order to follow God's is rarely if ever a one-time decision. It is, instead, a daily outworking of personal discipleship.
We are called to orient our heart, soul and mind towards the affairs of God. Prayer equips us for this.
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