Prayer

Pastoral Psychology -     

Prayer in the medical encounter

A large percentage of the population report that they believe in God and pray regularly. Recent reviews suggest that prayer and religious commitment are positively associated with mental and physical health. These data, taken together, strongly imply that the health professional must find a way to recognize and work with patients' religious practices. There is already a reasonable amount of literature detailing the beliefs and desires of both patients and professionals in commencing upon this work. This paper provides a comprehensive review of that literature and concludes with a discussion of implications and future directions.     

Grieving the Earth as Prayer

The COVID-19 pandemic is not so much a new kind of crisis as our most recent reminder of the dysfunction of human relations with the world we inhabit. This article argues that transforming our relations with other creatures begins with an examination of the call to be human: understanding the kind of creature we are and therefore how to live alongside other creatures with natures distinct from our own. It critiques the tendency to overemphasize human distinctiveness (anthropocentrism) or creatureliness (biocentrism, ecocentrism) to the detriment of our interpretations of human nature. Employing Jean-Louis Chrétien’s phenomenology of prayer as wounded speech, it proposes that climate/ecological grief mediates the tension of our distance from and intimacy with other creatures. Speech expressing grief over the world therefore re-embeds humans in our finitude and contingency while nevertheless treating human nature as containing a particular call to participate in Christ’s transforming work.     

The Prayer of Francis of Assisi: A Counselor's Prayer

The “Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi” is offered as a possible prayer for counselors and related to accepted ethical standards of professional counselors.     

Christian Prayer and the Local Congregation: A Social Analysis of Individual Prayer Petitions

Abstract

Prayer requests from members and attendees of a progressive Christian church located in a large American City was the subject of this investigation. This church serves congregants from Roman Catholic and Protestant backgrounds, and a large, but not exclusively gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community. ap Siôn’s study of prayer typology and subject contents from rural England influenced this investigation. This study used computer technology and document analysis to categorize 8,059 individual prayer card requests submitted between 2014-2018 from church members and attendees. Results showed the most common prayer requests were “Thanks and Thanksgiving” prayers with “Praise and Adoration” prayers among the least common. Few references to sin and forgiveness were found. The most frequently mentioned subjects of prayers were those referencing personal needs and concerns. Findings and comparison with ap Siôn and other research suggest these prayer requests demonstrate the social and theological cohesiveness of Christian prayer. Additional research is suggested comparing Christian prayer with prayers in other religions and how prayer behaviors interact with the rise of multiculturalism in society.