Last week, I mentioned my concerns about the “Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer” which is planned for a site at Coleshill, just outside Birmingham. There was another concern that I had with the project and this was to do with how the organisers would decide about what counted and what to include in their wall/database.
If you go to their website, you’ll find a helpful FAQ’s page. One of the questions is “What about unanswered prayer” to which the organisers answer:
“It is our belief that God always answers prayers, but not always in the way we want him to. “
They give a number of reasons as to why this might be along the classic lines that God’s answers include “wait” as he teaches us patience and to wrestle and “no” when what we ask is out of line with his will for us. This means that silence is part of the answer. So far, so good, although I’m not convinced by this quote from Pete Greig
“It is entirely possible, therefore, that some of our prayers currently remain unanswered, because of direct satanic resistance. Our lives may also be attracting specific spiritual attacks because of the stand we are taking for Jesus, and if this is the case, there may be some encouragement in understanding that it is not God who is letting us down.” (Pete Greig, God on Mute, p.209).
To my mind, this gives far too much power to Satan and downplays divine sovereignty in the matter. It suggests that God is having to struggle to overcome opposition, spiritual opposition from his rivals and from our own stubborn hearts.
However, the conclusion at this point should be that “all prayer is answered” and so every example of prayer will be included in the wall. Not so fast! There is also a question about how prayer answers will be validated. Back comes the response:
We have a process in place to ensure all submitted prayers are reviewed with care. We are grateful for the answered prayer permissions we receive, and all answered prayers are processed diligently by our team. We take measures to ensure no one attempts to abuse the system, and we combine the use of technology and human moderation to achieve this.
This of course leaves a few unanswered questions still about who this team are, what qualifies them to verify answers and what process they will go through. On a side point, we should be concerned at the way this takes matters outside of the context of the local church and I have serious concerns about the impact pastorally both of this team verifying a person’s prayer as answered and of declaring that it hasn’t been. I would strongly urge people not to seek out such validation. Discernment happens within the context of the local church for good reasons.
So here’s the thing. We are beginning to single out prayers that meet someone’s criteria of “answered” and all the good work done in the little article acknowledging that all prayer is answered is undone. Just as in Animal Farm, all of the animals were equal but some were more equal than others, it seems that all prayers are answered but some are more answered than others.
Furthermore, we end up with a databank of “answered prayers” which gives us a one dimensional view on what prayer is itself. It feels far too much like a shopping list type scenario. Yes, we are told to seek and ask in Scripture but that’s not the sum total of prayer. Prayer is answered even when we don’t get yeses to requests or solutions to problems because we are not meant to approach God like some kind of cosmic vending machine. Rather, prayer is a conversation between mere humans and the living God. Conversations will include requests but also we tell stories, we don’t just look for solutions, we look for love, empathy, care. Perhaps the foundational answer to all prayer Is God saying “I know!”
A big risk with this wall is that it will cause people to count up their answers instead of listening to what God is saying and looking to what God is doing.
Faithroots 