Explorations in African Systems of Thought Book

The Struggle of Prayer is a book by the American theologian Donald Bloesch. In the book, Bloesch attempts to provide a theology of prayer in the vein of the prophetic tradition of the Protestant Reformers the best of Protestant thought. Bloesch draws heavily from Martin Luther, P.T. Forsyth, and the Puritan Richard Sibbs, all three of whom Bloesch sees as exemplifying the prophetic prayer he sees in the Bible. Bloesch will contrast the prophetic, biblical prayer, with the mystical prayer which Bloesch sees as an example of Neo-Platonism having crept into the church.

The Struggle of Prayer is split into seven chapters, each of which is relatively short (<35 pages) and self-contained. Each chapter is well researched, and readers should expect a book with academic rigor, but not one too difficult for the layman (like myself) to understand.

Chapter 1 is on The Crisis of Prayer. Despite American remaining highly religious while the rest of the Western world turns secular, this has not led to a flourishing of either authentic Christianity or true, Christian prayer. Christians in America, both mainline and others, neglect prayer, and when they do pray, most have serious misunderstandings of what prayer is. Prayer for Americans is often mystical, hoping for union with God, magical, trying to force God to produce the action wanted, or prayer serves to help the person praying come to know themselves better. In these and other ways, prayer is misunderstood even when prayer is practiced.

True Christian prayer is prophetic prayer. Prayer is born out of the "realization that human beings in and of themselves are incapable of saving themselves from the forces of darkness withing and about them." True prayer is prophetic prayer, a wrestling with God for Him to act on behalf of the world. This rules out meditation and contemplation as prayer. Those two disciplines have their place in the Christian life, but they are not prayer and cannot replace prayer.

Chapter 2 is on The Scriptural Basis of Prayer. This fascinating chapter gives a good short overview of the scriptural basis for prayer. Bloesch starts by giving an outline of who we are praying to as Christians, namely the living and almighty God. We need to first understand who we are praying to because our understanding of this effects all our prayers. We also are helped by understanding what Christ and the Holy Spirit have to do with prayer, and Bloesch provides helpful understandings of the role of the whole trinity in prayer. We pray in the Holy Spirit with confidence to God the Father because we know Jesus Christ is interceding for us at the right hand of the Father.

Bloesch also addresses the whether we should pray publicly or privately (both, but private is preferred) and the thorny problem of unanswered prayer. Prayer can never truly be left unanswered when our prayer is asked rightly. However, we have no right to expect our prayers to be heard if we ask wrongly, nor should we expect for our prayers to be answered how we expect them to be answered. We pray for the Lord's will to be done, not our will to be done.

Chapter 3 is on Dialog with God. Prayer is a dialog with God. True prayer can contain meditation and silence, but prayer will always rise to words. Contrary to the silence and emptiness of mystical theologies of prayer, biblical prayer is active as is dialog.

We should not assume our posture doesn't matter because we are approaching God in conversation. We should be reverent and remember God is both above us and other than us. Bloesch advocates for the usage of "Thou" or "You" when we are addressing God. Both preserve important truths while also retaining a danger. Addressing God with "Thou" preserves a sense of God's holiness, but Bloesch does acknowledge the danger of formalism with the usage of Thou, something our prayers should never fall into. "You" can be used to counter formalism but addressing God as "You" has the danger of allowing us to a assume God is more similar to us than He is. Addressing God as "You" can lead to a lack of reverence and respect in our prayers

We can also address prayer to all three members of the trinity. Not only the Father, but the Son and the Spirit are able to be addressed in prayer. Having established the validity of praying to all three members of the trinity, Bloesch unfortunately leaves unaddressed the question of whether we should have a priority in who we address in prayer. Because we can address both Jesus and the Holy Spirit in prayer does not mean we should address them as much as the Father. Bloesch also advocates for using Thou or You when addressing God, but whether we should pray primarily using "Father" as Jesus does is left unexplored and leaving these questions unaddressed were weak points in an otherwise fine chapter.

Having set times to pray is an unavoidable necessity because of the weakness of our flesh and the difficulty of prayer. Prayers should be short, otherwise we fall into the danger of praying like the gentiles (Matt 6:7). God already knows what we need, and we should not waste words telling Him what he already knows.

Chapter 4 is on Heartfelt Supplication. The essence of true prayer is heartfelt supplication. We are not to mumble our prayers or merely say a ritual prayer. Earnestly and with our whole heart we are to bring to God what is on our heart. Prayer does contain other aspects, namely adoration, thanksgiving, and confession, but all lead to supplication without which we do not have true prayer. According to Bloesch, prayer does change God's actions in the world. This understanding runs counter to philosophical understandings of God, but we see God's actions changed by prayer from scripture where God listens to Moses, the repentant people of Nineveh, and Phineas among others, and God's action changes from what he was going to do beforehand. Because we know God's action can change due to our prayers and we know we can pray with confidence because of our mediator, Jesus Christ, we are able to pray with boldness and perseverance.

We should, however, not assume prayer is magical. We cannot manipulate God into getting what we want. God is not a genie who we can ask whatever we wish and receive exactly as we ask. Neither should we think any formula will help us, and those who pray "in Jesus' name" cannot expect for their prayers to be heard because of any specific phrase. We do not manipulate God, instead we try and persuade Him to act. Even though acknowledging "Thy will be done" can lead to stoicism and indifference to the fate of the world, we are to eventually say "Thy will be done."

Chapter 5 is on Prayer and Mysticism. This chapter is the longest in the book, the best researched, and the one I found most rewarding. Bloesch examines mystical prayer, primarily through Christian sources but also uses non-Christians as well. He does this by going directly to the source and engaging plenty of prominent mystics from Augustine to Meister Eckhart to Thomas Merton with many in between. He makes a compelling case why the understanding of prayer the mystics have is deficient and comes from outside the bible, and as such does not represent biblical prayer. This ultimately leads to two different understandings of prayer and of God. The God of mysticism is passive, while the God of the bible is active. Mystical religion aims for direct access to God while Christianity requires us to have a mediator, Jesus Christ to access God. Mystical experience is beyond rational while biblical Christianity includes the rational. Ours is faith seeking understanding. Mysticism speaks of a journey to the center, the divine core of the soul, while biblical Christianity speaks of a divine incursion into the world. Mysticism is opposed to supplication or asking for material needs, while biblical Christianity sees these as core parts of prayer. Most clearly, we can say mysticism results in a theology of glory, while biblical Christianity lives by a theology of the cross.

Having convincingly shown that the mystics are operating under a deficient understanding of prayer and God, Bloesch then goes on to affirm a convergence between mysticism and Christianity. Christianity is not opposed to mysticism or contemplation, but contemplation is to be a source for petition and action. Our meditation grounds and enhances our prayers but doesn't replace or detract from prayer. Contemplation is good, but only when we understand contemplation not as attempting to experience being united with God but "loving, heartfelt attention to the things of God."

Chapter 6 is on Prayer and Action. In both Christian and non-Christian circles, prayer has been roundly criticized. "I don't want your prayers; I want you to do something" is a common refrain. While this saying reveals a misunderstanding of how prayer works, the sentiment affirmed is understandable given the sorry state of prayer in America and the lack of action by the church. Against this understanding, Bloesch shows us how prayer and action are always connected. Prayer will result in action for we have not truly prayed if our words alone are lifted to God. We are to ask God and then do all in our power to bring to fruition what we ask. We do not act because we are co-redeemers with Christ but because by our action, we show God we are serious about what we ask for.

Prayer leads to activity, but the primary activity of prayer is the struggle of prayer. Prayer is not easy or simple. Prayer is the hardest action any human being can undertake. Prayer requires diligence, attention, patience, perseverance, devotion and energy. When we pray, we are wrestling with God but also with the powers and principalities in our world and with our own sloth and sin. The activity of prayer leads to action, but action should always flow out of prayer.

Our technological society is one which favors action over contemplation, but we must not take this cultural bias and apply it to our own lives. We are called to action, but we have a priority of contemplation and prayer over action. Christianity is a way of being before a set of actions.

The seventh and last chapter is on The Goal of Prayer. "The ultimate goal of the life of prayer is the glorification of God and the advancement of his kingdom. We are to pray for our own growth in holiness by increased humility, patience, love, and hope. We are also to pray for the evangelization of the world and for justice to come. Every great movement of missions throughout church history has came from a church which has been devoted to prayer. We share the same responsibility as those men and women in the past: to pray for God's kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.

The Struggle of Prayer is a thoughtful, well researched book. Donald Bloesch articulates clearly an unabashedly Protestant theology of prayer. The Struggle of Prayer is peppered with quotes from Luther, Calvin, Ellul, the Puritans, P.T. Forsyth and many others including those he has strong disagreements with such as Teresa of Avila. No one can accuse Bloesch of not having done his homework, and the research in this book makes the book one which is "essential reading for anyone serious about prayer" as the cover blurb states.

The Struggle of Prayer is not without faults, however. Bloesch's writing is filled with quotes from other writers and thinkers, which while allowing for us to hear and interact with plenty of other voices and thinkers also dilutes Bloesch's own voice in writing. Chapters can have too many quotes from different thinkers and Bloesch's own thoughts can come across as mere comments to other thinkers' thoughts. As a result, at points Bloesch's writing can become more reactive instead of articulating a positive theology of prayer.

Because each chapter is relatively stand alone, the book can also be repetitive at time, though this repetition does not detract much from the strength of the book.

A more serious critique of The Struggle of Prayer comes from Bloesch's lack of serious engagement with the Psalms or the Lord's prayer. He discusses both briefly, but for a book "intended as a theology of prayer", the lack of engagement with the psalms, the Bible's prayerbook, is a serious gap. His wise advice to use few words when praying would have been strengthened if he would have engaged with the usage of the psalms in prayer. In Athanasius's Letter to Marcelinus an old monk says of the psalms that they are "a form of words wherewith to please the Lord on each of life's occasions, words of both repentance and of thankfulness, so that we fall not into sin; for it is not for our actions only that we must give account before the Judge, but also for our every idle word." The monk agreed with Bloesch that our words should be few, but he was also able to pray with many words because he was praying to God in God's own words, the Psalms. An engagement with a position such as Athanasius's would have strengthened the book, and I would have been interested in Bloesch's own thoughts on the matter as well.

Despite those flaws, The Struggle of Prayer is an excellent book, one which I would highly recommend. I learned from the book, and the book spurred me on to pray more, which is the most important mark of a book on prayer. Those who are serious about prayer would do well to take up Bloesch's book and read it.