I stumbled upon a discussion amongst manly Christian men, the kind who love Wild at Heart and in-your-face preaching by pastors with untucked shirttails and who harbor visions of standing up to thugs and infidels. They were discussing how best to fight evil in the world. I suggested we all pray without ceasing.
I’m not sure when prayer became associated with cowardly piety, but that’s certainly how some of these men see it. I can understand resentment toward those who offer brief prayers in lieu of physical help to those in need. I’ve also seen large churches forego helping the poor and needy in their very congregations but keep them on the prayer roll at the same time they are sparing no expense on ornate buildings and concerts with big-name Christian bands. Prayer can indeed be nothing more than heartlessness disguised as concern.
At the same time, I’m troubled when I hear people speak of prayer as if it is merely the expression of sentiment, as if it is separated from the practical, physical world of action. We would do well to remember that the Church fathers, though they differed in many respects, were singular in their attention to prayer. It was Paul who urged us to pray ceaselessly, an admonition too many of us subtly relegate to hyperbole. Polycarp prayed night and day for all the Church. Saint Anthony battled demons in the desert.
In other words, to regard prayer as something separate from the “doing” of the physical world is to make a grave mistake about what takes place in the seen and unseen places. I suspect we make this mistake because we are so shoddy at prayer, offering scant minutes a day rather than spending significant time in it.
What’s more, there’s little I trust less than a gathering of blustering, pontificating, macho men ready to kick the devil’s rear end and take back the world for Jesus. I know when I forsake prayer, I misstep immediately. How did Paul know to stay put in the Philippian prison, after his chains were loosed, and after Peter had himself been freed from a Jerusalem prison under similar circumstances? Roman Christians didn’t take up arms when they were marched to the lions, yet in later centuries Christian priests took up swords against marauding Muslims seeking to defile churches. When more than one course of action is lawful and possible, how do the faithful know which path is right?
The answer, of course, is prayer, and not just the talking at God kind, but the listening kind. Given that the actions of mankind have brought death into the world, it makes no sense to imagine that any further actions by men not intimately bound up in communion with God will do anything but serve evil further.
Pray without ceasing. If the Lord wants you to deck an infidel, as Saint Nicholas did to the heretic Arius at the first Council of Nicea, I’m sure He’ll let you know.
