Tuesday, December 21, 2004
A List of Screwy Christian Stuff
Seeking an authentic faith and a solid education, this writer enrolled at Oral Roberts University. Soon, he was questioning his choice of schools—and keeping a list....
...Near the top of the list of Screwy Stuff: Naming it and claiming it. Prayers that name what the pray-er wants, and claim what the pray-er wants. Name it and claim it, goes the imperative. If you name it and claim it, you will get it.
My mind is boggled by this formula for the first time at a dorm prayer meeting I attend. Not bothered, not bemused, but boggled, astonished into confusion. Tossed all around. It could have been, maybe should have been, a blip on the screen, a bump in the road I hop over and move on. But, no. It is a boggling.
At the beginning of the meeting someone stands up and asks for prayer requests. Hands pop up, are called upon. Requests are taken. A sister-in-law has been diagnosed with cancer. A father is falling away from the Lord. The MCAT is coming up. One person needs help paying for overdue medical bills, another for buying a new truck so he can get to work.
After the requests, people volunteer to pray for each one. The guy who needs the truck volunteers to pray for his own request, and when he does, he names it and claims it:
“Father, You know I need a new truck, so right now I just claim a Toyota 4x4, 3.4 liter, six-cylinder, extended cab . . . red with white trim. I need low payments and affordable insurance. I just claim these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
This being the first time I’ve heard anything like it, I look around and expect to see everyone smiling and nodding along with the joke. But all heads are bowed, all eyes closed. The prayers continue in all seriousness, from the Toyota to cancer.
I slide down into my seat, into my boggling. This, I will discover, is a strange breed of Pentecostalism, a teaching of personal empowerment that had a heyday but is in its dying gasps. But everyone seems on board with it in this moment, and that frightens me into wondering if I am supposed to be on board, too....
