Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief (First Edition) [Hardcover]

Description

Prayer is an essential part of the daily lives of many people. Some believe it connects them with God, a cosmic force, the universe or life itself, and that it can change circumstances or bring them comfort, protection and peace. Others engage in the act of prayer as a traditional ritual from which they neither demand nor expect results. Many who pray cannot imagine living without it. For many others, however, prayer has no significance in their lives at all. Having left a practice they once knew or matured without religious intervention or instruction, the idea of praying regularly might be considered by these individuals as nothing more than a waste of time. In Amen, Gretta Vosper, United Church minister and author of the controversial bestseller With or Without God, examines these diverse positions in the light of the harsh realities of unanswered prayer, the secular critique of supernatural intervention and the need for a deep sense of ownership for the suffering in the world. With characteristic honesty, she calls the reader to submit the tradition of prayer to the test of integrity. Can we draw from it useful principles for addressing human and global needs? Or is it safe, and maybe even more effective, to get up from our knees and live out the answers we seek?