Editor’s Note: Even as a church-going child, I didn’t like prayer. I couldn’t figure out why God would answer some silly prayers, thus granting me an “A” on a math quiz and disregard some really important prayers, thus letting a whole family die in a house fire. My youthful response was not to think about it. I’m glad this former pastor examined prayer more closely and made a strong case against it.

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By Jim Mulholland, Reposted with permission from his blog.

I’m a big fan of meditation and personal reflection. I try to spend an hour each day in thoughtful introspection. I’ve found that practice to bring me inspiration, clarity and peace. While I no longer call this exercise prayer, I’m comfortable with those who frame this experience as a connection with something beyond themselves – be it god or some power. Maybe it is. As long as your inner voice isn’t telling you to hurt yourself or me, I’d recommend listening to it. That being said, when it comes to making requests of god, I hate prayer.

I haven’t always hated intercessory prayer – the type of prayer intended to alter future outcomes. Indeed, there was a period of my life when I often requested things of God and even thought some of those prayers were answered. When prayers weren’t answered, I’d repeat the Christian mantra – sometimes God says yes, sometimes God say no and sometimes God says wait. This formula was fairly easy to sustain as an affluent American Christian. All of my basic needs and most of my desires were met. It seemed as if my prayers were often answered.

Ironically, it was in becoming a pastor that this understanding of prayer began to fail. As a pastor, I was constantly asked to pray for some of the most heart wrenching situations – physical healing, broken relationships, destitution, addiction, and psychological trauma. Again and again, the answers “no” or “wait” made no sense. “Yes” seemed the only appropriate answer to such pleas. When I told people – in response to their unanswered prayers – that God’s ways were mysterious, it rang hollow in my ears. Answered prayers began to look more like happy coincidence than divine intervention.

Even before I became an atheist, I gave up intercessory prayer. When people would stand up in church and celebrate the most trivial occurrences as answered prayers, I felt embarrassed. I knew there were people in the pews dealing with unanswered prayers about horrific situations. I began to research the science behind prayer. I discovered there was not a single study that found prayer capable of altering outcomes unless – and this is very important – the persons being prayed for knew they were the objects of prayer. In other words, telling someone you’re praying for them has a positive effect on them, but praying for them without telling them is useless. Obviously, the positive impact had nothing to do with god and a lot to do with human psychology.

So for the last few years of my religious life, I tolerated talk of intercessory prayer. What could it hurt? If people told others they were praying for them, it brought that person some real comfort. If people prayed for someone without their knowledge, it did no harm. Most claims of divine intervention seemed expressions of gratitude rather than of how the universe worked. People prayed and some disaster was avoided. People wished for some good outcome and it happened. Crediting such events to God was gratifying. While there was no evidence I could see of God intervening in the world, people seemed to like to think so.

Today, I no longer see such sentiments as harmless. Hearing them from outside the confines of religious culture, I am aware of an arrogance and ugliness to which I had been oblivious. In the past year, I’ve begun to cringe when I hear statements like “God answers prayer” and “Prayer works.” I’ve bitten my tongue when people describe some trivial occurrence as evidence of God’s responsiveness. Do they really think they are so special? I finally understand why such claims are so damaging both to the speaker and the hearer.

Consider this example. When I was sixteen, one of my friends received a brand new car as a birthday present. As a person driving an old beat up truck, I was obviously envious, but I understood the inequities of life. I didn’t get irritated until my friend made it a point at every opportunity to announce, “Look at this car my parents bought for me.” Eventually, I avoided him and his car. Of course, there was nothing wrong with my friend being grateful for the present and for thanking his parents. What was obnoxious was his constant need to make certain everyone knew of his good favor.

This is how I feel about claims of answered prayer. If you really think God has intervened on your behalf, thank God and keep it to yourself. The minute you broadcast that good fortune as divine blessing, your purpose is no longer gratitude. It is pride and arrogance. You are convinced at some deep level of God’s special favor. In proclaiming this good fortune, you are also calling into question the status of everyone else. When you celebrate even the most amazing occurrences – successfully overcoming cancer, surviving a tornado, or a sudden and unexpected financial windfall – you are suggesting those who are dying of cancer, killed in the tornado or poor and destitute are less favored by God. Your prayers were answered, but not theirs.

Perhaps the more graphic examples of this cruelty happened in one of my last years of ministry. One Sunday, a woman stood to announce that – after several months – her prayers had been answered and she was pregnant. Everyone was excited and happy for her, except for me and one other. As I looked out on the congregation I saw the crestfallen face of a woman who had recently shared with me her long depression over her infertility. It wasn’t enough that she would never have children. Now she had to struggle with why her prayers went unanswered.

If there is a god who answers the prayers of some men, women and children, but ignores the prayers of others, I have no interest in such a god. That god would be source of inequity and not a god of justice. I would hate a god who answered trivial requests while ignoring the pleas of the parents of starving children. However, I don’t think that god or any other god exists. I think what people claim as answered prayers are happy coincidences. I don’t begrudge them their good fortune, but I’ve come to despise their expressions of spiritual privilege. Isn’t it enough that life is good? Why besmirch the character of those less fortunate?

Usually, I say nothing when people celebrate intercessory prayer, but I don’t know how much longer I can give my silent assent to such ugliness. I wish far more Christians obeyed Jesus and did their praying – and their celebrating of answered prayer – in a closet rather than in the public square. Those who insist on flaunting their good fortune remind more and more of my sixteen year old friend – insecure, immature and insensitive.

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Jim Mulholland spent twenty-five years as a pastor. He wrote several best selling Christian books and spoke nationally. In 2008, he resigned when his faith faltered. After several years of transition, Jim published the book Leaving Your Religion and began writing a blog on becoming post-religious. You can read more of Jim’s story and reflections atLeavingYourReligion.com.

>>>Photo credits: “MOLITVA” by Sergei Frolov, http://sfrolov.livejournal.com – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MOLITVA.JPG#/media/File:MOLITVA.JPG