Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.
Mark Karris 0:00
I believe prayer is powerful, but not in a traditionally understood way. Like I would like some people read my book, and they're like, “Oh, so we shouldn't pray at all?” And I'm like, the last section of my book has over 20 prayers by theologians, authors, lay people, I'm very passionate about prayer. The last section of the book is dedicated to that. But it's nuanced. So if one was to ask me, Mark, if I'm praying for my sick father, and he has cancer, does it do anything? Does it matter? And I want to say off course it does. Never stop praying. So for me, there's a few reasons for that. One, is that God loves relationship. We are always to pour our hearts out to God. Right? So for me, it's a relationship with God; in that prayer, it can change ourselves and it can change God in the sense that if I'm praying for my ailing Father, God could whisper into my ears and this is where conspiring prayer comes in. Here is how I want you to be my hands and feet in this situation. Here's where I want you to increase some shalom in your father's life.
Seth Price 1:38
Everybody, happy November! November is a month of gratitude. And so let me first express my thanks to those of you that have downloaded those of you that have listened to the few of you that have been here since the beginning and thousands of you that are here now I am so thankful for each and every one of you for participating in and with this podcast. If you haven't not yet done. So go to the website, CanISayThisAtChurch.com send me some feedback by email, let me know what you would like to hear different next year artists, authors, topics, questions, anything at all would really love if that happened. Please remember to rate and review the show on iTunes, it really does help more so than honestly then you should think that it should. But that's the way computer algorithms work.
There has been a tremendous uptick in the Patreon support, and I am blown away by that extremely blown away by that and so thank you each and every one of you, you'll find links to that as well. If you just hit the Patreon button, a few of you have have emailed in saying hey, is there a way to do something not in an ongoing way but on a one off way and so I haven't figured out the best way to do that but I am working on that and I'll release that as we go something else on the horizon. I am not the best but maybe we try a newsletter as well something to get out information to you that doesn't necessarily need to be released to iTunes. And so I'm gradually trying to figure out how that will work. And if that's something you're interested in love to get that out to you. But I don't know exactly when that will happen. But hopefully soon. Enough of that, here we go.
So I've talked a bit in the past a little bit about prayer, but mostly in a contemplate of way, as it deals to how I relate to God. But I feel like we're burying the lead there. So oftentimes, I know we're taught to pray, you know, at the dinner table as a young child, you know, God do this or God please be with this, or God helped me do this or be better at this. And that is called petitionary prayer which is a request, like some grandiose parental Genie figure in the sky that if we do it right, and we pray it right will be granted what we asked for as if for some reason, God doesn't know what we need. So I sat down, I spoke with Mark Karris, who is the author of a beautiful book And I encourage you to get it for many reasons. But most importantly hear it at the end of the show. To those of you listening. If you shoot him an email, just let him know that you got the book you heard about it on the show, he's going to send you some more information, a study guide to sit down in a small group setting or in a setting yourself and engage more in what he calls conspiring prayer. And we'll get into that a bit more in the episode but a bit about Mark.
Mark is a licensed therapist. He's an ordained pastor. He's a theologian, he's a writer. He's extremely genuine and compassionate. And you'll hear that in the way that he talks about prayer. His story is gut wrenching, and honest and so much like your story and my story and so many others that we hear about, through his years of counseling and therapy, and ministry. He's come to look at prayer slightly differently. He's come to look at prayer in a way that we don't ask God to do something for us, we pray in a way so that we come alongside God with him. And I'm doing it a disservice. I'm not explaining it well. And so I think that's a good spot to start. Here we go the conversation on prayer with Mark Karris.
Seth Price 5:41
First off and foremost, thank you so much for making the time to come on to the show. I know we are on different parts of the continent. And so I'm excited for the internet in days like today where it makes it so much easier to have conversations like this. And I honestly think before we get started, that's probably the reason that I think the church has started to shift in ways that it used to not be able to, because people are able to communicate in so much better ways, but it's kind of a side note, kind of a side note. So you wrote a book earlier in 2018, I believe, called divine echoes. I love that book. And I want to I want to spend a good portion of our time talking about the themes and some personal questions that I have out of it. Some questions that I've gotten from some of the listeners and some of the Facebook group from it.
A lot of them are emotionally charged, but I think prayer is emotionally charged. So before we get into that, what would you want people to know about Mark Karris? Like what what is brought you through your life kind of your history to where you're at now? And maybe some of the reasonings on the tail end of that for writing Divine Echoes?
Mark Karris 6:47
Well, first of all, thank you for allowing me to be on your your awesome show, and I'm excited to share my heart and share a little bit about this book. So I guess the Origin Story is what we're talking about now. There's so much to share. But so we're talking about prayer, talking about deconstructing prayer. Really, the book is Divine Echoes, Reconciling Prayer with the Uncontrolling Love of God. So how do we make sense of prayer, specifically petitionary prayer, in relation to a God who I believe whose love is uncontrolling and that uncontrolling piece is going to add a lot of nuance to the conversation, especially in what we're talking about, particularly theodicy. So we're going to be talking about prayer, and theodicy and when I think of theodicy, for me, that's sort of the attempt to make sense of how a good loving and omnipotent God is involved or not involved with the harsh reality of evil and suffering in the world.
So I'm gonna try to have a dance between prayer and theodicy. So kind of the origin story is, well, I think like most people, a paradigm shift, a paradigm shift through suffering, and through a whole lot of suffering. And I talk a little bit about that in my book, basically, to make a long story short, it was to do with my brother and my mother, and those two were instrumental in shaping the questions that I have. So for my mom, you know, I remember I became a Christian around 21 and before that, I was lost, hopeless, a cutter, depressed, suicidal. That's a whole other story, but I eventually come to know Jesus that 21 with a pretty, pretty powerful testimony, very experiential kind of blasting me with tsunami of love that put me in a really interesting state of weeping and crying and not because I was sad anymore but because I felt the amazing love of God.
And so as crazy as Christianity as a religion can be those events of an intimate encounter with God. They keep me stuck with him there it's my stake in the ground. It's hard to not believe in God because of those experiences or experiences. So at 21 I was praying for my Mom, why because she was a drug addict because she was definitely not okay for most of my life, a drug dealer, drug addict. And she was you know, she did the best she could. But it got to the point after cocaine and heroin and drinking and pills that she passed away. And that's after year after year praying for her, praying to God to rid her of her debilitating addiction.
I mean, why not? Why not pray my mind to a God who literally can snap his fingers like Thanos in The Avengers and literally change the outcome of events because that's how powerful I believed God was. But that didn't happen. And although there are glimmering moments when I thought my mom had seen the light those were fleeting, and I never got tired of praying. Well actually a little bit but I always fervently prayed for her fasted, I got other churches to pray for her. But she wound up overdosing and died.
So, fast forward then to my brother, my younger brother. He was the life of the party. He was just an amazing human being, you know, kind of a best friend, fellow adventure And then one day I found this stuff the outside of the curb you know coming home from work and all this stuff outside and like what in the world is going on? Of course I found that very strange. Went in the house he was curled up in a ball mumbling and incoherent he had thrown out all his belongings, I had no idea why. But to learn that he suffered his first psychotic episode. And after that day, never the same again. A cycle of psychotic episodes, going to jail for doing something not very good, getting put on medication, getting off his medication because “he's not sick everyone else is”, and then just the cycle. And to the point he wound up going to prison for really hurting, someone.
And then in prison, off his meds he murdered somebody. And that's, you know, listen, that's after praying. I mean, we took him to deliverance, people that specialized in deliverance services, and casting out demons and once again praying and it got me to a point where there were other, you know, internal struggles, but I started questioning what does prayer actually do? You know, the reminds me of that quote by a famous well known Christian philosopher, Dallas Willard,
the idea that everything would happen exactly as it does, regardless of whether we pray or not, is a specter that haunts the minds of many who sincerely profess belief from God,
and that specter of the failure of prayer haunted me so that's a little bit of the origin story, then fast forward a little bit to visiting Indonesia and Malaysia and Korea and other East Asian cultures and just realizing that wow, prayer is ubiquitous, like praying for to this divine other for shelter and food and health. I mean, prayer is as old as human beings have been sentient. So that sort of got me questioning to in that combination, just said, Man, there's something, something interesting here but something off here.
Because I asked the very important question for myself too. If prayer doesn't work the way we think it does, my God it is increasing the amount of suffering in the world. And it actually contributes to evil and suffering in a way that it breaks the heart of God. That's the paradoxical understanding. Because if I'm praying, thinking God's gonna do something, but God, for other reasons can't which we'll talk about later. And that means the thing the person we're praying for the situation is not getting any better because God is saying, “Yeah, I know about that. I love that person. More than you do. You're supposed to be my hands and my feet in the world!” God's praying to us to do the very thing we mutually want. But if no one is doing anything, because I'm spending energy, praying, believing God is doing it, then that's increasing the suffering not only in the world, but in people's lives. And that was like that hit me like a ton of bricks.
Seth Price 14:22
Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. And it reminds me of and it's not prayer related, but I asked a similar question or similar vein to that to both, I believe Keith Giles and Mark van Steenwyk, one was arguing for you know, like Christian Anarchy. And, you know, we should just get rid of any government for x or y or z reasons and the other was don't vote as a Christian because you're pledging allegiance to the wrong thing. And I asked them both the same thing and Keith was like when I say don't vote, I didn't say don't act like you still you see a need you and or your church or both of you do that.
So people are hungry feed them, but don't vote and expect someone else to do it. And Mark said the same thing. I was like, Well, what happens to the safety nets, you know, medicine and schooling? And he's like, well, that's what the church actually is. When I said no government, I didn't say, no governance. I said no government, so I hear a lot of that, you know, it's not necessarily I prayed, and I've washed my hands of this, I don't have to deal with this anymore. And God's gonna figure it out, which makes me feel good, especially as an American. I feel like we don't always want to put our money where our mouth is. I sent the text to donate relief to the hurricane people. I did my part (and) we're good.
Before we get to petitionary prayer, I am curious. So do you draw a distinction between different forms of prayer? So like, there's me as I did more research, you know, you know, there's exorcisms, which we don't do a lot of in, you know, in the Protestant church and that's a form of prayer. There is petitionary prayer, there's a different form of prayer, you give it a different word. How do you get a conspiring prayer? But what are the distinctions between those like between an exorcism or petitionary or conspiring? Is it my posture? Or is it the intent? Is it the way God's supposed to act as an agent? Like what are the distinctions or what do you think those distinctions are?
Mark Karris 16:26
Yeah, I mean, there's so many different kinds of prayer, and in this book you know, we're talking about something very specific. And I tried to, you know, I tried to talk about that, right? There's, there's praying for oneself. I'm alone in my prayer closet and I'm just praying for myself. For me, that's going to be a little different than praying for somebody who may not know that they're being prayed for. And that's what I you know, call in some ways, petitionary prayer, right? It's praying, praying on behalf of somebody else, usually from a distance. But I mean, it's so nuanced because then I make a difference between face to face prayer, praying for somebody when they're present.
For me, there's actually a little difference with that because the person that we're praying for, hopefully is actually open to receiving prayer. So all those little nuances are going to be different. I mean, then there's, you know, prayers of lament and prayers of thanksgiving and prayers of praise so there's all different kinds of prayers. But you know, what we're talking about is in this book, is really petitionary prayer, praying on behalf of others. We're praying to God, that God would do something that God was not doing beforehand and it's usually to increase God's love in the world in practical ways. But just the essence of petitionary prayer, I believe that God can do it has the power to do it usually and he can literally snap his fingers and do it. And I'm praying to God. And I think some people are actually begging God to increase his love in the world that's kind of for me the essence of petitionary prayer.
Seth Price 18:24
Yeah, yeah. So to drill that down, so say, say I am a cancer nurse or I'm a parent of somebody that has cancer, like my child has cancer, and I am fervently praying in the hospital for healing, which happens often and if you just turn on Facebook, or you go to any church group, and you'll look in their newsletter, and here's who we're praying for, and here's the specific ailment that we're praying for healing for and then whether or not that happens or not, it seems to just be luck of the draw. Atheists get the same reprieve from illness or miracles that Christians do, at least from what I can see. So, are my prayers meaningless? Is this just something that I'm just literally giving lip service to? Is there any purpose for me? Because I will say like, my dad currently has cancer, and I do pray fervently. And then I read what you've written. And it's a compelling case. And I'm like, but I still want to pray for healing. And there's I don't know how to deal with that tension. And I don't know if like my child was dying of cancer, how to deal with that tension, or, you know, in your situation, your mom or your brother. I don't know how to reconcile that tension.
Mark Karris 19:40
Yeah. So once again, here's a nuanced conversation where I believe prayer is powerful, but not in a traditionally understood way. Like I would like some people read my book, and they're like, Oh, so we shouldn't pray at all. And I'm like, the last section of my book has over 20 prayers by theologians, authors, laypeople…I'm very passionate about prayer. The last section of the book is dedicated to that. But it's nuanced.
So if one was to ask me, Mark, if I'm praying for my sick father, and he has cancer, does it do anything, doesn't matter, and I want to say off course it does. Never stop praying! So for me, there's a few reasons for that. One is that God loves relationship. We are always to pour our hearts out to God. Right. So for me, it's a relationship with God in in that prayer, it could change ourselves and it continues to change God in the sense that if I'm praying for my ailing Father, God could whisper into my ears; and this is where conspiring prayer comes in, here's how I want you to be my hands and feet in this situation, here's where I want you to increase some shalom in your father's life. I mean, that's going to be a little different prayer than me praying God, you're the one with all the power. And I know you can snap your fingers and heal my father, for some strange reason you haven't. And you haven't for many years. But I'm going to keep praying, aka, I'm going to keep begging you, because you can do it for some reason you're not doing it. But I have this weird notion that maybe I'm not even saying explicitly that if I pray enough, maybe if I get 30 of my friends pray and maybe 100 through a prayer chain. Once it gets to 100 people, I mean, 99 you're not going to do it. But if it gets to 100 people praying, for some reason that's the cutoff. That's the straw that broke the camel's back. That's where you finally going to say, Okay, I'm going to love this person in this way now.
So for me, is it a waste of time? It's not if you're thinking, you're in relationship with God who cares about your heart and cares about your father, who wants him to be healed as much as you do. But that's going to be different than praying to God who has like some kind of magic genie, who can instantly unilaterally or, or the word single handedly do something different than God was not doing beforehand. So you mentioned Facebook, friend of mine on Facebook was asking your friends and family to pray. She said, you know, can you pray that God will comfort my brother and his wife, they lost their child. And I'm thinking what a beautiful prayer and they say, you know, they lost their child, they're in desperate need of God's grace. So for me, and I know this is hard, but I believe that praying alone in one's room God, please comfort her friends and extend your loving mercy and grace, that family would increase their God's comfort, mercy and grace in their lives.
So for me, God doesn't wait for us to pray before he begins comforting his children who are grieving. Right? God doesn't say the fifth person finally prayed for me to extend mercy so now I will. So for me praying to God that He will comfort and pour out His grace on my family's friend is like asking my wife to do the dishes while she's in the middle of doing the dishes. It's better to ask God, how can I join you in extending your comfort and grace to them just as it is better to ask my wife, Hey, honey, how can I help you with that?
And this goes into our view an image of God. If I really believe God is loved, and that God love is loving moment to moment to maximize the shalom in people's life and in all creation how I pray to that God is going to be different than a God who I believe is withholding or is arbitrary and unfair and to some but chooses not to heal others. (That) chooses to heal this kid from leukemia, but No I you know if I'm going to let this kid just suffer for years for this illness, oh this woman being made I'm going to stop this from happening. But you know what I'm gonna you know, you know that kind of arbitrary unfair God and we're we're perpetuating that image to the world in the wonder why people move away from God this is some tell from God it's an obstacle to relating to a loving an incredible and amazing God in my mind.
Seth Price 24:32
Well it's a valid obstacle I mean as I've had conversations with people, a lot of people, by email and I have to think you you do the same with with the line of work that you're in a lot of people they feel unable to question their doubts and a lot of their doubts are wrapped up in trauma and in pain and in a broken promise because they've been told. If you pray fervently enough x will happen and if it didn't happen, you did it wrong. Which I'm 100% against because that's not the way that I view God anymore. And I genuinely believe the way that we pray impacts the way that we think about God. Before we get to theodicy though, which is where I'm going with that, I am curious so I asked a few friends if they see in Scripture any support for a petitionary form of prayer, and I got the same answer over and over you know, you got Daniel in the lion's den you've got stories and acts about Peter you've got some stuff at the end of James and then you have and I forget I'm gonna get the city's wrong a Soddam and I believe in Gomorrah and you know, I'm gonna go in and well don't kill him…What about if I find 10 people All right, I'm still going to do it. What about you know, what about this many people? What about this many people?
Yeah, so there's some scripture to show. I'm talking in conversation to God and we'll call that prayer. Something different happened. Though I wanted to have happen. And so how do we deal with those texts where I mean, well, you can read Scripture to make it think anything, but there are enough threads to pull there that I can see how someone would make a case for praying that way.
Mark Karris 26:17
Yeah, I totally agree with you. I spend the section of that book dealing with passages that were given to me. That said, Mark, yeah, the Bible says repeatedly to pray, to pray for others. And there's been miracles right. What about the Old Testament? You know, God is going to be violence and kill some people and you pray and then God relents and changed his mind. So, man, that is such a lengthy conversation. I think, how do I begin this?
Seth Price 26:57
Can you just take one of those say the text in James or the texts about Peter, and just kind of go through the examples because I would imagine it's radically this. When I say imagine I've read that portion of the book. So I do know, I do know the answer. But I want others to know. So let's take one of those texts and tackle that just as a concept of how to look at prayer and Scripture in a new light.
Mark Karris 27:21
So I will have to start it with the character of God, and hermeneutics, my hermeneutic is Jesus, my hermeneutic is love. So for me, the hermeneutic is based on you know, I in the book I called the quadrilateral hermeneutics of love, I'll probably change that title. But either way, it's kind of this four part lens that I look at the various texts through. And so that's based on the fruit of the Spirit. The Biblical definition of love, I'm not making it up, the Bible defines love. So and then I look at one of the only explicit parabolic pictures Jesus gave of God the father found in what some people call the prodigal son I consider it the prodigal father actually. And then there's a radical self giving others in power in life of Jesus. So I'm looking at Scriptures through that lens.
So when I look at Old Testament, and I see all these people, you know, maybe they're praying and God relented to violence. I'm saying, Yeah, I don't think that was God. And I know that gets in the hermeneutics and people get really anxious when I say that. For me, people are meaning making store and making human beings. These stories were written long after the events, community, there were communities of trauma that were trying to make sense of life, the world they were living in the world where God was in control, who in Isaiah 45:7 says
who creates the good and creates the evil
making sense of them getting their butts kicked by other nations. And they're then trying to make sense of these stories. And they're trying to pass these stories down to generations to knit these communities back together. And so some of these stories about God, you know, going to destroy or burn alive or use a nation to literally kill others or a God who kills babies or a God who wipes the world with a flood. You know, for me, I can't…is that Jesus? You know, if Jesus is God, can we just say, yeah, Jesus killed babies, and Jesus burn people alive. And we started thinking, I don't know it for me make a long story short, it's hard to buy into that.
So let's take this passage in James I would get that all the time. And that's one of the most you know powerful “hey Mark we need to pray” and encourages the elders of the church to live on hand and pray for the sick, the sinful and those in need of healing prayer. Right. So then he writes the the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. So then he gets into Elijah, right and Elijah was a human being like gods and he prayed fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months, it did not rain in the Earth. So first context, the context is praying face to face with people, right, praying for the sick, praying for those who might sin, even sin might be affecting their lives.
Yo'u’re talking about the power of face to face prayer. He then alludes to Elijah, in that being an example for us. But here again, I'm looking at the hermeneutics of love. And I'm saying, Man, Elijah pray that it wouldn't rain. So let me get this straight. Elijah prayed that when it rains to teach another nation and other people, a tribe, that God has tested them because they were are disobedient and sinful? So God made it and cause a drought. But what are we saying? Can you imagine the the detrimental, the destructive effects of a full on drought what some people say it was the entire world. But it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months because God wanted to teach them a lesson.
So I have a hard time believing that particularly when I looked at the life of Jesus and hermeneutical love, that God would literally destroy life to that extent. I mean, that would kill you know, who knows countless amount of people, countless amount of animals, it would have a and think about all the people who would be praying to God for, you know, intervening. So, is that a powerful example of petitionary prayer? I'm struggling with that. Right when I look at the character of God displayed in that particular author's view of God struggle is praying for others face to face powerful. Absolutely.
Is that pastoral advice to look at Elijah and in be encouraged, you know, he was kind of doing a pastoral thing of look at this guy if he could pray, and this can happen. I mean, it's encouraging. I get it, right. It shows us yeah, we should pray. But what does it mean really, when we really start thinking about it? The God costs that cause that much suffering and death to teach people a lesson. So I struggle with those kinds of verses too. They're not the best verses to show. We'll see Mark, it says to pray. Now, there's other verses that call us to pray. The Apostle Paul was passionate about prayer. So there again, I am to prayer is amazing. It changes us, first and foremost. And it changes God only in the sense that when it changes us, it changes what God can do in the world because we become more open to what God has God wants to use us.
Seth Price 33:02
Yeah, I 100% agree. I've been working through the examen for months, I try to do it many times during the week. And it is, I can physically feel myself responding to events differently than I used to. So something is changing in me. And I guess if we want to use a “Christianese” term, we could call that sanctification or a college word we'll call that theosis. It's fine. But yeah, I'm beginning to think that prayer does much more for me, and how I use my words, which impact my actions to help further the Kingdom than it does for and it sounds horrible to say out loud than it does for healing some sick child in a hospital dying right now, and even saying that out loud still feels wrong; but it still feels true.
Mark Karris 33:53
Yeah, and here again, that the nuance of what I'm saying. I mean, going to the hospital and praying for a sick child, there's something beautiful that can occur. And it's going to be how you pray, we could pray make things worse or we can pray in a way that does in that moment, increase the Shalom, maybe in that child's life. And I'm even open to the possibility that in that synergistic encounter between the face of the child and the face of the one who's praying, and and the organs and the food that the child is eating, and the other love that's in a child's life and a myriad of other variables, that what we call a miracle can happen, right? I'm not opposed to that.
But it's not for me, it's always God does a miracle in cooperation with with other variables and elements and wills, and not something that God can do unilaterally. And for me, that makes more sense. So I can still pray. I could believe that God does the impossible, but it's in a different way. It's in a different light. With different nuances with a different paradigm shift, so not I love prayer, encourage people to pray, but not to a magical genie in the sky, who once in a while, you know, pours out His, you know, throws a scrap of love down the world as people beg for him to do so. That kind of Gods difficult to swallow.
Seth Price 35:50
Let's go there. So, theodicy is what we're hinting around there. So what does the view have? I would argue the way most people pray today, what are the theological implications of that? Because I find the implications of that are either willfully contrite and what's the word I'm trying to find a willfully ambivalent, I'll do it if I feel like it, nine year old version of God's grace, and I can't sit well with that. So besides the love of God and his character, what other theological implications does a traditional, petitionary, prayer theologically imply, like, what other issues does it arise?
Mark Karris 36:35
You know, I think it's best to maybe differentiate what I think of as traditional petitionary prayer. And and juxtapose that with conspiring prayer. And we can see the little differences and nuances. So that gets just the into theocracy and this is you know, the the incredible Thomas Ords work. This gets into his work, and he's coming out with an incredible book, literally called God Can't I believe that's coming out in January. And man, that book is gonna rock people's lives. excited for that. But here's an important piece of theodicy right, it gets into the character of God. And what I'm suggesting and others are suggesting is that God is love. And because God is love, God cannot single handedly control other human beings and single handedly control the outcome of events. Right? And when people hear God can't they get freaked out a little bit? Well, God's omnipotent God is all powerful God's almighty. Listen, scripture himself teaches that God cannot do some things. God cannot lie right? God cannot be tempted. He cannot be prejudice. You cannot sin he cannot get tired. And I'm suggesting Let's add another element here for you really take seriously that God is love and 1 John tells us no God love precludes God from unilaterally controlling others.
So in other words, it's not that God chooses not to that is that God cannot disregard the free will and agency of people and force his way into situations and change the outcome. So when we think of theodicy, why does so much evil happened in the world? It's not because Gods arbitrarily well let this happen. I won't let this happen. Gods unfair Gods sort of up in the sky somewhere and sometimes chooses to intervene. Right is that God is love and that God can't do some things. And that means that God cannot unilaterally intervene and change the actual events. That means that God is weeping along side us with many of the things that we experience in this world.
So in traditional petitionary prayer to look at both of them, God can intervene and single handedly stop evil events from occurring in conspiring prayer, and we didn't get into a definition, but let's just do that quickly to conspire literally means to breathe together, to act in harmony towards a common end, now defined conspiring prayer as a form of prayer where we create space in our busy lives, to align our hearts with God's heart, where our spirit and God's Spirit breathes harmoniously together, and where we plot together to subversively overcome evil, with acts of love and goodness. So like I said, knowing that definition in traditional prayer, God can intervene and do whatever God wants. Whenever God wants to do it. However God wants to do it. Conspiring prayer, we say, No, God can't. And that's due to God's on controlling, loving nature.
In traditional petitionary prayer God has arbitrarily loving and shows favorites, conspiring prayer. God loves consistently and fairly.
Traditional petitionary prayer God intervenes on occasion and conspiring prayer God is moment to moment loving and maximizing the good, and the beautiful and Shalom in all people's lives and all creation. And that's that's a powerful statement, right? God's not just up in the sky, God is everywhere in each moment. So in traditional petitionary prayer, we pray to God, conspiring prayer, we pray with God.
We pray with a God who mutually, in many instances, is groaning with us because God wants the very shalom that we are praying for. That's how loving God is. Right? We pray for many things. Because we love and we feel that suffering with another person who's suffering, God, how much exponentially does God experience out of God's love? The traditional petitionary prayer God you bring shalom in this person's life a situation, conspiring prayer, God how can we creatively work towards alone in this person's life or situation, in traditional petitionary prayer, we speak God listens, and conspiring prayer we speak, God speaks, and we both listen.
Hopefully that gets your listeners a little bit of a nuance between the traditional petitionary prayer and what I think is a more effective way of praying petitionary prayers, and that's conspiring prayer.
Seth Price 41:23
You referenced Thomas Ord. And so as I read your book, I read it in September. So one of the the perks for some of the patron supporters that they do a certain level is I send them a book each month. And those books vary widely and honestly, I'm humbled by their willingness to help me to let me curate that because I don't really tell them ahead of time what I'm sending I just something that's speaking or interesting to me, I send out and based on the way that you talk about Ord, I ended up sending out his book on the Uncontrolled Love of God and I can't remember the exact title, I know it's a red cover, by the time they heard this, but I like that idea. And specifically, you talk about God is love, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna read this from your book, although it's mostly from the Bible. And so I feel like I can't plagiarize that. So you say
saying, quote, God is Love is not pure sentimentality pushed by a liberal and progressive agenda,
which I think is a key part of that.
God is love. It is Biblical. And if God is love, then Biblical definition of love, 1 Corinthians 13, must also be characteristic of God. And so therefore God is patient and kind, he's not envious. He doesn't boast he's not arrogant, or rude, or insist and everything else that you would hear at a wedding.
And I really like that and I like that for the same reason that lately I've been dealing with inerrancy a lot. And I like to juxtapose that anywhere that I see the word the word I just put, I hear Jesus. So if if the word will that is Jesus. Then when I see Paul reference the Word, we're talking about Jesus, we're not talking about the letters or in on these pages or the scrolls, we're talking about Jesus. And I enjoy doing the same thing with what you've done there. And I think it's a great definition of love.
I have to think when you stand up and preach this at a church, that you're either going to get one of two outcomes. People say, “All right, great. I've been doing it wrong. I'm willing to admit that I'm a little angry that I may have been doing it wrong, and I've been lied to but “what do I do now? How do I fix it?” Or the inverse is Mark, you're wrong, and they probably run you out of the church very hateful. And I would imagine, in much stronger means and much stronger yelling sessions, because I've been privy to a few of those with some of the things that I have espoused over the past few years. But yeah, I don't really want to focus on that, that I'm sure there's more than enough conversations on the internet about what that looks like. And it doesn't matter if we're talking about prayer or about penal substitutionary atonement or anything else. Yeah, I'm saying sounds the same. So how then do we reconstruct prayer? If we throw it out? And you you talked about it a bit conspiring of what who is listening and how the conversation happens. But what does that prayer sound like? What does that prayer look like? Yeah. And, and hermeneutically or Scripturally? What examples are we drawing from if that makes sense? Like people listening how do they begin to try to do this in with a different mindset of outcome tomorrow or today or next week?
Mark Karris 44:41
Yeah. First off, I want to say I did get kicked out of a church that I was going through because of the book I gave both pastors the book in and yeah, that was not a good outcome. Like I said, we could talk all about that, but I really appreciate the desire to reconstruct and what does it really look like in everyday life? So like I said, I do spend the last part of the book doing that in the chapter. That section is called reconstruction. I have a workbook that goes along with the book that communities, that churches, have been using to come up with their own theology of prayer. And some have, you know, shifted their view of prayer. Some have kept their traditional view of prayer, but then kept the conspiring prayer. Some people couldn't keep any of it. So it's nuanced. But so what does it look like?
So maybe we can look at mass shootings. And I talked a little bit about this in the book because there's been mass shootings and then I you know, you see online, you see it in papers, people praying fervently. So maybe we can look at what traditionally is prayed and then a varied prayer that I prayed in so let's let's try to look at that. So the mass shooting happens. And then it's easy for people to say I pray for the victims families and first responders. Right? And then they maybe pray for, you know, the family. They pray for what they're going to do at school the next day. So I know it seems trite, but just focus on that word, “pray”, like I pray for the victims and families and then move on to something else. There's nothing magical about the word pray. It really doesn't say much right? It doesn't really mean anything. It's no magical power. I used to pray like that terribly proud. Father, I pray for my dad and I pray for my brother or pray for my test tomorrow that I'm going to have.
But although God is gracious enough to look at the heart and consider such prayer, There are much more effective ways to pray. Then you might hear after a mass shooting “God be with the families of the shooting victims, part your grace on the surviving family members and comfort and heal their wounded hearts”. Those who use a conspiring prayer model, already know that God is with those families. Like before you're even praying, God is on the scene! God is all very loving and comforting to the extent that God can! What kind of God are we actually portraying by the prayers that we're praying by suggesting that God isn't?
Would a loving God who can love can can affect the outcome of events, but choose not to just sit idly by and do nothing; is that a loving God? So for me, those who pray the conspiring prayer model we trust that God is loving character competence in heals wounded hearts, to the degree that he is able while respecting their free will, God grieves along with the devastated families, God's grace has been poured out in their lives and is instantly available to them in greater measure, if they choose to open the doors of their heart to Him. It's not just their will, not just the doors of their heart, but that's one aspect of many variables that can come into play. We can share our desires for hurting loved ones with God to experience more of his presence, Grace and comfort, knowing full well God wants them to experience more of those things too. Or we could pray without trusting in the goodness of God. Then there's some who might pray, turn from your fears, anger relented did not bring further disaster and your people. Right. These are people who have an image of God that suggests that God did that it was the will of God, God planned it before eternity, or they could be on the Calvinistic spectrum, or just believe that God is a control of every event that occurs.
Seth Price 49:00
To name that then that's like that would be like and he does it so it's fair. I feel like it'd be like a Pat Robertson saying, hurricane. I can't remember the name not Michael the one prior please don't hit me here please go further south please go further north or if it does hit us because we did it wrong or you know Sandy you know or hurricane…did you not hear that? Yeah he definitely did yeah or you know you'll hear people saying, you know the Twin Towers fell because of you know, we we are we deserved it we we need to pray that we turn our wicked hearts back to God so that the next calamity doesn't happen.
Mark Karris 49:37
Who wants to be in relationship with that kind of God? Like this is serious! Theology matters! It's not just “Well, let's just love everyone all you know all people we basically believe the same thing”. No we don't! There's some theology that's so damaging and such an obstacle people being an intimate relationship with God, and that kind of theology and then a brutal authoritarian, ogre who causes this kind of, and allows, this kind of evil upon people's lives, this kind of violence. And I'm sorry, it's like I can, the people aren’t sick, but that theology can be so damaging.
And as a licensed therapist and researcher, we're doing a lot of research now on how theodicy, how religious beliefs, actually, is there any correlation between that and how we treat each other how we engage in maybe violence ourselves? So there's good stuff up and coming that researchers who don't even believe in God are doing because they know this stuff matters. There's something very important here.
That kind of prayer. “God turn your fears, anger, relent and do not bring further disaster on your people, I don't believe that's the best kind of prayer because that's not who God is. God already hates violence. I don't need to convince God to not do a violence I mean, so violence is sin and sin ruptures, fractures, runes, distorts and numbs our relationship with God with ourselves with others, God is not going to perpetuate that—a loving God is not going to perpetuate violence and sin. So, yeah, Doomsday preachers and angry prophetic teachers. Yep, not a huge fan of that kind of theology.
So Mark, let's get into the nuts and bolts. How have I prayed? Let me let me share with you. Right. Here's a prayer that if I can read this, this is something that I wrote and I prayed, and it's very powerful to me. And this is keeping in mind God's on controlling loving character is keeping in mind humans having free will. I say God, we praise for being good. Thank you for being intimately close to the families, the victims of this heart. Shooting I'm sorry, it's getting me emotional just we know you are aggrieved and mourn with us. We are aware you are angry that this happened again, heavenly, earthly, motherly, Father, we need this violence to stop now. It tears our communities in this role, the part that breaks our hearts and we know it breaks yours. We thank you that you comfort and mend the families, broken hearts, to the extent that you are able. We hope that the families accept your love and experience your tenderness towards them in this painful time. Faithful God what can we do together to stop this madness or at the very least to help these families experience your tangible love. We don't want to be passive bystanders. We want to be Spirit led active adventures, paving the way justice, peace and healing. God we attune our hearts, ears, to your voice in this very moment. What is it that you would have us do as your hands and feet so your empire of love can reign in this hour? Amen.
So for me, that's, that's a conspiring prayer. That's a prayer that keeps in mind, a loving uncontrol and God, a God who yearns for justice more than we do. So we could still pray. Right? I'm not saying that that prayer is done with and over. We can pray powerful prayers that keep in mind, the non controlling love of God. And, you know, people have been joining me all over the world with these kinds of prayers. And I firmly believe that it's increasing God's shalom in the world. And it's doing something very different than the traditional prayers. God You do. I'm telling you, the gods you do kinds of prayers are definitely not as effective as God. How can we do kinds of prayers?
Seth Price 54:11
Yeah, no, I like that. I'd like to end with this. Where are people joining you at how I want to buy one of the study guides, I don't have the study guide, I'm gonna, I'm gonna fix that today. So, besides the study guides, how where do people join you in that is there a collective place that these pairs are being written and shared for, you know, because it is going to have to be a relearned type of prayer, because old habits die hard and old mentalities die harder. So where where did people come for that either under guidance from people like yourselves or in a community is does that exist are you making that happen anywhere?
Mark Karris 54:53
Yeah, yeah. First off, let me just share that for yourself and any of your listeners. If they purchase the book, I'm going to do something crazy and I'm just going to give them the workbook for free that's selling on Amazon. So let's start there, that if any of your listeners buy the book, either print or ebook, I'll send them, just contact me, and I'll just send you the workbook. I'll send you the workbook too. So as far as networks, I mean, I just for me, I get emails, it's mostly from people. I've received them all over the world of people who are praying this way, who have been touched by the book, who have been disturbed by the book, and are shifting and shaping their praise in a unique way that keeps Gods uncontrolling love in mind.
Some have written their own prayers that they've sent to me. As far as a community, I mean, there's a Divine Echoes Facebook group, to be honest, it's not very active, but occasionally some people will post some interesting stuff there. And yeah, it's mostly just people contacting me and just sending me messages. That's where I experience most of the interactions.
But I will say that, you know, I've gotten a lot of emails of groups, church groups, small groups of using the workbook, reading the book and having some powerful experiences in small groups. So start a small group, right? I mean, here’s my thing. I'm a human being, I'm not God. This theology that petitionary prayer I'm offering is my perspective of some, you know, some white male who is living in 2018 in specific geographical location, you know, I have a myopic view of all things divine. So my hope is that other people wrestle through the material and come up, like I said, do their own investigation, deconstruction and reconstruction of petitionary prayer.
Let this be your adventure. You know, I hope people use the conspiring prayer model of prayer. I think it is more effective. I think it's a little bit more of a mature view of God, a healthier view of God. But wrestle through this yourself. You'd be amazed of how many people have never questioned the mechanics of prayer, what their prayer actually says about their view of God. Whether prayer is effective or not effective. I get into the science of petitionary prayer. What does the science say? Is there any science that petitionary prayer is effective or not? Right? There's a $2.4 million study that was done. That's a lot of money on petitionary prayer, whether it worked or not, your readers can check that out. It's in the book or they can search it online. $2.4 million study done by Harvard Researchers and supported by the Templeton Foundation, yeah, check out the outcome of that. Be curious and wrestle and question and get other people who you feel can journey with you without judging you and criticizing you and condemning you because there's plenty of people that will do that. Find some fellow adventurers find what I call your holy huddle.
Those people that you can huddle with, and you could strategize with, you could talk about your inner angst and your pain, your shame and your doubt, and you discussed, and you'll receive mutual love and care and understanding, and even beautiful challenge when needed. That's kind of my plea to some of your lesson.
Seth Price 58:47
Well, thank you. First off for that invitation of the workbook. That's that generosity is. It's not common in the world that we live in. So thank you so much for that. And I do hope that they'll take you up on that.
Where else would you direct people to get in touch with you to find you interact with you?
Mark Karris 59:06
I have a site called conspiringprayer.com. And there are some material that's not in the book that I've written some blogs after the fact that they get into the prayer in general. And you know, there's a short video-there's a, you know, some workbook questions, get an idea of what the workbook is like. So conspiring pro comm probably going to be the best site to go to to, you know, for curious listeners. I think that would be pretty cool to check out.
Seth Price 59:37
Awesome. Awesome. Well, more. Thank you so much for your time this morning.
Mark Karris 59:41
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was a great conversation, (I) appreciate your heart. And I know your listeners are continually loved, blessed, and challenged by you.
Seth Price 59:51
Thank you for that.
Outro:
Next year, I look forward to diving more specifically into different practices of prayer, intentional practices that are different and way outside of my comfort zone. And I have to hope many of yours but I found over this last year, that when I get out of my comfort zone, that is where I often meet God, not where it's easy, but where I have to deal and wrestle with hopes and dreams that maybe have not come to fruition, or maybe hopes and dreams it did. And I've wasted those opportunities, or I've abused the privileges and power that comes with it.
Well, maybe I've done it right. And I want to see what more I can do. But I really look forward to digging more into prayer, and the theology of it different ways to participate in it. And I think conspiring prayer is a great way to start. And so as you enter in to Christmas, as you lead liturgies as you participate in liturgies, keep in mind this different method of prayer. I know I certainly will. I do want to see how it changes my posture. I'm excited at the possibility of praying in a different way. I'm excited at the different aspects of myself that I'll see and the different aspects of God that I will see. Please remember to rate review the show on iTunes. Tell a friend
The music woven throughout the episode today was provided by artists Kris Neil, up and coming artists that just randomly popped up on my Spotify playlist and I was blown away. buys music and you'll find today's tracks on the Spotify playlist called Can I Say This At Church? You'll find Chris Neil at Krisneel.com.