In Jesus' name
Prayer v Magic
As I read through Crump's book slowly and methodically, and take these notes, I think the thought that keeps recurring to me is that what we really want answered is the question, "How can I pray in a way that means I get what I ask for?"
Isn't that the thought that lies behind the umpteen books and courses on effective prayer, pray this way not that way, use this form of words, etc. etc.? And the Bible makes our life harder in this respect because it keeps promising us a virtually untold efficacy to prayers, but then we run up against the hard (very hard) wall of unanswered prayer.
It's the same issue with praying "in Jesus' name". What does it mean? And does it guarantee results? (No). Crump tackles this by sorting through the Johannine texts on prayer.
Of course, even a cursory dig into the literature should get you to the point where you realise that asking in Jesus' name means "praying according to the character of this one and only Son" (159). It's an alignment of oneself with the person, character, mission, and will of Jesus. So, those passages: John 14.13-14; 15.7, 16; 17:23, 26 which "promise big" on prayer, provided it's in Jesus' name, virtually require us to align our will with God's will.
In John 14:13-14, it's prayers that will bring glory to God; in 15:7 and 16 they are prayers tied to spiritual fruit, prayers "conceived in the union of God's will and our own, wherein personal desires are recreated by the eschatological promises of eternal life".1 Who can pray with the confidence that their prayers will be answered? Those who abide, shown through their obedience, and who pray what the Father wills. John 16 seems to take us a step further, so that in our union with Christ, the Father hears our prayers directly.
I love that Crump doesn't shy away from asking some difficult questions. "If, indeed heaven responds positively only to requests made in complete conformity to the Father's plans, why bother?"2 We are trapped in a dilemma created by the now-and-not-yet of the present age, and our prayers never, exactly, become the perfect paradigms of "in Jesus' name" that we might hope. Crump again:
Consequently, even the most well-intentioned prayers "in Jesus's name" are always muddled and conflicted requests distorted by contradictory, competing aspirations: "In the name of Jesus, Gordon, Susan, social expectations, and personal selfishness I pray, Amen.3
Crump treats the further material in 1 John as well, in 3:21-23 and 5:14-15. Here answers to prayer are conditioned upon a life of obedience to the commands of faith and love.
Those who, even secretly, remain unwilling to obey and to serve should not be surprised when their requests go unanswered, an outcome that should drive us all to reexamine the darkened corners of our own convoluted hearts.4
The standard Reformed answer to the question of why pray if God has determined everything is that prayer is actually conforming us to God's will. Crump bluntly states that this is inadequate as an explanation for the Lord's Prayer, but also necessary precisely because John's teaching requires it. It's true, but it's not the whole story. We need to hold in some kind of tension that prayer does involve a "dynamic personal interaction" with God, that prayer does effect its answers because God does answer prayer, and yet his will also governs over all in a supreme way.
The last part of this chapter is given over to what might seem a tangent, but a very relevant one: the difference between prayer and magic. Crump argues that there are seven points of distinction:
Prayer
Governed by eschatology
Offered exclusively to the King
An expression of a relationship of trust
Rooted in community
Ritual elements are tied to remembering and re-enacting specific historical events (e.g. the sacraments)
No specific association of particular prayers with particular rituals; simple words are enough
Prayer involves petition, supplication, and surrender
Magic
Governed by immediacy
Offered to a range of powers
A utilitarian exchange, based on a skill acquired through training
Fundamentally individualistic
Ritual elements are designed to manipulate, according to 'rules', the spiritual world along naturalistic lines;
Specific words are seen as efficacious in connection to specific actions
Magic involves coercion and the assertion of one's own will
As much as I think this is historically useful, it still bears reminding ourselves today that prayer isn't magic, and so neither should we seek to pray like we are doing magic. The quest for "how do I pray in a way that guarantees outcomes, that gets what I want" is, when we dig into it, an idolatrous quest for magic so that "my will be done, in heaven as on earth". Prayer in Jesus' name demands the opposite of us, that we learn what God's will is, seek to live in obedience to it, and pray that God bring it about in the world.
Crump, 162.
Crump, 165.
Crump, 165.
Crump, 167.