{"id":2163,"date":"2009-06-16T04:35:05","date_gmt":"2009-06-16T12:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=2163"},"modified":"2009-06-16T04:35:05","modified_gmt":"2009-06-16T12:35:05","slug":"god-on-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/god-on-campus\/","title":{"rendered":"God on Campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Religious readers of this site periodically rebuke me for misunderstanding the nature of prayer.\u00a0 Prayer is a way of communing with God, they say; no informed believer would ask or expect God to intervene on their or others\u2019 behalf.\u00a0 Thus, I am wrong to be puzzled by the self-centeredness of believers who credit God with curing them of cancer, say, seemingly oblivious, if not indifferent, to the fact that hundreds just like them die every day from the disease; contrary to all appearances, no believer really thinks of God as a Friend (as Michael Novak puts it) in High Places who can, if he chooses, protect the believer from the vicissitudes of fate.\u00a0 I am also wrong to wonder at believers\u2019 lack of interest in trying to understand systematically which prayers God responds to and which not, why he rescues some children from natural disasters and not others, because no one would ever say that he does<\/em> so respond to human need.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I have no doubt that prayer is often a communion and not a petition, an expression of gratitude and not a request for help.\u00a0 But I have never been persuaded that believers do not in fact also look to God for assistance and, when the thing hoped for arrives, attribute that development to God\u2019s empathy.\u00a0 The attribution of positive events to God\u2019s intervention is simply too standard a trope in religious rhetoric.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

And now here is Joseph Bottum <\/a>describing the semester\u2019s end at Notre Dame University:<\/p>\n

\nAll across campus, the flowers have begun to bloom, their dull Indiana roots stirred by the spring rain, and the grass is almost green again at Notre Dame. Beneath a 16-foot statue of the Blessed Virgin, the main administration building sits, as always, its gold dome sparkling in the warm spring sun.
\n. . .\u00a0 The Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes flickers with candles, lit by anxious students as they prepare for final exams.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If anyone would be doctrinally correct, you\u2019d think it would be Notre Dame students, but they mustn\u2019t have gotten the message about prayer and God\u2019s power on earth, either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Religious readers of this site periodically rebuke me for misunderstanding the nature of prayer.\u00a0 Prayer is a way of communing with God, they say; no informed believer would ask or expect God to intervene on their or others\u2019 behalf.\u00a0 Thus, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[263,182],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2163"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2165,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions\/2165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}