A prayer chain (there are other words for this) is when someone sends out a request for prayer. If you've spent any time on Facebook you probably have gotten a request or two. These prayer requests can reach people far removed personally from the person who is in need of the prayer. They can also last for years. For example a grandmother can pray for 20 years for a child to become a Christian.
The thing that has always bothered me about prayer requests is how unfair they are. For sake of argument lets say that prayer is effective, god exists, blah blah blah. If this is true then those with the greatest connections and/or the best technology can get more people to pray for them then someone who doesn't have these resources. So therefore a wealthy (by comparison to most of the world) middle class American who has a bad cold can have more chances of god caring for their needs then a starving aids orphan in Malawi (who probably is also suffering from some easily curable disease caused by poor sanitary conditions). Doesn't this sound a bit unfair?
Over the years I have asked this question to my theist friends and the best answer I got was "well god knows their (the unknown people) needs, he understands and will take care of them." Well if this is true then why pray for anyone? I received no answer to this.
Someone else told me that god weighs the prayers for the unknown people to a greater degree than the prayers of those who can have lots of people pray for them. All I can say about this is that it doesn't seem to be working very well.
Another great answer to this question was "well they are people who pray for these unknown people every day. They fill in the gap (so to speak)." In other words these people pray for the unknown prayer requests. Well, this sounds reasonable until, after some amount of searching, you don't find anyone who does this. Furthermore since the number of unknown prayer requests (there are a lot of orphans out there for example) most probably far exceeds the number of people who supposedly pray for those people shouldn't the church step in? Why don't they have corporate prayer every Sunday for these unknown people? No instead they care about things like building projects and prayers for safety for those traveling (not in dangerous countries, mind you, just those traveling to Dallas on well maintained and policed roads with a McDonald's at every town along the way.)
Someone else said that when you pray in tongues you are also uttering prayers for these people. I don't think I need to answer this one.
If you really want to get twisted off, then take into account that, if you are into prosperity doctrine, you can pay someone to pray for you. Here's an example of how this works (BTW I actually saw this on tv). Pay a certain amount of money (I believe it was $1000 or so) and become a "partner" in a certain ministry that does this thing. After the check clears (my little embellishment here) they will put your name and photo on a bulletin board in a well traveled hallway in their building. Every time one of their staff walks by the board he or she will pray for the people on the wall. All I can say about this is wow! I can outsource my praying! This is cool shit! Of course the orphan in Malawi who can't afford food, proper sanitation, and has no one to care for him or her can't pay for these services. Tough shit for them!
Ok, rant over.
The thing that has always bothered me about prayer requests is how unfair they are. For sake of argument lets say that prayer is effective, god exists, blah blah blah. If this is true then those with the greatest connections and/or the best technology can get more people to pray for them then someone who doesn't have these resources. So therefore a wealthy (by comparison to most of the world) middle class American who has a bad cold can have more chances of god caring for their needs then a starving aids orphan in Malawi (who probably is also suffering from some easily curable disease caused by poor sanitary conditions). Doesn't this sound a bit unfair?
Over the years I have asked this question to my theist friends and the best answer I got was "well god knows their (the unknown people) needs, he understands and will take care of them." Well if this is true then why pray for anyone? I received no answer to this.
Someone else told me that god weighs the prayers for the unknown people to a greater degree than the prayers of those who can have lots of people pray for them. All I can say about this is that it doesn't seem to be working very well.
Another great answer to this question was "well they are people who pray for these unknown people every day. They fill in the gap (so to speak)." In other words these people pray for the unknown prayer requests. Well, this sounds reasonable until, after some amount of searching, you don't find anyone who does this. Furthermore since the number of unknown prayer requests (there are a lot of orphans out there for example) most probably far exceeds the number of people who supposedly pray for those people shouldn't the church step in? Why don't they have corporate prayer every Sunday for these unknown people? No instead they care about things like building projects and prayers for safety for those traveling (not in dangerous countries, mind you, just those traveling to Dallas on well maintained and policed roads with a McDonald's at every town along the way.)
Someone else said that when you pray in tongues you are also uttering prayers for these people. I don't think I need to answer this one.
If you really want to get twisted off, then take into account that, if you are into prosperity doctrine, you can pay someone to pray for you. Here's an example of how this works (BTW I actually saw this on tv). Pay a certain amount of money (I believe it was $1000 or so) and become a "partner" in a certain ministry that does this thing. After the check clears (my little embellishment here) they will put your name and photo on a bulletin board in a well traveled hallway in their building. Every time one of their staff walks by the board he or she will pray for the people on the wall. All I can say about this is wow! I can outsource my praying! This is cool shit! Of course the orphan in Malawi who can't afford food, proper sanitation, and has no one to care for him or her can't pay for these services. Tough shit for them!
Ok, rant over.
I have studied the Bible and the theology behind Christianity for many years. I have been to many churches. I have walked the depth and the breadth of the religion and, as a result of this, I have a lot of bullshit to scrape off the bottom of my shoes. ~Ziploc Surprise