People Pray Research Articles

Prayers for Sickness: What do people pray for and how do they deal with unanswered prayer?

This paper focuses upon prayer for sickness. What do individuals suffering from illness, their families and the wider community pray for? How do they deal with unanswered prayer? Do they pray for cure, to guide medical professionals or to cope with their sickness? What rationalisations do they proffer for unanswered prayer? Based on a critical literature review and deploying secondary data from the Twenty First Century Evangelical research programme, the data suggest that prayers for guiding medical professionals and coping are more common than for cure, at least in Global North countries such as the UK and US. But why do those who believe in miracles not ask God for divine healing? Furthermore, unanswered prayer can conflict with Christian views of God as omnipotent and all loving. Respondents use a number of theodical rationalisations to resolve this conflict. The results are discussed in relation to cognitive dissonance theory, learned helplessness, the need to conserve a relationship with the Divine, and desire to manage risk of disappointment and reduce consequent emotional pain.

Temples as centres of communal networks: a case study of South Lantau

In the countryside, where intensive rural development and rising property values have been observed since the late 1970s, the preservation and meaning of traditional dwellings have emerged as crucial considerations in shaping Hong Kong’s countryside conservation policy. The focus of this paper is on the conservation of temples, as we are drawn to these structures not only for their architectural merit but also for their role as public buildings within the countryside. Consequently, their cultural significance is heavily influenced by the stakeholders they are associated with, distinguishing them from other types of dwellings.This paper examines the coastal landscape of South Lantau, which includes several villages with distinct traditions that have undergone significant transformations since the 1960s. Located at the southwest edge of Hong Kong, Lantau Island had a rural lifestyle that was relatively undisturbed before WWII because of the difficulty in accessing the island. However, in response to the large people influx from China's mainland after 1949, the Hong Kong government introduced the Lantau Development Plan in 1953, mainly to open up new sources of freshwater resources for Hong Kong Island. The construction of South Lantau Road in 1955 and Shek Pik Reservoir in 1957 gradually led to the decline of agricultural activities in South Lantau and the population exodus of local villagers, resulting in a rupture to regional traditions.In multilineage communities such as the villages on South Lantau, worship of a common deity provides a vital source of social bonding, particularly for an area long beset by typhoons, piracy and banditry. Local people pray for safety and prosperity through collective rituals and celebratory activities. Therefore, temples are not only religious establishments but also embody the sense of social solidarity among villagers on South Lantau. Through the case study of three rural villages on South Lantau, this paper examines how temples play an important role in the continuity of the communal network amid repercussions from the postwar disruption of traditional rural life. Significantly, this pilot study also draws attention to the functions of temples in their historical context. It emphasises the importance of recognising and re-evaluating these buildings for cultural enhancement as part of community engagement. This study provides valuable insights for future conservation efforts for religious buildings in the countryside.

Prayers for Sickness: What do people pray for and how do they deal with unanswered prayer?

Background This paper focuses upon prayer for sickness. What do individuals suffering from illness, their families and the wider community pray for? How do they deal with unanswered prayer? Do they pray for cure, to guide medical professionals or to cope with their sickness? What rationalisations do they proffer for unanswered prayer? Methods Based on a critical literature review and deploying secondary data from the Twenty First Century Evangelical research programme, the data suggest that prayers for guiding medical professionals and coping are more common than for cure, at least in Global North countries such as the UK and US. But why do those who believe in miracles not ask God for divine healing? Furthermore, unanswered prayer can conflict with Christian views of God as omnipotent and all loving. Results Respondents use a number of theodical rationalisations to resolve this conflict. Conclusions The results are discussed in relation to cognitive dissonance theory, learned helplessness, the need to conserve a relationship with the Divine, and desire to manage risk of disappointment and reduce consequent emotional pain.

Politické kázání. Impuls k diskusi

A Political Sermon. An Impulse for Discussion. The author points to the fact that in the Czech Protestant environment, there has not yet been a professional discussion on how to reflect contemporary political issues at the pulpit. He points to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s thesis that the church must be able to pronounce the word of God here and now, from knowledge of the political matter, getting to the core. Building particularly on contemporary German literature, he not only summarizes the arguments for “political sermons” and suggests what form they might take, but he also discusses the risks involved. Finally, he stresses that preaching is part of a worship service in which people pray for politicians and good governance and also celebrate the Eucharist – experiencing the new world and carrying parts of it into the present one.

Exegesis of The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:5-13 and The Implications

Humans frequently engage in the act of praying. Those who hold religious beliefs and faith are likely to pray on a daily basis. Typically, when people pray, they make requests or express their thoughts to their Creator. Prayer is commonly perceived as a way to communicate with God. During prayer, individuals speak and interact with God, anticipating a response. Consequently, prayer is not an unfamiliar or unusual practice for humans since it involves speaking directly to God. This qualitative research study aims to explore the role of prayer in the spiritual lives of Christian believers using a Bible exegetical approach, in particular the Lord’s Prayer. The research utilizes the extensive knowledge and background of biblical passages in Matthew 6:5-13 that are connected to prayer with the objective of understanding the beliefs, practices, and experiences of Christian believers. Findings reveal that prayer plays a significant role in the spiritual lives of Christian believers, providing a means of communication with God, fostering a sense of intimacy and relationship with God, and serving as a source of comfort, guidance, and empowerment.

The Concept of Achievement of Insan Kamil According to Sheikh Muhammad Nafis Al- Banjari

Humans frequently engage in the act of praying. Those who hold religious beliefs and faith are likely to pray on a daily basis. Typically, when people pray, they make requests or express their thoughts to their Creator. Prayer is commonly perceived as a way to communicate with God. During prayer, individuals speak and interact with God, anticipating a response. Consequently, prayer is not an unfamiliar or unusual practice for humans since it involves speaking directly to God. This qualitative research study aims to explore the role of prayer in the spiritual lives of Christian believers using a Bible exegetical approach, in particular the Lord’s Prayer. The research utilizes the extensive knowledge and background of biblical passages in Matthew 6:5-13 that are connected to prayer with the objective of understanding the beliefs, practices, and experiences of Christian believers. Findings reveal that prayer plays a significant role in the spiritual lives of Christian believers, providing a means of communication with God, fostering a sense of intimacy and relationship with God, and serving as a source of comfort, guidance, and empowerment.

In crisis, we pray: Religiosity and the COVID-19 pandemic

In times of crisis, humans have a tendency to turn to religion for comfort and explanation. The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. Using daily and weekly data on Google searches for 107 countries, this research demonstrates that the COVID-19 crisis resulted in a massive rise in the intensity of prayer. During the early months of the pandemic, Google searches for prayer relative to all Google searches rose by 30%, reaching the highest level ever recorded. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that by April 1, 2020, more than half of the world population had prayed to end the coronavirus. Prayer searches remained 10% higher than previously throughout 2020, particularly so in Europe and the Americas. Prayer searches rose more among the more religious, rose on all continents, at all levels of income, inequality, and insecurity, and for all types of religion, except Buddhism. The increase is not merely a substitute for services in the physical churches that closed down to limit the spread of the virus. Instead, the rise is due to an intensified demand for religion: People pray to cope with adversity. The results thus reveal that religiosity has risen globally due to the pandemic with potential direct long-term consequences for various socio-economic outcomes.

DEATH IN 2020 AND A COVID-19 GREAT EPIDEMIC: AN ISLAMIC ANALYSIS

Only love to almighty Allah is the greatest love. From ages to ages, Allah has sent his messengers to preach only love to Him. Many destructions, disruptions, and explosions have occurred in this world. This paper tries to explore the causes of the great disasters in the world. The global people when they lead an invalid way, there occurs a terrible crisis. None of the worlds saves it. Only Allah can save global people. Today, the present world is full of share-ism, idolatry-ism, usury-ism, zakat-free-ism, killing-ism, injustice-ism, and inhumanity-ism. They practice about Gods and Goddesses. They believe that the sun, the moon, the stars, the trees, the stone, the angels, the jinn, and other animals can reach Allah. They are the dearest persons who are God, Gods, Goddess, and Goddesses related. Above eleven million people think and say that there is no creator of the universe. It is operating as automated. Marriages and sexism are human to animal. They practice as same-sex, polygamy, polygyny, and polyandry. Most of the global people pray to Materials, Death Guru, God, Gods, Goddess, Goddesses, Peer, Saai, Baba, Abba, Dihi Baba, Langta Baba, Khaja Baba, Joy Guru, Joy Chisty, Joy Baba Hydery, Joy Maa Kali, Maa Durga, Moorshid Kibla, Baba Haque Bhandary, Joy Ganesh Pagla, Joy Deawan Baggi, Joy Chandrapa, Joy Sureshwaree, Fooltali Kebla, Sharshina Kebla, Foorfoora Kebla, Joy Ganapati, Joy Krishnan, Joy Hari, Joy Bhagaban and Mazzarians. The new religions have preached in the world such as Baha’i, Kadyany, Khaljee, Din-E-Elahi, Brahma, and Humanism. The world is full of Shirkism, Moonafikism, Goboatism, Bohtanism, Mooshrikiaism, Oathlessism, and Khianotkariism. In the past, undetermined civilizations have vanished but none can save civilization. This Covid-19 great destruction is human-made. It is from climate change that comes to the global people as a great curse.

KAJIAN SEMIOTIK BUDAYA MASYARAKAT: Nilai Keislaman dalam Tradisi Ter-ater di Lumajang

This article examines the Islamic values ​​embodied in the “ter-ater” tradition in Lumajang. “Ter-ater” is a habit of the people in Lumajang, at certain moments, distributing food to neighbors or relatives in the surrounding environment. Before food is distributed, the people pray tohether first. The method used in this study is qualitative with a semiotics approach. The research location is Kalipenggung Village, Randuagung District, Lumajang Regency. Data collection techniques are interviewing, observing, and studying literature. Data analysis are performed by reducing or sorting, presenting, and formulating conclusions. The results of this study state that there are Islamic values ​​in the “ter-ater” tradition, among others, to foster a spirit of charity, strengthen brotherhood among Muslims, and preserve good habits in the community. This research is useful as an addition to the scientific literature in the field of communication, especially the science of semiotics, in connection with the study of the traditions of the Islamic community.

Hamza Baba Türbesi Etrafında Uygulanan Ritüeller ve Bektaşilik Geleneği

Respecting adults has always had an important place in Islam, and Turkish customs and traditions. Especially the belief and love for the people who are believed to be capable of showing extraordinary miracles have preceded others. When they passed away, their tombs have become one of the placesfrequented by people. Anatolian people have shown love and respect to such great people for years, and accepted their graves as a supreme authority. In this context, visiting tombs where people pray and offer sacrifices to God, has gained a great importance. When their prayers are accepted, they would pay another visit to the tombs to sacrifice their offerings. Besides, they perform their prayers through different practices in order to be accepted. Such practices and rituals revolving around the tombs have continued for years and survived to the present day.The Hamza Baba Mausoleum, located in Kemalpaşa District of Izmir, continues to exist as a mausoleum that has been visited by Anatolian people for years, where they offered sacrifices, and performed various practices and rituals. This study focuses on Hamza Baba Tomb, as it contains both traces of Turkish culture and Alawi-Bektashi traditions. The study consist of three essential parts, namely the Hamza Baba Mausoleum, the Bektashi tradition that is followed by Hamza Baba, the practices and rituals performed around the mausoleum. To this end, interviews were conducted with the villagers who live in where the tomb is located, and written sources were consulted to discuss thedata gained during fieldwork and enrich the study.

Prime Time for Prayer: An Analysis of Prayers Offered and Answered in the Reality SeriesAnswered Prayers

Media power couple Roma Downey and Mark Burnett’s 2015 reality program Answered Prayers appeared as a six-episode series on TLC. The program depicts prayer lives through spoken interview-style vignettes and reenactments portraying individuals and families in crisis. This article addresses the ways in which Answered Prayers depicts how people pray, why they do so, and what “answered prayers” look like via reality media. A grounded theoretical analysis (Charmaz 2006) allows for themes and relationships in the data to emerge. Results indicate that this reality program suggests to viewers that prayers are always answerable. A model of relationships between offering prayers and receiving answers is presented, and the objectives of the producers of the program are addressed.

"The Woodcarving Three Emperors and Sun Simiao's Portrait" and the System of Sacrifice to Three Emperors

"The Woodcarving Three Emperors and Sun Simiao's Portrait" of the Ming Dynasty preserved at the Chinese Museum for History of Medicine is the historical witness of the System of Sacrifice to Three Emperors. The "Three Emperors" are original ancestors of Chinese nation. In the Song and Jin Dynasties, they were gradually regarded as an ancestor of traditional Chinese medicine with a single entity and the father of medicine by medical practitioners. Until the Yuan Dynasty, side by side with the medical schools nationwide, the government regarded the "Three Emperors" as Medical Immortals set up the Temple of Three Emperors, and held two yearly national festivals in the spring and autumn, respectively, thus creating the System of Sacrifice to Three Emperors. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, this System gradually evolved with its political halo faded away. The Temple of Three Emperors and Temple of King of Medicine appeared at the same time, and they incorporated and developed into a common temple where people pray for getting rid of diseases.

On the Cover: <em>Cross My Heart</em>

On the CoverCross My Heart RAEchel Running (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Cross My Heart. RAEchel Running. Courtesy: the artist. In 2006 I traveled to Mata Ortiz, Chihuahua, Mexico, on a three-day assignment to photograph master potter Juan Quezada, in Mata Ortiz. And I stayed for five years. Over that span of time, I witnessed the militarization of the US-Mexico border and the implementation of Arizona's SB 1070, which enabled the profiling of Mexicans in the United States. In Mexico, I also met and learned from local artisans, ranchers, farmers, and anthropologists, and came to see deep connections between Mesoamerica and the greater US Southwest. My first time out on the Arizona border, documenting the humanitarian aid group No More Deaths as they put out caches of water for migrants, I found this bra in the desert and instantly wept. I remember picking it up gingerly. How it pained me to wonder [End Page 5] what had happened to the young woman it belonged to. I imagine her mother giving it to her, its perfect virgin whiteness, soiled, stained, destroyed by the dirt rubbed into it violently. It lay there forgotten and discarded. I remembered the many faces I'd seen of a young woman whose heart carries the dream of America in her tender breast. The pink crosses of Juárez mark the signs of the hundreds of disappeared women of the borderlands. The crosses look like embroidery or scars of a badly sewn wound. Yet it's soft as the curve of the earthly form of a newly budding woman, the details of youth; tender flowers are placed across the harsh landscape between two countries both divided and united by lines on a map, and by the bloodlines and love lines we all share. Though it may seem futile, it is necessary to give voice to the voiceless. The land holds the stories of the ancientmigrations and the plight of the immigrants. It is tragic and it is beautiful with all the seasons of life, like a love song full of longing. The birds still migrate and people pray for rain up and down the Americas just as they did thousands of years ago. Hope is like water in the desert. I don't want to forget her. Daughters. Sisters. They were once someone's baby girl. I want to water their dreams. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. Migration Series no. 1. RAEchel Running. Courtesy: the artist. My migration series explores the historical and symbolic connections of Mesoamerica, the US-Mexico borderlands, and the Greater Southwest. In my photographs I combine contemporary issues with the symbols of ancient cultures such as the Pochtecas, the trader priests who migrated across the Americas carrying stories and corn kernels, chocolate, macaws to the north and turquoise to the south. These also feature symbols of the Quetzalcoatl, the rain god embodied as a plumed serpent, and Thaloc, the wind god, as documented in pictographs and ceramics traded over the millennia. The T-door and cloud-shaped geometrics designs are seen in the complex architecture and designs in art and ceramics from the land of the Maya to the Olmec and Toltec sites [End Page 6] of Teotihuacan; to the outlier ancient city of Paquimé; to Chaco Canyon and the pueblos of New Mexico; to Mesa Verde, Colorado; and to Wupatki sites in Arizona. Walls of separation cannot stop the natural pattern of the world. The threads of human migration and history are interwoven into new designs. Today on the arid mesas and adobe pueblos, corn is still farmed in the old ways. In the ceremonial dances, turquoise, a dash of red macaw and eagle feathers, flash against gathering rain clouds; the gourds and sea shells clink rhythmically, resounding up and down the spine of the Americas, prayers to help keep our world in balance. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 3. Migration Series no. 2. RAEchel Running. Courtesy: the artist. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 4. Migration Series no. 3. RAEchel Running. Courtesy: the artist. [End Page 7] RAEchel Running RAEchel Running, of Afro...

Mysticism and Pragmatism in Modern Religious Architecture

Kahn at Penn: Transformative Teacher of Architecture. By James Williamson. New York: Routledge, 2015. xv + 204 pp. $163.00 (cloth); $52.95 (paper).Temples for a Modern God: Religious Architecture in Postwar America. By Jay M. Price. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. xi + 256 pp. $82.00 (cloth).Prayer literally takes place. People pray and listen for God in actual places. The idea of seems to imply that God is more likely to be encountered in certain places than in others, and the Celtic intuition of thin affirms locations where the divine breaks through more easily in earthly experience. Divine mystery, for example, may be more easily sensed in an evocative setting such as Durham Cathedral, although mystery is not limited to the grand and the Romanesque. On the other hand, divine creativity may be better grasped where sacred place and nature are gracefully joined, such as the many fine contemporary chapels with windows of clear glass at Episcopal camp and conference centers. While the biblical God transcends all limitations of place, Episcopalians and other Christians have long known the importance of returning to sacred places in order to experience some aspect of the divine nature.James Williamson s Kahn at Penn: Transformative Teacher of Architecture is a book with a subtle but important connection with Episcopal architecture. Although the author references the Episcopal Church only once,1 I know for a fact that Williamson is an active Episcopalian because I am his parish priest. Williamson is also the architect of two Episcopal churches, including St. George's Episcopal Church (completed in 2007) in Germantown, Tennessee, an inspiring design that resists easy categorization as either traditional or contemporary.The subject of Williamsons book is the life and work of architect Louis Kahn (1901-1974), who taught at the University of Pennsylvania and maintained his own architectural office in Philadelphia. Williamson was one of Kahn's students. Kahn's architectural buildings are numerous, but two religious designs are particularly relevant for Episcopalians. The First Unitarian Church of Rochester was designed by the Episcopalian Richard Upjohn in the nineteenth century, and subsequently was replaced in 1962 by Kahn's building. Kahn's First Unitarian is a fine example of his mystical view of natural light and shadows. The second example of Kahn's sacred architecture, Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem, was never built but Kent Larson's Louis I. Kahn: Unbuilt Masterpieces includes several computer-generated images of this synagogue.2 Hurva reveals Kahn's mastery of the balance between the communal and the individual, as well as the balance between transcendence and immanence.The subject of Williamson's book, however, is Kahn's teaching and philosophy of education, not his architecture, although these subjects are inseparable. Kahn's philosophy of education and architecture could be described as mystical. For example, Williamson notes Kahn invented a term-unmeasurable-to describe he believed to be the mystical forms of architecture.3 Williamson summarizes:Kahn taught that the architect must use intuition to discover the eternal, pre-existing Form of a building, an understanding of its existence will, of what the building wants to be, without regard to the site, the program, or the architect himself might want to design. The concept recalls the metaphor in Plato's Republic of the prisoners whose understanding of the unseen world outside their cave is shaped by the shadows projected on its walls.4Kahn's teaching style was eclectic, socratic, and deeply influenced by the Talmudic method.5 Williamson writes, Indeed, some of his observations have biblical overtones, such as his enigmatic statement, 'Order Is.' In its economy, ambiguity and sense of much left unsaid, it is reminiscent of Yahweh's revelation to Moses: 'I am that I am.'6 Williamson overlooks the influence of the thirteenth-century Sufi mystic and poet Rumi, whose parable about architecture is cited in full at the end of Kahns lecture given in 1969 in Zurich, Silence and Light. …

Elegy for Chad, and: Sweetwater

Elegy for Chad, and: Sweetwater Jeff Whitney (bio) and Philip Schaefer (bio) Elegy for Chad Instead of aim, fire, repeat, just give me the gold bulletto swallow. I want to taste its fingerprints, tonguethe story of those who forged this death, tracetheir loved ones’ names along my gum lines.Instead, I wear a gas mask around town, sketchthe faces of my enemies on storefront windowsand walk away while the sun waxes them clean.I’m auditioning to be the oldest man in townshouting thunder at the bone-light, sorrow into uncountablesorrows. I say: to even say psalm is to say I’ve no ideahow to grieve. (Ask any saint: act one way long enoughit comes true.) (Skip to the end of the book and everything isimpossible.) (Friend, in Latin, originally meant one who walks with youto the edge of water and lifts it for you to drink.)Last week a murder of birds dropped beneathan acid lake. I too want to remember what it was liketo breathe arsenic. For the ones who loved me mostto be a row of bones under an overgrown hill. MaybeI’ll make my bed there, sleep with thorns in my mouth,whisper rumors of war and ruin, let them know I’m alivebegging not to be, beating the earth like whale skin, hotmetal, anything strong enough to echo me backward.Most people pray too long for a quick, quiet cancer. I only want to hold a seahorse’s heart until its little rhythm ends, learn how a story can bekept alive by something no bigger than a period on this page. [End Page 169] Sweetwater Give me a town where there is morethan one way home, empty pocketsat the billiard hole, homing pigeonsshot straight out of the sky. A placewhere we bow to The Badnessas Zeus-armed kids melt a cityof widows, one living woman’s gravenext to her dead husband’s that boasts“I won.” Tell me we don’t belong a little biteverywhere. How we can only prayto the dead. Little act, but everyoneis dying. And a voice we find so oftennot our own, the way we wake upand can’t remember where,or it’s 2006 and suddenly everythingis as much mirror as the objecta mirror kisses back. How a motherbecomes her child and waits like godfor the world to get better, ghost of a futureself she can approach, unzip, step inside.Tell me we can be wrong all our livesand still, in some way, have it right.Maybe we’ll be allowed to be dragon.Maybe we’ll be born againin 1906, drunk on the futureof motor oil and boys in love with the warthat didn’t love them. We sent them therejust to have everything we love come backlike yard dogs, bones ribbed into railroad tracks,entire countries of fear where the dead, like foxes,stay inside. See? We can pay for everything.The new world is good & mad, honey. [End Page 170] Jeff Whitney Jeff Whitney is the author of five chapbooks, two of which were co-written with Philip Schaefer. Recent poems can be found in 32 Poems, Booth, Muzzle, Thrush, and reprinted on Verse Daily. He lives in Portland. Philip Schaefer Philip Schaefer’s first collection of poems Bad Summon (U of Utah P) won the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize. He is the author of three chapbooks, two of which were co-written with friend and poet Jeff Whitney. He won the 2016 Meridian Editor’s Prize in poetry and has work out or due out in Kenyon Review, Thrush Poetry Journal, Guernica, the Cincinnati Review, Salt Hill, Bat City Review, the Adroit Journal, Baltimore Review, and Passages North among others. He tends bar in Missoula, MT. Copyright © 2017 University of Nebraska Press

WALI DAN KARAMAH AMANG GAGA DI DESA UJUNG BARU, KECAMATAN BATI-BATI, KABUPATEN TANAH LAUT

This research took up from perspective about the importance of discussing society opinion on Wali’s and the people are reputed as holy people or the people who has a special ability as a popular religion expression which still exists in the certain society. Paying homage by society to Wali’s are not only when they are still alive, but it also continue when they are died. Amang Gaga is one of them, he was respected and reputed as a Wali and he had a special ability (karamah) by people in Ujung Baru village, Bati-Bati, with the result that this research needs to be done. The questions of this research are (1) How does people opinion about Wali and Amang Gaga’s karamah? (2) What is level of guardian status of Amang Gaga as a Wali and his karamah according to tasawwuf?. Based on the findings that Amang Gaga is a Wali because his loyalty, his consistency and his karamah. The level of his guardian status is al-Quthub atau al-Ghawts. It means that the humans need him when they have difficulties, when he prayed to Allah, it would be answered Allah very fast. People pray to Allah through him as a medium. However, there is any evidence to show that Amang Gaga as the leader of Wali’s.

The Visual Image as a Means of Prayer

Silence. Light sifting through the curtain filters across the young woman's face, revealing head and eyes lifted, lips barely parted. Artist Shin-hee Chin's image-woven and stitched from threads and recycled fabric-conveys the mystery, the inner movement, the focused stillness, the silence of prayer. As viewers our response echoes the young woman's intensity: we lean forward, listening the silence, straining know her prayer, perhaps even moved beside her. Yet, with or without our own words, Silence simply is a prayer.Shin-hee Chins Chinmoku: Silence1 was the lead image in Women at a juried online exhibition mounted by the Episcopal Church and the Visual Arts (ECVA), an internet community of visual artists initiated in the year 2000 with the mission to encourage artists and organizations engage the visual arts in the spiritual life of the church.2 Women at Prayer accompanied the work of Anglican Women at Prayer, the international gathering of women held at Virginia Theological Seminary in 2014 that honored women's prayers as an essential presence in the life of the church. The eighty-one ECVA images were projected as a continuous loop before every plenary session, with a number of the plenary speakers referring the images and alluding themes raised in the artwork. And a smaller selection of sixteen images-projected at a slower pace and paired with poetry, song, and prayer-was used for a contemplative prayer service. The conference organizers, including Phoebe Griswold (one of the founders of ECVA), elected integrate these images into the work of the conference out of their conviction that art constitutes a valid form of prayer, and out of their awareness that the prayers offered by images-much like the prayers of women-often go unremarked.The art in Women at Prayer (which is comprised of images of womens prayers but not limited images by women) exemplifies both those convictions. These images stand in that long tradition in the Western church of art used as a means of prayer (what we might term visual prayer). Women at however, enlarges that tradition encompass prayers that embody the lives and experiences of women. Womens prayers have so often remained hidden, although the remarkable response Women at Prayer (indicated by the number of submissions the online exhibition) is evidence that this is a significant omission. In much the same way, visual prayer has passed unremarked in theological discussions and in manuals on prayer. I propose offer a theological model for visual prayer by applying the more general descriptions of prayer the act of praying with images and locate the images from Women at Prayer within the larger Western tradition of visual prayer.We might begin by asking how the work of the artist can be regarded as prayer. Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and herself indefatigable in prayer, complained about a narrow understanding of praying. Since when, she argued, are words the only acceptable form of prayer? She maintained that people pray through the witness of their lives, through the work they do, the friendships they have, the love they offer people and receive from people.3 Might we not add that artists have prayed through their work and, through their art, offered the faithful a way pray?Theologian Karl Barth, in a small volume titled writes: At this point it is also important remark with Calvin that prayer uttered in a language that we do not understand or which the congregation at prayer does not understand is a mockery God.... We must think and speak in a comprehensible tongue, in a language which has meaning for us.4 Might we include the visual arts as one of those languages that Calvin mentions? In his letters Bishop Serenus written around the year 600, Gregory the Great famously argued that the image was a means by which the unlettered might be taught. As I was finishing this essay I heard a Pentecost sermon in my own church where the preacher, the Reverend Anne Turner, remarked on all the ways that God speaks us. …

Does Anything Really Happen When People Pray for Healing?

Does Anything Really Happen When People Pray for Healing?

On not praying for the return of an amputated limb: Conserving a relationship with God as the primary function of prayer

Prayer is commonplace at times of illness. But what do people pray for? After reviewing recent work in the cognitive science of religion, the authors argue that pray-ers preferentially ask for psychological as opposed to physical outcomes because these are easier to accommodate God's intervention in the healing process. The authors exemplify this argument with recent studies of illness-related prayer. The findings from this study accord with other studies which demonstrate that those who follow spiritual pathways engage in efforts to conserve their understanding of and their relationship with the sacred. Thus, the authors argue that prayers to God are designed to enhance human health and well-being in ways that conserve the sacred. Unanswered prayers in a health-related context then may elicit spiritual struggles and significant distress to patients. The authors conclude by discussing the implications of unanswered prayer and theodicy for psychotherapy, emphasizing the seminal work of Anna-Maria Rizzuto.

한국 사찰 산신각(山神閣)의 건축적 특성과 성격 연구

산신은 우리나라의 전통적 토착 신앙이 불교 내부에 수용된 것으로 사찰 안에 산신각이 건립된 것은 17세기 이후에 시작된 것으로 본다. 불교 고유의 신격이 아닌 까닭에 산신각의 입지는 불전의 배후에 떨어져 산과 가까운 기슭에 위치하고 있는 것이 대부분이다. 대다수의 사찰에서 산신각에 중요한 의미를 부여하고 있음에도 그 크기가 작은 까닭은 산신 신앙의 개인성에서 비롯한 것이며 또한 이러한 간결한 형태를 통하여 산천 정기가 집약, 응축된 장소임을 강하게 표현하려는 상징적 의도가 나타난 것이라고 할 수 있다. 산신각은 산천의 정기가 사찰 안으로 흘러 모여드는 통로이자 불교의 고유한 신앙체계가 무한한 자연의 영역으로 확장되는 출구이기도 하다. `Sansinkak' is the building which contains the picture or statue of mountain god(=Sansin). It is also an expression of respect for the mountain god. This building is usually very small, so a few person can enter inside it. Because people pray to mountain god for personal purpose, sometime this wishes are exclusive and egoistic, so narrow space is more suitable. Sansin is not the original god of Buddhism, it is the god of folk belief of traditional Korea, so every Sansinkak is located in the back slope of the temples, away from Buddha's building, the center area. Sansinkak is not only the pathway of vital force from back mountains to the temple, but also the exit to the infinite nature as an extension of Buddhist belief.