Tales of the Talking Tiger

My friend Nathan sent me a link to the Dear God website this morning. On the site you can write a prayer, and it will display for all to see, and comment on. So who are the prayers directed towards? According to the site:

“It doesn’t matter what your version of God is…Jesus, Allah, Buddha or simply a spiritual universal energy… praying to a higher power soothes and heals.”

Let me share something I like about the site – I think many of the images attached to the prayers are pretty funky. Apart from that, I’m struggling to find something that is positive.

Here are (some) of the issues I have with the site:

• I have no time for ecumenical (multi-faith) prayer activities. Why? Because I believe that apart from those who know Jesus, the rest of the people aren’t praying to anyone/anything at all. Unless your prayer is directed to the God who exists and is sovereign over all things, you might as well not pray. That sounds harsh, but I think that giving people false hope that ‘god/s’ is/are listening is cruel.
• Because the site is for people of different faiths, there is no framework to prayer. There is a boldness, an arrogance that we can approach god on our own terms. There is no reference point that point that shows how who can approach god, and how they can approach god. Without the reference point, there can be no hope that god is even listening (or if god is, that god has power to act, wants to act, or is good and wants to act for good on your behalf).
• Because people are able to comment on the prayers (in the same way you can comment on a blog), the site seems to act more as a counselling corner than a place prayer. What makes this almost funny (if it weren’t so tragic), is that different people are giving different advice to the pray-ers based on their own understanding of their own god.

Perhaps there is value in the site for therapeutic reasons, to get things off your chest. Beyond that, it’s a waste of time.

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