Abstract
In their introduction, the editors note that “the origins of this volume lie in part in a concern that too much discussion on prayer risks segregating the ‘practice’ of prayer from its complex entanglement in matters of theory and belief and doctrine” (6). Eschewing the aims of a “how-to” manual, the distinguished contributors to the volume concentrate their attention on what the editors call “the theological conditions of prayer” (2, emphasis original). The focus is on what prayer is, which conceptions of God, church, and world it entails, and why Christians in every age have found it both necessary and challenging.
The volume comprises thirty-nine essays arranged into four parts. Part I deals with prayer in the Bible and early Christian exegesis. Part II considers prayer in relation to the traditional loci of systematic theology, including doctrines of God, creation, Christ, the Holy Spirit, providence, and eschatology. Part III (which is the longest) provides historical perspectives on the place of prayer in the work of prominent theologians from the patristic period, the Middle Ages, the period of the Reformations, and modernity into the twentieth century.
The final part is a rather eclectic compilation of essays on prayer and topics such as natural science, interreligious dialogue, poetry, conflict and peace-making, liturgy, ministry, and gender. Two essays in this fourth part stretch beyond the predominantly white European context to treat prayer in Black American tradition and prayers collected from marginalized poor people around the world. Curiously, this part also includes essays on prayer in analytic theology and the Orthodox tradition that might have fit more easily into part III.
This brief survey of the volume’s contents cannot do justice to the richness of what it has to offer. Each essay brings fresh insights, rather than simply rehashing previous scholarship. Readers can utilize the index of names and topics to trace connections between the essays. (For example, the Lord’s Prayer is treated in one or more essays in each part of the book.) Taken as a whole, the volume makes a strong case for understanding theology and prayer as mutually co-constitutive.