This is our first Solas Podcast….it is about double the normal length we intend to have because of the subject matter – the Gaza/Israel situation. Our aim is to provide information and to stimulate to prayer in a most difficult intractable situation…we would appreciate your feedback and apologise for anything we have got wrong or any unnecessary offence…why not subscribe to the new Quantum of Solas podcast?
http://www.solas-cpc.org/wp/2014/08/quantum-of-solas-episode-one/
Prayer? Pfft… why not read tea leaves and sacrifice a goat – it’ll do as much.
Prayer: how to do nothing, and absolve yourself of any sense of responsibility by “putting it into God’s Hands”. considering god doesn’t have hands, you’d think Christians would realize their folly, laziness and inability to engage with the real world.
To the natural mind Brent prayer can appear to be irresponsible, folly, laziness, and an inability to engage with the real world, so it is understandable for you to hold that opinion. However truth must not be established by opinion but fact.
The fact is that listening and talking in prayer done in a right way is powerful as many can bear witness to as their empirical reality.
Rather than being as you claim, it is a way that many Christians engage with a world in meaningful ways and often in way that would be impossible to engage with the world by any other manner. It can provide healing, wise direction in a time of a need for counsel, love etc.
Objective studies show prayer does nothing that meditation can’t do. Meditating helps the person think about things, but it’s hardly a magic spell: Say the right words and God does something.
If you use the word “prayer” as others use “meditation” I’d feel better, but still point out that meditation isn’t the solution to our problems in the world. Action is.
According to comments in the World Council of Christian Meditation, meditation is the purest form of prayer. Based on that making a distinguishment between prayer and meditation is a false dichotomy. Also it can be argued that other forms of prayer are powerful. Can you provide evidence of the “objective studies” you talk of?
I would use prayer as others would use meditation. Of course meditation is not the solution to problems without action, but neither is action without a foundation that can be found in meditation. Action alone won’t solve problems.
This should be a great podcast, but how would one subscribe? Are you planning to put it up on the iTunes store?
Yes Lindsay – it will be up on the Itunes store this week…get back to us if you can’t get it…
Very balanced piece. Enjoyed listening to it. Not so sure about some of the ‘sound effects’ though 😉
I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the comments made by David Robertson on this most sensitive of topics. I thought his approach was balanced and Biblical with a sensitive tone.
I would take a slightly different approach theologically. Personally I am convinced of the premillennial return of Christ and would see things from a ‘dispensational’ perspective. I would be comfortable, with some qualifications, to identify myself as a Christian zionist. I felt that David Robertson perhaps characatured that position a little by his reference to John Hagee (who would be regarded by many who hold a similar position to myself to be in serious error). I do however recognise that Mr Robertson did not have unlimited time and therefore generalisations are sometimes unavoidable.
I would simply like to indicate that believing, as I do, that the present nation of Israel is a fulfilment of Biblical prophecy (or rather the stage setting for fulfilment) does not necessarily indicate a political perspective that rubber stamps all the decision of the Knesset.
Overall however, I thought the piece was an excellent example of walking a difficult tightrope with grace (in both senses of the word).
In Christ,
Iain Jamieson