Occasionally I will write something for school that I think is worthy of further dissemination. I will adapt those papers for the blog and post them. Here is my response to Peter Grieg's book, God on Mute (Eastbourne, Sussex, England, David C Cook, 2007)
Often one goes to a movie with such high expectations that even though it’s a good movie, it disappoints because expectations were not met, having been set too high to begin with. This
is what happened to me with Grieg’s book, God on Mute. Having read the forward, by Brian McClaren, my expectations were too high. I wanted something new coming from a post-foundationalist author who would provide new ways of talking about prayer in an ultra-subjective and skeptical age. Grieg did not accomplish this. Occasionally he would tease me with what it could be but never get there.
He formed his book around the rhythms of Holy Week. It was not until chapter twelve that I understood why. In chapter 12 he touches on the reality that we still inhabit the Kingdom of the “already / not yet.” We have not reached Easter morning in our own lives. Our resurrection and the final answers to our prayers will not be realized until that day. True and complete resurrection
still awaits us and so to expect that we should not inhabit a world of death somehow misses the point.[1] I need to be continually to be reminded of this truth and Grieg did so beautifully. This alone probably makes the book worth reading. I only wish all of it was as engaging.
In his chapter entitled, “God’s War,” Grieg retells the story of Jesus’ conversation with Peter.
It was in this conversation that Jesus informs Peter that he is going to deny him. Grieg gets so close to a truth about prayer but never gets there in this chapter. He states, “…sometimes instead of delivering you immediately from evil, Jesus will intercede for you in the midst of your trials.”[2]
I so wanted him to flesh this thought out and wanted to scream that he didn’t do so. For this small prayer seems to be the model of His prayers for his people -- not to take them out of the world but to help them live well and love well in the world which they inhabit.[3] Grieg is clear. God will not override his creation’s free will but he will strengthen those who live in this broken world.[4]
I wanted him to finish the thought but he didn’t.
Nowhere does Grieg challenge the types of prayers I pray, asking God to change my circumstances. Nowhere does he challenge me to pray to trust and be changed by the one who is in control and who will not bring me only so far and then drop me.
Grieg missed an opportunity to help me see that maybe God is silent because I want to use Him as a giant, cosmic “fix-all.” (Though he kind of gets there in his final chapters) I wanted him to re-direct me to see that God wants me to pray so he can change me – rather than all the things that I want him to change in the world. The problem isn’t out there in the big, bad world. The problem is inside of me. He wants to change me. He wants to help shape me into His image and likeness.
God wants me to pour out my heart and desires to him without me demanding that He act in ways I think are best. He wants me to humbly ask Him to give me the faith, the sight, and the courage to receive whatever my world is giving me as a gift so that He can change and mold me to join the resurrection throng.
Having been so dismissive of Grieg, I am grateful for his final stories of God’s love and his suffering with us: hanging with a boy, executed by his Nazi captors,[5] or despairing with a grieving husband who lost his wife, after a life full of loss,[6] or hurting alongside an old woman suffering with migraines for the majority of her life.[7] For although these stories may not provide the hope I demand; they provide solace, and in that solace there is peace in the midst of the suffering.
I wanted Grieg to realize that the eschatological hope he points us all to – a real,tangible, bodily hope [8]– can begin now, but he didn’t. I wanted him to call us to ask God to help us see things His way. But he didn’t. I wanted him to let us know that through prayer, and prayer alone, eternal life really and truly can begin now, as we trust The Spirit to work things out His way and to bring us through the fires that will undoubtedly last until our final breaths, so that we will be transformed into His likeness.
I talked to a skeptic that also read the book. Their perspective was that it only gave, “Sunday school answers to hard questions.” I wanted more than that because McClaren promised more than that.[9]
I didn’t get it. I wanted more than He gave. I hoped this book would be as helpful as Bingham Hunter’s The God Who Hears,[10] but it was not. And in that I am disappointed.
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