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Revelations from The Prayer

Martin Marty

The religious and secular press have both paid attention to the wildly best-selling book by Bruce Wilkinson, The Prayer of Jabez. If you are out of the loop, here is the prayer by the otherwise unknown Jabez, from a corner of 1 Chronicles (4:10): “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” The passage adds, “So God granted him what he requested.” And God will do the same for you, says Wilkinson in his teeny but huge book.

Mark Galli in Christianity Today and Carol Zaleski in Christian Century went critically light on Wilkinson. They both seem happy that people are buying any kind of book on biblical prayer, or are perhaps pleased that Wilkinson does not direct attention to just the material world.

Others, however, sound more like prophets, pointing out that this book on prayer is quite revealing about American public life. In the Wall Street Journal (May 25, 2001), Damon Linker notes that Wilkinson assures pray-ers that they will “experience prosperity”. Linker is uneasy that the book says God will happily “credit your account”. There is an “almost exclusive focus on praying to God for personal benefits”. According to Linker, this makes The Prayer of Jabez “a book of New Age spirituality – a gospel of personal empowerment”, something that will “make folks feel good about themselves”. The book thus stresses “what is arguably the least Christian aspect of contemporary American popular culture” – using “God as a means to . . . worldly satisfaction”. The book thus teaches us “something important about American Christianity today”.

Judith Shulevitz, in the New York Times Book Review (May 20, 2001). agrees. Wilkinson writes: “If Jabez had worked on Wall Street, he might have prayed, ‘Lord, increase the value of my investment portfolios.’ ” Shulevitz analyzes: “The Jabez prayer grants the supplicant full access to the American cult of success, an adoration of power and material satisfaction untroubled by any sense that the world may be a tragic place.” She thinks this could be called “American idolatry”.

Now, if Wilkinson or any other gifted popularizer could write and publish a mild best-seller on what Isaiah 58 has to say about prayer and justice and blessings, that would be revelatory of a very different America.

This is a Sightings column, distributed by the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

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Last modified August 22, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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