Book Review: Becoming the Answer to our Prayers
I’ve been a big Shane Claiborne fan since his first book, The Irresistible Revolution, came out in 2006. I’ve noticed a trend in his books since then as each one repeats the main ideas in the previous books with small additions. This book, Becoming the Answers to our Prayers, written with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is the greatest example of this trend.
The book can’t decide what it wants to be. It dithers between offering advice for your prayer life and convincing the reader of the need for social engagement. As a book about prayer the authors advise us that, “where we pray makes a difference,” (pg 57) and that, “If you will, you can become all flame.” (pg 94). In general the book is quite clumpy when it talks about how we should pray, with the ideas seemly tacked into the book in such a way as to feel out of place. Part 3 of the book focused on mysticism in prayer but in a way that seemed only to confuse the issue rather than offer genuine incites. If you are looking for a book on prayer there are much better ones out there.
. According to Walker Wink, demons and angels as described in the bible are the spiritual personification of corporate entities. That is, where a country, company, church, or family exists it has its own unique culture, which includes a spiritual element (something that I can agree with). Walter asserts that the ancient Hebrews personified this spiritual element and named a culture as a “demon” or “angel” depending on whether the institution was fulfilling God’s purpose (with most cultures falling in a fuzzy area in between). This is where I disagree with Walter, as too many stories in the bible seem to represent angels and demons as individual entities, distinct from any institutional structure.
over 18 months ago, and I have leant it out to many readers since then. It is, without doubt, one of the most significant books in defining my faith. Shane Claiborne uses stories from his own life to correct errors that have kept the church from fulfilling their duty to the poor and to an alternative way of life.