BrianJarrett.com

I hear a lot from religious leaders about the power of prayer. For example, we have a National Day of Prayer. Apparently our president talks to God-and God answers him; that’s who told him to invade Iraq. When those coal miners were trapped in the Sago mine disaster in West Virginia the townspeople prayed for their safe return. Initially it seemed to be working; reports were that all but one miner had miraculously survived. Joyful praise for the holy father erupted, only to be replaced by acrimonious disdain after they learned they had been “forsaken” and all but one had died. (Even the Governer proclaimed the initial reports a “miracle”. I’ll save miracles for another post.) Hell, I even received a holy hanky that was supposed to become infused with miraculous power through prayer.

The point is there are millions of people who swear by the power of prayer. I’ve always been skeptical that there’s a personal god out there listening to our wants, needs, and desires and then granting them in a seemingly arbitrary fashion. How does God answer prayers? Who gets want they want, who doesn’t, and why? No one seems to be able to answer these questions without invoking some version of the “great cop-out”: God works in mysterious ways. That’s the easy way out, essentially saying ‘I don’t know and you shouldn’t be asking’.

So after 9/11 I did a lot of thinking, as most people did, and I decided to ask. I watched the planes hit and I watched those towers burn on television. I watched them tumble to the ground, one after the other, killing over 2,700 people. As I thought more and more about what I’d seen, a question occurred to me.

On September 11, 2007, after the World Trade Center had been hit and the buildings were burning, there were no doubt hundreds of thousands-perhaps millions-of people in the United States praying that the towers wouldn’t fall; that everyone would make it out alive. Conversely, on the other side of the world, a different group of people-primarily al-Qaeda and other Muslim fundamentalists-were praying to the very same god for exactly the opposite to happen; they wanted those buildings to fall.

Whose prayers were answered?

Maybe there is power in prayer, depending on which side you’re on.