PRAYER: DOES IT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE
By Philip Yancey, Hachette Livre, $29.95
Reviewed by Terry Oberg
THE advertising spin describes Philip Yancey as “the most inspirational spiritual writer of our day”.
How one measures inspiration is a question, I guess, that is not supposed to be asked.
Yancey is a professional journalist. This shows.
He writes well. He uses language sensitively, economically and, as a result, effectively.
So there is no doubting his literary credentials.
What about his authority to write on matters of the soul?
As no theological degrees are ever publicly advertised, he probably has none.
As an unlettered lay man he has written copiously on spirituality. Nine books are credited to him apart from this one.
I have already reviewed for The Catholic Leader, Soul Survivor and Finding God in Unexpected Places.
My only reason for reading these was that I was invited to evaluate them.
Otherwise I would have ignored such works dealing, as they were, with such vital dimensions of living yet written by someone who seemed to have no right to be delving into this field.
However, as a wise friend reminded me, one may lack credentials but still be qualified through other means such as lived experience, the cultivation of intellectual rigour or faith that has been developed and fostered.
Besides these, any number of other factors may also qualify an author.
I do not know a great deal of Philip Yancey’s background but this book on prayer suggests he is a practitioner and he prays with the same mixed results as most of us.
Everything he writes is familiar to me. I would be surprised if most Christians did not feel the same.
This fact that readers recognise their own prayer lives in his is encouraging and provides a comfortable sense of identity.
His treatment is exhaustive but never exhausting.
He finds much to write about yet every page is fresh and opens a new vista on a topic that we acknowledge as essential to our human development but oh so difficult, not so much to master, but just to make a worthwhile beginning and most of us are still beginners in this field.
He approaches the subject “as a pilgrim, not an expert”.
This traveller, however, has a subtle eye for detail and his comprehensive coverage features finely tuned analyses of most of the theological, psychological and emotional aspects.
This quote captures the tone of his writing.
“Why should I spend an hour in prayer when I do nothing during that time but think about people I am angry with, people who are angry with me, books I should read and books I should write, and thousands of other silly things that happen to grab my mind for a moment?”
In truth these are Henri Nouwen’s words but this author had sufficient sense to use them.
That his subsequent chapter provides a satisfying response to the above question is compelling evidence to enthuse about the whole text.
As an exploration of all that prayer is and could be Yancey’s work is about as good as we are ever going to be provided with.
