Substituting Generic "God-talk" for Jesus

Russell Moore, in a recent post at Touchstone Magazine's blog, describes how the use of the term "God" is an easy substitute for talking about Jesus. He says that "God" is an abstract enough term that people can load all kinds of meaning into it. He says that's why people in the culture would rather talk about vague notions of spirituality and God rather than about Jesus Christ. Such equivocation is also true among liberal Christians. But....

The gritty flesh and blood reality of Jesus of Nazareth, however, is much more
particular and much more exclusive. I think the fatal flaw of contemporary
Christianity, on both the right and the left, is what Adrio Koenig called "the
eclipse of Christ." We speak of the glory of God, and we aim for "God-centered
worship," but we forget that God's glory is tied up in what Maximus the
Confessor called "the Christic mystery," namely that God's purpose is "to sum up
all things in Christ" (Eph 1:10). Contemporary Christians may have "WWJD"
bracelets and other sorts of "Jesus junk" in our closets, but too rarely do we
hear the big picture of how our God is no generic God, but the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jesus of Nazareth.

Bonhoeffer on Prayer

My last post was from Bonhoeffer, and so is this one. (His classic work Life Together is a short book that I commend to anyone). In writing about the Psalms, he draws some important lessons about Christian prayer:

Here we learn, first, what prayer means. It means praying according to the Word of God, on the basis of promises. Christian prayer takes its stand on the solid ground of the revealed Word and has nothing to do with vague, self-seeking vagaries.

It is really easy to pray using vague, self-seeking vagaries. These prayers don't tend to be specific for one thing, and tend to be focused on what I want rather than on what God wants. Such prayers tend to treat God like a cosmic Santa Claus - "I'll be really good if you'll give me this thing I want." What does it look like to "pray according to the Word of God?" That's a good question to ponder. I suppose that it involves praying the kinds of prayers we see in Scripture. Bonhoeffer is pointing to the Psalms as a good place to start. We might also look at the model Jesus gave us in the Lord's prayers. The epistles often include challenging and wonderful prayers that can be made on behalf of yourself or others. See, for example, Ephesians 3:14-21 or Philippians 1:9-12. I suppose it also means that we anchor our prayers in revealed Truth. We often pray "in Jesus name," but don't often really ponder what that means.

These are a few thoughts off the top of my head. What do you think? What is the difference between biblical prayer and self-serving vagaries? Which do your prayers more resemble?

Coming Soon

To any readers:

The Great Pursuit blog has been lagging lately, as a brief glance at the dates of the more recent posts will show. I have been really busy of late with a really intense semester of work that has not left much time for this blog. My intention, however, is to return to The Great Pursuit shortly after the semester's work is done, so don't give it up for dead just yet. I would love to see The Great Pursuit Blog grow and become useful as a devotional tool for people, so the focus will continue to be on brief examinations of biblical texts or on helpful and inspiring quotations from those ahead of us on the journey. I also hope it will become a place where others can discuss these things in the comments. So come back soon!

Thanks