08 July 2005

Praying the Pattern



My book is now printed; my first[fruits arrived this morning. Just click on the title and you can order a copy. Or find out a bit more at the book's wiki. It's not yet been picked up by Amazon, but I'm told it's only a matter of time. I'm posting the news on this blog as the book may interest readers in its weaving together of prayer and lifestyle in relation to being a world Christian on a globalised planet. This is particularly in the parts about God's will and daily bread.



Books on the Lord's prayer tend to be one or other of two kinds. On the one hand there are scholarly books which explore the texts, backgrounds and usages of the prayer critically. On the other hand there are more devotional books which offer meditations and reflections on the meaning of the prayer. What there appears not to be are books that take the insights about meanings and structure and the template-nature of the prayer and attempt to turn them into practical strategies for praying. Until that happens, people have other models and patterns of praying which, by virtue of history and present usage, tend to predominate. In order to use the Lord's prayer in the kind of way that scholarship broadly indicates, we need also to provide models and means to do so.



Praying the Pattern attempts to fill that gap: the gap between observing that the 'Our Father' is supposed to be a structuring framework for prayer and the practice that simply uses the prayer as a recitation and uses other schemas to shape prayer.

Publish and be Damned | Praying the Pattern

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