Product Description

Jabez got it wrong.

Praying is a central practice of spiritual life. Through prayer we turn our hearts and minds from our limited perspectives and concerns and begin to discern the divine will for the world. James Mulholland believes the self-correcting nature of prayer is being distorted by a culture of prosperity, which has refashioned prayer in its own image, making books such as The Prayer of Jabez huge bestsellers.

Prayer today bears little resemblance to the kind Jesus taught. For many, it has become a means of personal success and material gain, taking the form of a shopping list rather than a transforming spiritual discipline. Mulholland warns that we have forgotten the true purpose of prayer: He believes, "The point of prayer is not to tell God what you want, but to hear what you need. It is not approaching God with our demands, but listening for God's commands. It is not seeking our will, but learning to discern God's will. This is so important to understand in a culture that caters to our every whim. Prayer isn't about me. It is about God."

Jesus understood the nature of prayer and taught his disciples to pray the beloved Lord's Prayer. Offering a fresh and compelling reading of this "Prayer of Jesus," Mulholland calls us back to the true essence of prayer. He shows how authentic prayer will lead us away from the self-interest of the prevailing culture of greed and move us toward the compassion, sacrifice, and love that are the hallmarks of the kingdom of God.

Praying Like Jesus is an invitation to rediscover the life we are called to as Christians'a vow to transform our culture and world. The early Christians prayed like Jesus and were legendary for their acts of compassion and service. Mulholland believes this can and should be the commitment of Christians today.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #476994 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09
• Released on: 2001-09-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

Amazon.com Review
In a time when spiritual seekers seem to be looking for a magic formula for prosperity, blessing, and protection through prayer, theologian James Mulholland offers a different perspective in Praying Like Jesus: The Lord's Prayer in a Culture of Prosperity. "Our Father who art in heaven..." Using Jesus's classic prayer from the New Testament as a framework, Mulholland offers a critique of the multimillion-selling book, The Prayer of Jabez and suggests looking to Jesus, rather than Jabez, for instruction on how to pray. In a conversational, almost pastoral tone peppered with personal anecdotes, Mulholland outlines a simple way to talk to God, focusing on self-denial, commitment, compassion, and gratitude. The point of prayer is not to get what you want, he writes, but rather to receive what you need. There's no pat formula for prayer here--just a call to revolutionize your prayer life through renouncing selfishness and committing to a new way of living. Those who find "name it and claim it" books about prayer alarming will be challenged by this satisfying, alternative take on the subject. --Cindy Crosby

From Publishers Weekly
rayer is clearly a hot topic these days, and publishers' reactions to the success of "the Bible's Little Big Man" Jabez have been swift and decisive. While many books have sought to emulate Jabez's successful formula with various knockoffs and rip-offs, others offer an entirely different view. In Praying Like Jesus: The Lord's Prayer in a Culture of Prosperity, James Mulholland challenges the Wilkinsonian view that prayer exists to change an individual's personal fortunes. Rather, he argues, prayer is about communicating with God the way Jesus did hence the book's structure around the phrasing and themes of the Lord's Prayer as found in the New Testament. Far more than a "sour grapes" approach to Jabez's phenomenal success, this important corrective offers strong, thoughtful theology in its own right.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Bruce Wilkinson's best-selling Prayer of Jabez (2000) grates on Mulholland. By his lights, that prayer--"Bless me and enlarge my territory, let your hand be on me, and keep me from harm so I will feel no pain"--revives a "prosperity theology" that liberal Christians hoped was waning. To counter it, he restates the only prayer Jesus commended to his followers, the statement of selfless trust and commitment known as the Lord's Prayer. Like N. T. Wright in The Lord and His Prayer (1997), Mulholland explicates the prayer, clause by clause, to demonstrate how it encapsulates Christianity. Much more than Wright did, Mulholland argues that the prayer commits its reciters to feeding the hungry, forgiving others in the same way that they hope God will forgive them, and avoiding temptation, especially, the "Great American Temptation"--the greed brought on by prosperity. It commits them not least because amen means "so be it." Powered by homely metaphors and anecdotes, and blazing with humanitarian fervor, this is a rousing restatement of Christianity as an active faith. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Getting up close and personal in your prayer life
Jim Mulholland seems to have his head on straight when it comes to talking with the Lord. Unlike other prayer books that are being offered he makes us look at the real reason we should pray in the first place. Most of us wait until we are in some predicament before falling to our knees which in itself is a selfish reason, but Jim has pointed out what it means to have a real relationship with God, not just a convenient one.

His real-life experiences show that he is not a pulpit-banger but a goeth-forth-and-doeth type of minister that the everyday person can relate too. Too many of our "intellectual" minister/writers are merely sending forth the flock while they stay behind and shepard, but Jim seems to know the feel of blisters on his hands and sweat on his brow by sharing the workload with those less fortunate.

His attitude of prayer makes us all take stock of ourselves when he points out the necessity of gratitude, compassion and forgiveness in our own lives before we can expect God to bestow the same on us.

I was particularly touched by his pointing out that Jesus prayed to "Our Father" and not just to his father. This should remind us all that no one sect or religion has a monopoly on God. He is the God of all, for all and in all. I hope Jim Mulholland continues to write books like this to teach and inspire us all.

Prayer in perfect form
Recently I wrote a review on the book `The Prayer of Jabez.' I outlined in that review some of the things I appreciated about that book, but also recounted the many things that made me uneasy with both the development and the intention most seem to pick up from the practice of the prayer.

There are few things in our lives that are as personal and touch us as deeply as prayer, particularly our own prayer life. We each feel we are an expert at praying in our own ways, and to a large extent, each of us is. For this deep part of our lives to be co-opted by a feeling of selfish intention for personal gain is tragic. This is why I considered `The Prayer of Jabez' problematic - the author's intent might not be selfishness, but the message being heard is precisely that.

In searching for an alternative to hold up as a model more in keeping with my own prayer temperament, Charles Allen, a theology professor at my seminary, directed me to James Mulholland's `Praying Like Jesus: The Lord's Prayer in a Culture of Prosperity.'

The book begins where the disciples of Jesus began -- Thomas asks Jesus to teach them how to pray. In an interesting, fictional conversation, the disciples recount their experience of praying another prayer that seems to work better for them (of course, this is the prayer of Jabez). Many followers of Jesus seem to slink away after hearing Jesus tell people that they should stop asking for an increase in territory, but rather ask God to provide for their needs; that they should stop asking for a blessing in earthly terms, but rather be willing to follow the will of God even to death, to 'take up their crosses and follow'. This teaching is too hard to follow!

`This is not what happened two thousand years ago. Unfortunately, it is happening today in thousands of churches and with millions of Christians. ... Thousands of Christians are repeating an obscure prayer first uttered by a man named Jabez over three thousand years ago. Many have become convinced his words are the formula for prosperity.'

As Mulholland points out correctly, Wilkinson did not intend his prayer to become a manifesto for righteous greed. He also points out that neither Jabez nor the Bible hold up the prayer of Jabez as a model for anyone but Jabez to follow.

`This honour is reserved for another short prayer located in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. It is the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray. We call this prayer The Lord's Prayer, though I prefer to call it the Prayer of Jesus.'

Mulholland does not promise riches or special healing or power; he does not give the magic formula for getting what you want. What he does is reiterate the intentions of Jesus with the Prayer of Jesus -- an opportunity to reconnect with God and with each other through the words that, as the disciple Peter said, 'contain eternal life'.

The first chapter is entitled When You Pray. This, of course, assumes that you pray. Not if, but when. Mulholland talks about the prayer of self-righteousness and the prayer of self-interest. These prayers are one-communication, but even worse than that, they are directive or instructive, as if God needs to be told what to do or informed of something God did not yet know (such as, how good we've been lately). God is put in the mode of Santa Claus. Jesus gives a corrective to this.

`Praying like Jesus offers far more than prosperity. When prayed with sincerity, it cleanses our hearts of self-righteousness and strips our motives of self-interest. It challenges the false and inappropriate ways we approach God and each other. It reminds us of what we so easily forget -- our proper relationship to God and the world.'

Praying like Jesus reminds us of God more than it invokes ourselves. Praying like Jesus also reminds us of our needs as a community. This prayer is a prayer for the world, a world in which the will of God is primary.

The other chapters give insights into the particular parts of the Lord's Prayer: chapter titles include Our Father, Thy Kingdom Come, Give Us, Forgive Us, and Deliver Us. Each of these chapters stress the love of God for us, the importance of community, the importance of relationship, and the need to see who and where we are in right respect of God. This is not a prayer for become rich and famous, which is the trap of much of current culture, including the prayer of Jabez and many other 'Christian' things.

`This obsession with material blessing, at the expense of the spiritual, is a congenital disease. Being born an American is to be so afflicted. Jim Bakker was merely the most blatant prophet of a philosophy to which most of us pledge allegiance. His lifestyle was an exaggeration of a nearly universal merger of religious life and the predominant values of our culture. He sprinkled holy water on the American way.'

Of course, one of the problems with the Lord's Prayer is that it has become, for most Christians, an almost genetically-encoded prayer routine that it is done without thinking. Unfortunately, this means it is almost always done with comprehension on any level; it is just one more part of the liturgy that we say in our drive to get on and get through on our way to the next thing. Praying like Jesus requires us to pay attention, and pay attention deeply. Mulholland's final word in the conclusion is a charge for us to regain this attention and incorporate the prayer anew into our lives deeply and with meaning that it has in abundance, but which we've missed for so long.

Word of God never returns void
In the middle of this book, I was ready to throw it in the trash - BUT I am glad I didn't. You may well be frustrated by some of the liberal theology in this book. Hang in there, the book isn't about the author or theology, it is about Jesus and the Word of God. The author feels there is a resurge in health and wealth Gospel thinking due to the popular "Prayer of Jabez" book. The point of this book is to encourage the social Gospel aspect of Christianity. All in all, the book has a very Godly and timely point, and is presented in an inspiring way, through the Lords prayer. A chapter named "Deliver Us" uses the AA 12 step plan as a way to think about recovering from our "addiction" to prosperity / greed / money, and is a very powerful chapter indeed.

The book is flawed (all books but one are), but it is in the end a fresh and inspiring commentary on a familiar portion of the Word of God. God tells us that when His Word goes out "It shall not return to Me void" (Isaiah 55:11). True always and true again. In the time I spent with the book I was puzzled, irritated, disgusted, convicted, inspired, and challenged (roughly in that order).