Prayer Wheels

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Are emailed prayer wheels superstitious? What is good or bad about them? Here's an example of one...

Subject: FW: easy vs. hard

Importance: High

Take this very seriously as you will be richly blessed by the creator of heaven and earth.

Make sure that you scroll through to the end.

Easy vs. Hard

Why is it so hard to tell the truth but

Yet so easy to tell a lie?

Why are we so sleepy in church but

Right when the sermon is over we suddenly wake up?

Why is it so hard to talk about God but yet so

Easy to talk about nasty stuff?

Why is it so boring to look at a Christian magazine

But yet so easy to look at a nasty one?

Why is it so easy to delete a Godly e-mail but

Yet we forward all of the nasty ones?

Why are the churches getting smaller but yet

The bars and dance clubs are getting larger?

Do you give up? Think about it ...

Are you going to forward this, or delete it?

Just remember, God is watching you.

Prayer Wheel. Let's see if the devil will stop this one !

Here's what the wheel is all about.

When you receive this, say a prayer for

the person that sent it to you....

That's all you have to do....

There is nothing attached....

This is so powerful....

Just e-mail this to seven people and experience

God's answer to prayer in your life.

Do not stop the wheel, please ....

Of all the free gifts we may receive, Prayer is the very best one....

There are no costs, but wonderful rewards...

GOD BLESS!

-- Mike H. (beginasyouare@hotmail.com), October 08, 2003

Answers

Are emailed prayer wheels superstitious? What is good or bad about them? Should we just delete them?

-- Mike H. (beginasyouare@hotmail.com), October 08, 2003.

What makes prayer wheels, chain letters, etc. superstitious is the claim that the act of participating, in and of itself, has power, or produces benefits - or, that failure to participate will bring harm. At least the example above does not include threats of harm ("bad luck") for failure to participate. As far as promising benefits, I do think it leans too far in the direction of superstition, though it is not as blatantly so as some I have seen. Obviously, prayer does bring benefits, because God responds to prayer. So, participating in communal prayer, even within the context of something like this, is not necessarily all bad. But you do have to be careful about the wording of the thing. In the above message, I don't like "This is so powerful". That focuses on the technique, rather than God, as the source of the power. But then again, we do speak of "the power of prayer" in orthodox Catholic circles, so it isn't entirely black and white. It also gives the impression that God's response to this prayer is contingent upon "taking this very seriously", and "mailing it to seven people". The God I know said "ask and you will receive, seek and you will find". He didn't set down any magic formulas for how to ask. For that reason, I would not choose to participate in the above mailing.

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), October 08, 2003.

Paul,

Thanks for the reply. Most prayer wheels I am sent have those elements you mention, to a lesser or greater degree of course.

They make me feel guilty. Like I am a sinning if I don't participate in them by forwarding a copy to a whole bunch of people. They have a coerciveness about them. They say, do it this way or else!

And I question at how effective they are. I don't like how it is so impersonal. One letter, mass mailed, like propaganda dropped from a government plane. Where is the individual attention and personalized love? Like we could drop one love bomb and be done with it. I almost always get replies from e-mailed letters that I send which are originals, sent just for the person intended, but if I bulk mail a cut and pasted paragraph or article I usually get tiny percentage of replies if any at all which tells me the effort was wasteful. This idea reminds me of how some Protestants think that shipping bibles around the globe will save us all. It's too easy, there is little personal cost to the sender.

Also there has not been one prayer wheel, I have received, that has been Catholic in nature. I couldn't see elements in the prayers that would suggest they were from a Catholic.

Therefore I would rather not get them.

-- Mike H. (beginasyouare@hotmail.com), October 08, 2003.


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