This article diagnoses the difficulty of prayer for young people inhabiting a secular society and offers the beginnings of a theology of prayer for this context. For young people in the United States, our secular age is defined by immanence, excessive positivity, and dynamic stabilization that constitute anxiety as a primary motivator that leads to burnout and exhaustion. Prayer as communion with God offers a corrective that can relieve anxiety and offer renewal. For this, prayer must not be thought primarily as a human action, but a divine action. In prayer, we do not grasp God, we are grasped by God. As such, prayer is a grace young people need, and its teaching must become the primary pastoral vocation in a secular age.
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This article diagnoses the difficulty of prayer for young people inhabiting a secular society and offers the beginnings of a theology of prayer for this context. For young people in the United States, our secular age is defined by immanence, excessive positivity, and dynamic stabilization that constitute anxiety as a primary motivator that leads to burnout and exhaustion. Prayer as communion with God offers a corrective that can relieve anxiety and offer renewal. For this, prayer must not be thought primarily as a human action, but a divine action. In prayer, we do not grasp God, we are grasped by God. As such, prayer is a grace young people need, and its teaching must become the primary pastoral vocation in a secular age.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 337 | 337 | 26 |
Full Text Views | 25 | 25 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 68 | 68 | 1 |