Appropriate and Inappropriate Prayer

     Are all prayers appropriate? A prayer that petitions God to cancel another person's freedom of choice so that (s)he behaves in a particular way violates the biblical tenet of human freedom. Prayers that ask God alone to do certain deeds that are human responsibilities are inappropriate. As biblical scholar Oscar Cullmann wrote, "Certainly all prayer is to be condemned which fails to engage in action when action is still possible. That is the wrong kind of prayer. According to the New Testament, by contrast the right kind of prayer leads us to act." With regard to prayers during crises, Cullmann notes, "Certainly those who pray only when they are in distress are to be condemned." [from "Human Weakness and Prayer" in Oscar Cullmann's Prayer In The New Testament (1994), pp. 125f.]