Taking a jab at the clergy who were praying for flood relief this week was an easy shot. Here’s a tougher one: Anne Sluti’s friends, school talk about her release
A friend of the teen who was kidnapped and then released by fugitive Anthony Zappa evidently said, “Don’t say prayer doesn’t help. It’s a miracle she’s safe.” Quotes like these supposedly make an uplifting news story all the more so, but alongside this story is another one that creates a problem: Search for missing children at a standstill
If these little guys are found dead, what are we to say? Prayers only help sometimes? The parents and relatives and friends didn’t pray hard enough? How about the parents and relatives of all the other kids who’ve been kidnapped and later found dead, despite their fervant prayers?
I’m not dismissing the possibility (though I’m definitely doubtful) that prayers could provide a source of inspiration or power or strength to the people being prayed for, no matter how far away they might be. It could even be that someone’s prayers for kidnapper Zappa were instrumental in his surrendering, e.g., “Tony, if you can hear me, please find the strength within you to surrender and let that girl go.” But this has nothing to do with God as a deity deciding to get involved or not.