Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief

A New Vision of How and Why We Pray, and How We Might Move Beyond Conventional Prayer, Prayer is an essential part of the daily lives of many people. Some believe this practice connects them with God, a cosmic force, the universe or life itself. Others engage in the act of prayer as a traditional ritual from which they neither demand nor expect results. Many of these people cannot imagine living without prayer. Many others, however, consider the idea of praying regularly as nothing more than a waste of time. In Amen, Gretta Vosper examines these diverse positions in light of the harsh realities of unanswered prayer, the secular critique of supernatural intervention, and the need for a sense of ownership of the suffering in the world. Can we draw from prayer useful principles for addressing human and global needs? Or should we get up from our knees and live out the answers we seek? Vosper, a United Church minister and the author of the controversial bestseller With or Without God, delivers a deeply felt examination of worship beyond conventional prayer and offers us a new tradition that can rise above the beliefs that divide.