Examining the most important prayer ever prayed

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

This begins a new series and a bit of a departure from most of my nearly 240 posts on Medium. They have mostly dealt with questions of faith and science but dipping into philosophy, biology, comparative religions and theology — even social commentary a time or two. If there is an overall theme it is asking the most basic questions of what is real, and what is true. The assumption or presumption behind most of these is that the belief system of physicalism is wrong. They promote the idea that reality and truth are based on transcendence and an involvement of that “something more” in our universe. This approach I have called Top Down.

Not just for believers

Now we begin a series on prayer, specifically the prayer that Jesus taught his friends and followers. But my hope is that this will be of interest not just to orthodox or traditional Christians but to those who hold a wide variety of views on the craftsman-teacher from Nazareth. This approach will recognize that some believe Jesus was a political leader aiming for a Jewish rebellion against Rome. Others believe he was a great moral teacher but not divine. More traditional believers see in this prayer a powerful revelation emanating from the ineffable One, the ground of being. This is the message from a transcendent realm conveyed through a humble workman, a miracle…