Analyzing Prayer Theological and Philosophical Essays

Analyzing Prayer draws together a range of theologians and philosophers to deal with different approaches to prayer as a Christian practice. The essays included deal with issues pertaining to petitionary prayer, prayer as reorientation of oneself in the presence of God, prayer by those who do not believe, liturgical prayer, mystical prayer, whether God prays, the interrelation between prayer and various forms of knowledge, theologizing as a form of prayer, lament and prayer, prayer and God's presence, and even prayer and the meaning of life. The volume contains cutting-edge studies on a neglected topic of theological study that contributes to the broadening of themes tackled by analytic theology.

1 - Petitionary Prayer and Pride
2 - Interceding for the Lost: On the Effectiveness of Petitioning God for Human Salvation
3 - Are You There, God? It's Me, the Theist: On the Viability and Virtue of Non-Doxastic Prayer
4 - Praying in the Name of Christ: Friedrich Schleiermacher's 'Mystical' Account of Prayer
5 - Prayer as Complaint
6 - Toward an Account of Lamenting Well
7 - Theology in the Second Person: Christian Dogmatics as a Mode of Prayer
8 - Does God Pray?
9 - Blessing God as Pledge of Allegiance: A Speech Act Theoretic Approach
10 - Knowing as you are Known: Prayer in the Presence of God
11 - Prayer as the Road to Self-Knowledge
12 - Prayer and the Meaning of Life

Oliver D. Crisp is the Professor of Analytic Theology and Director of the Logos Institute for Analytic and Exegetical Theology. He joined the Divinity School in the autumn of 2019, having previously taught at Fuller Theological Seminary in California (2011-2019), the University of Bristol (2006-2011), and St Andrews (2002-2004). He has also held postdoctoral research fellowships at the Center for Philosophy of Religion, University of Notre Dame (2004-5; 2019), and the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton (2008-9). Crisp is the author of over a dozen books and over a hundred journal articles. James M. Arcadi is Associate Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, USA. He is author of An Incarnational Model of the Eucharist (2018), co-author of The Nature and Promise of Analytic Theology (2019), and author of essays in such journals as Scottish Journal of Theology, Religious Studies, and Journal of Theological Interpretation. He is co-editor of Love: Divine and Human: Contemporary Essays in Systematic and Philosophical Theology (2019) and The T&T Clark Handbook of Analytic Theology (2021). Ordained in the Anglican Church in North America, he has served in parishes in Massachusetts, California, and Illinois. Jordan Wessling is Assistant Professor of Religion at Lindsey Wilson College. His articles have appeared in journals such as the International Journal of Systematic Theology, Faith & Philosophy, Zygon, Theology and Science, and the International Journal of Philosophy of Religion. His book, Love Divine: A Systematic Account of God's Love for Humanity, was published by Oxford University Press in 2021, and, with Oliver Crisp and James Arcadi, he authored The Nature and Promise of Analytic Theology (2019) and edited Love, Divine and Human: Contemporary Essays in Systematic and Philosophical Theology (2019).