But others are more directly dismissive of the “thoughts and prayers” project—brazenly deriding prayer as impotent, a waste of time (looking at you, Neil deGrasse Tyson, George Takei, Michael Ian Black…). People claim they’re praying, bad stuff happens nonetheless, and skeptics take this as proof it’s futile. This should strike an orthodox Christ-follower as odd, but it’s a perfect read on the pulse of modern notions of “spirituality”. We live in an increasingly syncretistic culture, one where Christian trappings share a bed with Eastern mysticism, New Age superstition, and bland, inclusive Deism blithely claiming Jesus as its mascot (cf. Oprah). The stumbling block that emerges from this is a confusion of what actual prayer is–a theological chimera in which prayer is unwittingly identified with magic. This point cannot be stressed enough: a prayer is not a spell. People who are into the so-called “metaphysical” (check your local bookstore…or don’t.) speak of “putting good thoughts” or “sending positive vibes” out into the universe. This isn’t prayer. It’s paganism. It shows up in the nonsensical expression “sending prayers your way”–that’s meaningless. If I end up in the ICU, please don’t send prayers my way. Flowers, balloons, Amazon gift cards are more than welcome; but I can’t do a thing with your prayer for the simple reason that I’m not God. Send prayers “up”, not sideways. This sort of muddled thinking gets us hacky phrases like “thoughts and prayers”, and it implies to the skeptical world that we’re just another cult. The so-called “power of prayer” is a gross misnomer. Certainly, the Bible tells us, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power…” (James 5:16), but it doesn’t mean the prayer is inherently effective in some supernatural way; it’s stating that a righteous person–one who knows the one true God well by faith–receives a bountiful return on their time in the prayer closet because the all-powerful God of the universe graciously answers them in accordance with His will. The pray-er is powerless; the Lord is all.