Reconstructing Prayer

Beyond Deconstructing Your Faith

Andrew Ray Williams

Foreword by A. J. Swoboda

Reconstructing Prayer

Beyond Deconstructing Your Faith

Copyright © 2023 Andrew Ray Williams. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-6667-3824-7

hardcover isbn: 978-1-6667-9868-5

ebook isbn: 978-1-6667-9869-2

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Williams, Andrew Ray, author. | Swoboda, A. J., foreword writer.

Title: Reconstructing prayer : beyond deconstructing your faith / Andrew Ray Williams; foreword by A. J. Swoboda.

Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023 | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: isbn 978-1-6667-3824-7 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-6667-9868-5 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-6667-9869-2 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Prayer—Christianity. | Theology, Doctrinal—Popular works.

Classification: BV210.2 .W495 2023 (print) | BV210 (ebook)

April 28, 2023 1:46 PM

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Table of Contents

• Title Page

• Foreword

• Acknowledgments

• Introduction

• Chapter 1: God Is Great and Good

• Chapter 2: Guests of God

• Chapter 3: God and Everything

• Chapter 4: Protected by God

• Chapter 5: Delivered by God

• Chapter 6: Surrounded by God

• Postscript: What Next?

• Works Cited

To my children—Adelaide, Audrey, & Anderson

Foreword

For the better part of the last four years, I’ve given nearly entirely my research and writing attention to the work of understanding what is happening in the hearts and minds of people who are seeking to follow Jesus in the West. In particular my efforts have centered on capturing the heart of what people mean when they say they are “deconstructing” and “doubting” their faith.

What I’ve found has surprised me. Many, no doubt, do actually intend to mean that they are deconverting from their faith when they use this language. That is most certainly afoot in many parts of the church of today’s world. But more often than not, language of doubt and deconstruction is window dressing for what is really going on.

It’s not that many of us are not believing in Jesus anymore. It is that we are believing in Jesus and it is way harder than we thought it would be. We are, in the words of the apostle, to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:2). The trembling is hard. Being shaken is no fun. But it is part of the process. Because of the challenges we face in loving the God that is, we often resort to recreating him in our image. Too often—when ...