So here’s the situation: James was a bishop of a part of present-day Turkey that was the site of a battle between the (Holy) Romans and the (Infidel) Persians. The Persians were the more powerful army at that time and at that location, and the people of Nisibis said, “Look–you’re supposed to have an ‘in’ with God, right? DO SOMETHING!!!”
James replied that, as a bishop, he “would not pray for the destruction of anyone”; instead, James came up with an alternate plan. He went up to the highest point he could and prayed that God would send down a swarm of gnats and flies upon the Persian army instead. Butler reports that “scarce had the saint spoke those words, when whole clouds of gnats and flies came pouring down upon the Persians” and these insects got into the eyes and ears and mouths of the soldiers and especially their animals (horses and elephants), stymieing the army. In the hubbub, fires broke out, pestilence came in (all those flies, you know?) and death “carried off a great part of the army.”
Of course, James of Nisibis is presented as a Moses-like figure, calling for God to again send a plague of flies and gnats upon the enemy. But…really….what IS the difference between this “Oh, I don’t want to pray for anyone to be destroyed–that seems un-Christian!” and “Well, I will however pray that God intervene and stop our enemies, and then if it means that they die, then God’s will be done!”???
Here is where we dip down into heavy-duty God talk. Here are but some of the questions raised by this “praying for gnats”:
- Does prayer affect the outcome of war? How?
- Does the God you pray to love you and your people more than those this God loves others (especially if they don’t worship God the way you do)?
- Is there a difference between refusing to pray for “the destruction of anyone” and praying that the enemy be stopped and “leaving it up to God”?
- Shouldn’t James of Nibisi have prayed, “O God, change the hearts of these Persians that they should want to create a friendship with us and not be at war?”
- Is “God’s will” ever done on a battlefield? If so, does it mean that God wants the winners to win and the losers to lose?
- If God’s will is done, then why pray–unless it is to acclimate the one doing to praying to accept whatever happens as “God’s will”?
- Can we simultaneously “support our troops” without supporting actions that they take that destroy others? Or, to put it another way, can we ever declaim moral responsibility for troops that act on our behalf?
In fact, questions 2 through 7 really require that we struggle with the first question–itself a variation on whether or how prayer works. Maybe the only way to explore this is to uncover what ideas, perhaps previously unexamined, we have had percolating in our brains.
For example, are we kinda sorta thinking that God has a plan for something specific to happen but, if enough people pray on one side or the other, or if really righteous people pray for a certain outcome, then maybe God will change the Divine plan? Then prayer affects outcomes.
Or do we kinda sorta think that God has no plan and waits to see if anyone bothers to pray about it and then acts? Then prayer affects outcomes.
Or do we kinda sorta think that God makes a decision and then “takes into account” our prayers in deciding whether to execute that decision? Then prayer affects outcomes.
In essence, do we kinda sorta believe that God is like a vending machine–if we put in the correct change and pull the appropriate lever (or key in the correct code), then we can get the prize we want? Did James of Nisibis present the requisite righteousness coupled with the correct prayer and “out came gnats”? Would the Persians have successfully sacked Nisibis if James hadn’t prayed? Or would the gnats and flies have swarmed them anyhow, even had James remained silent?
Clearly it is easy to get lost in the weeds quickly and lose sight of this one question: what effect, if any, does praying have? And what does it do to God or to the one doing the praying when the prayer is the thwarting of others?