Prayer Is Social Action

by John Robb with Larry Wilson

Seven years ago, a giant tree stood on the banks of the Awash River, in an arid valley about two hours' drive southeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It had stood there for generations, seemingly eternal.

For years, the people who lived in the surrounding district had suffered through famines because they were unable to bring water to the higher level of the surrounding land. Unable to grow adequate food, countless numbers suffered and died.

In their suffering, the people looked to the tree for help. Believing a spirit gave it divine powers, they worshipped the towering giant. Adults would kiss the great trunk when they passed by, and they spoke of the tree in hushed, reverential tones. Children said, "This tree saved us."

In 1989, World Vision began a development project there, including an irrigation system to make the valley's parched earth bloom for the first time. But even as they labored to build the system, the great tree stood like a forbidding sentinel of the old order, presiding over the community, enslaving the people through fear. For spirits need to be propitiated with animal sacrifices and strict observance of taboos. In this way the tree's spirit ensured its continued grip on the mentality of the community, threatening the whole process of transformation so crucial to the people's future health and development.

When World Vision workers saw how the villagers worshipped the tree, they knew it was as an idolatrous barrier to the entrance of Christ's kingdom and transformation of the community.

One morning as the staff prayed together, one of Jesus' promises struck them: "If you have faith, you can say to this tree, 'Be taken up and removed' . . . and it will obey you." In faith, they began to pray that God would bring down the menacing goliath.

Soon the whole community knew the Christians were praying about the tree. Six months later, the tree began to dry up, its leafy foliage disappeared, and finally it collapsed like a stricken giant into the river.

The people of the community were astonished, proclaiming, "Your God has done this! Your God has dried up the tree!" In the days and weeks afterwards, approximately 100 members of the community received Jesus Christ because they saw his power displayed in answer to the Christians' prayers.

Evangelism, Social Action - and Prayer

For years, Christians have divided themselves over the most effective means of transforming our world: verbal proclamation of the gospel - witnessing - or social action. In truth, the two cannot be separated. Without both, there is simply no Good News. And one thing ties them both together: prayer to a God of temporal justice and eternal salvation.

Traditionally, many evangelicals have been quite comfortable praying for the salvation of friends, family, and even people groups. But some of us still don't pray enough for justice for the oppressed, economic opportunity for the poor, or protection for the powerless. We thank God for providing us food at dinner, yet do not ask him to feed those who are starving. After 11 years of combining evangelism and economic development among the world's poor through World Vision, I can say there is no holistic transformation of people apart from united intercession by God's people.

Wherever in the world there is significant development - people coming to Christ, health improvements, economic opportunities, adoption of kingdom values - it is the direct result of Christians praying.

In Matthew 18, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven."

In God's kingdom, prayer is social action.

The Spirituality of Social Problems

As we seek to help the poor and stand against injustice, we forget that we are also standing against Principalities and Powers. Since the garden of Eden, humans have cooperated with Satan and his evil spirits to gain control over individuals and societies, leading to widescale famine, disease, poverty, slavery, injustice, and suffering. Whenever we try to help the victims of these tragedies, we enter a fray involving the great socio-spiritual forces that rule the world's massive institutions, social structures, and systems.

Satan and the Powers are dedicated to destroying human beings made in the image of God. Satan is the master deceiver and the author of idolatry, seeking to dominate the world by undermining faith in God, twisting values, and promoting false ideologies. He does this by infiltrating institutions, governments, communications media, educational systems, and religious bodies, and uses these to seduce humankind to worship money, fame, success, power, pleasure, science, art, politics, and religious idols.

Throughout much of the Old Testament, Satan induced Israel to abandon God and worship the false gods of the Egyptians, Amorites, Canaanites, Edomites - and they suffered God's promised consequences: oppression, slavery, foreign invasion, and poverty, (Judges 6:6; 10:6-16; Deuteronomy 28). The same sin and its consequences afflict the world today. Northern India is one of the world's darkest areas. Indians estimate there may be more than 300 million gods there. Kali, the goddess of destruction, is a regional deity worshipped in Calcutta, West Bengal. Anyone who has been to Calcutta has seen the devastating impact she and those who worship her have made upon the city's people.

Elsewhere in the world, the occult is behind some of the most brutal injustices of this century. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge - who killed as many as 2 million people in the 1970s - were based at two occult strongholds in the north where Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and regeneration, and Naga, the serpent god, are worshipped. And during Liberia's recent civil war, SIM missionaries reported that "armies" of children practiced juju - a kind of African magic or witchcraft - to gain power. They would wear fetishes, call spirits to come into them, get drunk, and then murder whole villages of innocent people.

Powers Affect the World

Such brutality and oppression - and their connection to spiritual powers - is not peculiar to the Third World. Talking to Christian leaders in Bosnia last year, I learned that Croats, Serbs, and Muslims - including many of their religious leaders - practice sorcery and black magic.

In the United States, we have suffered the likes of Charles Manson, Jim Jones, and the Branch Davidians - obvious examples of demonic influence. Theologian Walter Wink also sees demonic infiltration of the CIA, government administration, and armed forces to ensure continued U.S. political and economic dominance over weaker nations. Commenting on the blind allegiance so many citizens give to national self-interest, Wink writes, "What makes nationalism so pernicious, so death-dealing, so blasphemous is its seemingly irresistible tendency toward idolatry. In the name of this idol, whole generations are maimed, slaughtered, exiled, and made idolaters. One hundred million lives have been offered on the altar of this Moloch thus far in the 20th century."

Referring to 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, Francis Frangipane, an Iowa pastor, wrote in his book The Three Battlegrounds, "There are satanic strongholds over countries and communities, churches and individuals. . . These fortresses exist in the thought patterns and ideas that govern individuals . . . communities, and nations. Before victory can be claimed, these strongholds must be pulled down, and Satan's armor removed. Then the mighty weapons of the Word and the Spirit can effectively plunder Satan's house."

Through prayer we participate with God to demolish strongholds, establish his kingdom, and change the world.

Praying Against the Powers

In Revelation 4:1-8:6, John describes a God-given vision of mankind's history. It is filled with images of God and celestial beings interacting with each other and with mankind. In these verses, the Lamb of God opens seven seals, each affecting the history of the world. By the end of chapter 7, all of heaven is singing and worshipping God, wondering what will happen next in this unleashing of human history.

At the beginning of chapter 8, however, they all fall silent. Seven angels with seven trumpets stand before God, ready to announce the unfolding fate of the world. But they must wait as an eighth angel offers God incense and all the prayers of the saints - prayers for justice, vindication, and victory. Nothing can happen until these prayers reach the nostrils of God.

"What happens next happens because people prayed," Wink says. "The message is clear: History belongs to the intercessors, who believe the future into being. . . God works with us and for us, to make and keep human life humane. And what God does depends on the intercessions of those who care enough to try to shape a future more humane than the present."

The apostle Paul emphasized, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms," (Ephesians 6:12). In this struggle, prayer is the decisive weapon, and it is often aggressive and violent. Karl Barth said, "To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world." The structures and forces of injustice, oppression, and war are so overwhelming, all our efforts to help the poor and needy will fall flat - unless we first invite God into the fray. Until we achieve victory in prayer, engaging the outer world is hopeless.

I'm not saying that prayer is all that is necessary to change the world. For too long, too many evangelical Christians believed prayer is a substitute for action, dumping on God the responsibility for doing what he already commanded us to do throughout Scripture. But neither is social action a substitute for prayer.

Praying a Desirable Future

West Africa is one of the poorest regions in the world. Few people are literate, political oppression is rampant, and Christians are often persecuted. Several years ago, Nathan, a young agriculturalist, visited one of these countries to study its agricultural practices.

Over the next year, Nathan fell in love with a specific group of people he studied. He wanted to reveal God's love to them by helping them agriculturally to alleviate some of their suffering. As a Christian, he knew that only prayer would enable them to see that love for what it was.

After returning home, Nathan prayed daily for that group of people, and for Christians who were trying to help them. Specifically, he prayed that a Christian organization would start a development project among them. One Sunday as he prayed, he felt especially attuned to God's Spirit. "I felt that whatever I asked that day, God would give me," he says, "so I asked for everything I had already been praying for, and then some."

Fifteen years after he had left the country, Nathan returned to visit the people he had been praying so long for. He discovered that a Christian organization had established a community development project in the very center of the region he had prayed for, and its work went far beyond his own prayers. People's lives were being changed. They were even becoming more receptive to God's love.

Doug Barnett, a World Vision technical advisor in West Africa, says, "Who knows how many of our Christian development activities have been bathed in prayer ahead of time by saints like Nathan? Although we may never see firsthand the results of our prayers, we might be surprised by what can happen."

Prayer Changes the World There are at least three ways that God honors our prayers to change the world.

Prayer breaks through the false dominion of the enemy.

In Mark 9, as Jesus prepared to exorcise an evil spirit, he said, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but by prayer." If this holds true for the demonization of individuals, does it not also hold true for the spiritual oppression of societies?

Satan's main goal is to keep God from being glorified on earth. He hates God, and he hates human beings, who are made in God's image. Through culture, television, drugs, and even some religious practices, Satan and his minions influence the hearts and minds of people worldwide.

In Latin America, West Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, people are deeply afraid of these spirits and look for ways to protect themselves through amulets, elaborate rituals and festivals, or witch doctors Not surprisingly, these protections can be very expensive, contributing to the poverty and oppression of the poor.

In addition, by affecting what you believe, Satan can influence what happens to you. In Hinduism, for example, the idea of fate imprisons millions of people in spiritual and economic poverty. Fate determines the caste you are born into. If you are born into a poor caste, you probably will not try to better your life by becoming an attorney or an accountant. Fate cannot be overcome.

That's a Satanic stronghold, a deception that keeps people in bondage and impoverished, and keeps them from progressing. The New Testament calls this an act of war, a spiritual war in which spiritual weapons can help liberate people groups, cities, and nations from the powers of darkness. That is why united prayer is so important for the breaking of this demonic bondage.

In Mark 3:27, Jesus said, "No one can enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house." Satan is not going to let go of individuals or a people group without a fight, and he must be dealt with before people can overcome that dominion. Paul said the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers. So you've got to remove that resistance, that false dominion from a society if you want to see economic or spiritual transformation. Holistic transformation will not happen without united prayer.

Prayer changes us and leads us to act.

"Social action without prayer is souless; but prayer without action lacks integrity," Wink says. As we pray for social change, the Holy Spirit begins to transform us, and we find ourselves getting involved in social ministries. It's as if God returns our prayers as a kind of divine command to become the answer to our prayers.

In 1992, after the Los Angeles riots surrounding the Rodney King verdict, 40 pastors in Fresno, Calif., starting meeting once a month to pray for the hurting people of their city. Soon they started praying with laypeople and Christian civic leaders from the tops of city buildings overlooking the urban landscape. They met in a different location each month, including city hall, the rescue mission, the county jail , high schools, the school district office, the International Trade Center, and Fresno Pacific College.

As all these Christians "got out of their churches and into the community," they saw, understood, and began responding to its needs, says Jim Westgate, a professor at Mennonite Brethren Bible Seminary in Fresno. Today more than 6,000 evangelical Christians are involved in Fresno's inner-city ministries.

Through Christ's redemption, human stewardship over the earth is being restored. And through prayer, we as his redeemed people reassert our God-given dominion over the world, ruling and reigning with Christ. Through believing prayer, we open the door for God's intervention in our troubled world, and open ourselves up to become part of God's answer to that world of need.

Prayer leads to spiritual transformation.

God cares whether people are hungry or sick, whether they have clean water - about all the things they have to contend with. For that reason, World Vision is committed to transforming communities and infusing them with the values and qualities of the kingdom of God: love, civic responsibility, caring for one another, economic development. But more than that, we work for the spiritual transformation of these communities. We know that apart from a change in people's hearts, there will be no outward change. Unless people move toward the kingdom of God and become citizens of that kingdom, espousing its values, we will see little change in their outward lives.

This kind of change is not possible apart from conversion - people coming to faith in Jesus Christ. So evangelism is extremely important. And prayer must go hand in hand with sharing the good news.

United prayer weakens and pushes back the spiritual darkness blinding countries, towns, and individuals, enabling them to hear and see the good news of Jesus Christ. United prayer opens hearts to a new way of living, and when hearts are changed, so are the communities in which people live.

History Belongs to Intercessors

According to Scripture, intercessory prayer is the key to fulfilling God's gracious purpose for the peoples of the earth. In Psalm 2, God said, "Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession." Through Ezekiel, God said he looks for someone to "stand in the gap" before him. And through Isaiah, the Lord said he posts watchmen on Jerusalem's walls who will "never be silent day or night," giving themselves and the Lord no rest "till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth."

We live in an age when people often pray small prayers and have limited expectations of God. Perhaps they believe he does not really care about the world's suffering. Perhaps they doubt his willingness to interfere in our temporal injustices. Maybe some people even believe him impotent. But I believe history belongs to the intercessors, those willing to believe that God is bigger than our suffering, those willing to believe that his power is more than able to answer to the world's needs, those willing to confront him with their God-given vision of a society full of justice, health, and love.

John Robb directs the Unreached Peoples Program for World Vision's Missions Advanced Research and Communications Center in Monrovia, Calif.

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