Prayer and Suffering

The developments in modern medicine mean we longer tolerate the same levels of physical suffering brought about through ill health. Expectations have changed and today we constantly search for new and better ways of alleviating pain or avoiding suffering. Secondly, through the changing role of the media, there's growing awareness of the extent of human suffering.

Whilst sitting comfortably in our living rooms we frequently encounter the horror of violence and natural disasters. Knowledge of the magnitude of human suffering on a much larger scale than previously makes us increasingly uncomfortable, for it sits uneasily alongside our concept of a loving and caring God. And thirdly, traditional Christian responses to suffering are being challenged by minority groups such as disabled people, black people and women. Such contemporary theologies highlight a danger in the glorification of suffering or even of finding meaning in images of suffering. They argue that this kind of religious justification can reinforce the subjugation of oppressed groups and prevent the search for positive social change.

So, for example, women when they're denied basic human rights, black people when they experience the humiliation of racism or disabled people when they live with the indignities of society's inability to accept them; all these groups, and others, sometimes find their suffering given subtle religious justification on the basis that to suffer is essentially good: it builds character, purges and brings us closer God. It is possible to see how such a defence of suffering might perpetuate cycles of abuse and even violence both in the perpetrator and in the victim. These misgivings about the role of suffering in Christianity are important challenges to conventional theology and should be taken seriously.

Nevertheless, despite reservations, suffering persists as a significant theme within Christianity and rightly so. For ultimately at the centre of Christianity is ...