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| Ronald McDonald in Bangkok |
Is it OK to McPray? Yes.
Is McPraying the kind of thing the Scriptures are talking when it comes to praying? No.
The answer is no because praying is a relationship, not a duty, and not something we pull out of our hip pocket in an emergency. Biblical praying is pure, which means (acc. to Soren Kierkegaard) it "wills one thing." Jesus-type praying is monocular and single-minded. As Jesus said, "Blessed are the mono-taskers, for they shall see God."
The prayer relationship with God should be like a good marriage. McMarriages are shallow, disconnected, and troubled. So is multi-tasked McSpirituality.
But... didn't Brother Lawrence legitimate praying while doing the dishes? (See his The Practice of the Presence of God.) Yes... but remember that Brother Lawrence lived in a monastery that had daily, structured times of corporate and monocular praying. Out of much individual and corporate praying flows, inexorably, dish-washing praying. But the latter is not a substitute for the former; the former is ontologically antecedent to the latter.
No praying person in the Bible or in church history would have concluded that real praying was like a microwave. Real praying is a slow-cooker. Because praying is engagement in relationship with God. All real relationship requires much time, space, and focus.
