The Failed Prayer

     One of the things that struck a blow to my faith was John chapter 17. In the context of this chapter Jesus is giving His disciples His last teachings before He is crucified and then resurrected three days later. After assuring His followers they would be persecuted for following Him and that He would send the "Comforter" or Holy Spirit who would lead them in the truth (another separate issue that struck a blow to my faith as well) He then closes off His last night with His disciples with a prayer. 

   Specifically, He prays that not only His disciples but all those who will believe after them will be united as one. His reasoning for this prayer is essentially that all those who would follow Him would have the same special unity He has with the Father, and that this special unity would show the world who He is (John 17:11, 21-24).

    This is the most clear example of unanswered prayer in the entire Bible or even in the history of Christianity. There are easily thousands of different denominations, with Christians pointing fingers at each other and saying they are right when the other one is wrong concerning their theology. There are Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Churches, Protestant Churches (with subdivisions such as Baptists, Lutherans, Church of Christ, Pentecostals, etc.). It would be easy to find Catholics who believe Protestants are not true Christians and vice versa. In the past Christians have even burned other Christians at the stake for believing "heretical" doctrines. There is no "Christian" church, there are thousands of separate churches that call themselves Christians and have anything but unity among themselves. There is plenty of backbiting, finger pointing, and vindictiveness, but no unity. God the Father either didn't care to answer Jesus's prayer or He is not powerful enough to do so. 

    There are ad hoc explanations given to save this claim from the clear contradictory evidence, such as it is because of personality differences among individuals, or that it is just disagreements among secondary doctrines but Christians still all believe the same core fundamental beliefs, etc. What these points attempt to deflect from however, is that no matter what the origin or origins of the disunity among Christians are, Jesus's prayer is still the most epicly failed prayer that has ever happened in the history of Christendom. Even if personality differences do lead to divisions which is certainly realistic and I have no doubt happens, it is equally as clear that much if not the majority of the division comes from God not making His truth clear to all believers, thus making Him the main culprit for the division in the first place. Christians do not all universally believe in the core tenets of Christianity either, such as the Holy Trinity, Christ shedding His blood as an atonement for sin, salvation is by faith alone through grace, etc. There are disagreements on whether or not Christ's death was even necessary for the forgiveness of sins, or what the nature of the Trinity is or even if there is a trinity, or if Christians must do good works in addition to their faith to attain salvation. To say only true Christians believe these doctrines is to not only create ad hoc fallacies but to add the logical fallacy of a no true scotsman fallacy as well.

    This failed prayer also seems to demonstrate how human the Bible really is. Nearly all of the disunity and disagreements in the Christian faith have sprung from the Bible. My immediate question was, would God really give us a book that causes so much confusion and disunity? Wouldn't He have at least made the book much less ambiguous? For that matter, why was the Bible even necessary if we were being given a Holy Spirit to lead and teach us the truth of God's way (1 John 2:27)? Given how off-kilter the Bible clearly is as is, this prayer certainly puts the nail in the coffin regarding any kind of idea that the Bible is a divinely inspired love-letter from God Himself.

    Another very interesting point with this failed prayer is how it shows that even Jesus couldn't follow His own teaching. Jesus says emphatically multiple times that if you ask anything you shall receive  (Matthew 7:7-12), and that 1 John 5:14 says if we ask anything according to His will He hears us. Yet here Jesus, the Son of God Himself, is praying for unity among those who would follow Him and His prayer has clearly gone unanswered. Although He says in Matthew chapter 7 that a father would not give a snake to a son that is asking for bread and so the Father surely wouldn't do the same with those who ask of Him, it seems very clear that God the Father did in fact give Jesus a snake when He asked for bread. If Jesus's own prayer can't hold up to His teachings, why should we follow Him at all?