An investigation into the phenomena and practices of spiritual ...

Non-academic, or „popular‟ Christian writers such as Munroe (2001:36-37), suggestprayer „is the expression of man‟s relationship with God and participation in hispurposes‟, patterned on the Garden of Eden when God made a practice of walng andtalking with Adam. (Genesis 3). The theologian Stacey (1977) argues that a new kind ofprayer brought Jews and Gentiles together in worship in the corporate life of the earlychurch, and was reckoned to be the privilege of those who had put on Christ and receivedthe Spirit. Prayer is also defined and explored as a declaration of faith as well as toreinforce a personal relationship with a divine or superior being.Some form of prayer is articulated in most religions and cultures which postulate asupernatural deity or deities, although prayer still remains a mysterious activity. to thebeliever, the atheist and the agnostic. Within popular piety, „prayer is the naturallanguage of religious and cultural experiences‟ and nursing authors Hawley and Irurita(1998) suggest this is of value in medical practice.The Christian theologians‟ typologies of prayer feed through into popular religiosity andinfluence patterns of prayer, peoples‟ understandings of how it ought to be done.However natural and spontaneous it may be claimed to be, within these congregationsprayer is an activity both learnt, and consciously theorised. Rice and Huffstattler(2001:111-127) describe prayer as having a fourfold nature; adorationconfession/pardon, thanksgiving and supplication (or petition). Writing morespecifically about the health context in the Journal of Holistic Nursing, Hughes (1997)uses a simpler typology to refer to prayer as supplicative or meditative and infers thatprayer presents as communication with a superior being whose capabilities exceed that ofhuman beings and who is willing to give ear to our supplications. The typology of prayer230