Did God Really Save the Miners?

"God Gave Us a Miracle" reads the sign outside a diner in Somerset, Penna. But did He? Did God personally deliver the nine miners trapped 250 feet below ground? Would he have done it even if we hadn't prayed?

"I don't think we got his attention," a friend tells me. "I don't think he said, 'I'm busy over here creating a solar system, but I'll take a minute and help you out.'"

This view of God--that he's a big powerful guy who sometimes pays attention to us--sprouts naturally from what earthly, powerful guys are like. President Bush has no idea who I am, but I could probably find the office at the White House that would generate a card, stamped with the president's signature, for my relative's 100th birthday. Likewise, I can pray that God will "bless" her, a similar vague transmission of good will. If I needed something more urgent-say getting a friend rescued from a foreign jail--I'd have to work harder to get Mr. Bush's attention, but I would surely try, and keep trying. Just as those miners in the dark, and their families above, who were going to pray for rescue, no matter what their theology was the day before the cave-in. You couldn't stop them.

Whether the person in need is Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist (or a Buddhist with a Christian upbringing), this impulse to pray in times of need-whether for strength or actual deliverance is nearly universal. This variety is evident among Beliefnet's prayer circles, in which some users ask for strength and others ask for direct intervention for a job, or a child.

For some, the idea of a God who can be persuaded to turn our way seems to trivialize God, even to insult him. It's too anthropomorphic; instead, they'd say, God must be serene above our crushing pains and desires. He wouldn't care whether the miners' lives end together now or separately a few decades later. He must be similarly immune to requests for a good parking place, a bumper crop of tomatoes, or for Jimmy to ask Shirley to the prom. Given the choice of a floating, impersonal God who doesn't care or a busy executive who might care sometimes, the former clearly has more dignity.

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