So the past couple of days on ANF there have been a handful of threads on the subject of whether or not it was okay to say "I'll Pray For You" to an atheist. The threads quickly got contentious and as I came in during the contention, as opposed to during the discussion, I got a little turned around and ended up owing some people apologies. I was also primarily defending the act of praying for atheists, which I do unashamedly. (Not as a group, mind. There are just atheists I know who I pray for. Because they're MY atheists, and that's what I do.)
The issue was not whether or not we should pray for Atheists, though. The issue was whether or not it was okay to tell an atheist that you are going to pray for them. I got a little worried about my initial reaction when I realized the following things:
A: Promising prayer where it was not requested is one of the most aggressively religious things someone can do,
B: The Bible literally tells you NOT to make a public showing of when and about what you will be praying,
C: If you find yourself in an argument arguing why someone SHOULD like the thing they are telling you they don't like, odds are you are in the wrong and making yourself more so with every word.
Again, I'm not telling you not to pray. Pray all day, pray without ceasing. But the act of TELLING someone you will be, when they did not request it, is something that probably should be done only under very specific circumstances, such as they asked for those prayers in the past and appreciated knowing that you gave them.
Because, as I have said a thousand times over, prayer is not hacking the universe for a preferred response. It's not magic we're doing, simply communication. Put that way, walking up to a non-believer and saying you'll pray for them is eerily similar to saying: "Hey, sorry about that problem you have. I am going to go tell this guy you don't know and potentially makes you nervous about it."
It doesn't matter that that guy can help... it's not going to be a comfort because they don't know him, and if their only comfort in that scenario is the fact that they don't believe he actually exists, all point has basically been removed from the statement. Sure, it is probably nice to know that someone is thinking of you, but it takes some mental gymnastics to get there, and those gymnastics, by necessity, require a little patting of the believer on the head thinking, "Well, THAT'S cute," which is hardly good for the relationship.
If they know you are believer, and know that you care for them, they will probably know that you are also praying for them. It really SHOULD just be assumed, and in so doing we can take our well meant prayers and divorce them from a comment that is often loaded with unkind subtext, such as "Oh, I'll pray for you (to get struck by lightning)" or "I'll pray for you (because you're clearly a lost wreck.)"
So again, pray, pray, pray. Even for the Atheists in your life who you love and care for. But unless people are asking for it, there's probably no need to tell them about it. Instead, skip the beating around the bush and just tell them that you love them. If they know that, they can figure out the rest on their own.
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