Ain't Too Proud to Beg

<DIV>Karl Barth's legendary image of preaching with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other now has a matching image for praying. In <I>Ain't Too Proud to Beg</I> Telford Work encourages praying with a social documentary in one hand and the Lord's Prayer in the other. The result is neither a commentary on the Lord's Prayer nor a theology of prayer. Instead it is an exercise book that uses prayer to strengthen our theological muscles.<br><br> Work proposes that we take whatever is happening in our world -- a political election or the latest war will do -- and set the Lord's Prayer in the middle of it. Let that prayer shed light on the scene and expose what matters. Then <I>pray</I> it. Then look again and see how the prayer is a response to what matters. These three movements give structure to the book as a whole and to each chapter within it. Prayed this way the Lord's Prayer is always new and never quite the same.<br><br> Ecumenical evangelical postmodern and irenic in tone <I>Ain't Too Proud to Beg</I> ends not with a neat scholarly wrap-up but with an open-ended Amen -- three sparkling joyful sermons -- a fitting ending to Work's provocative exploration of prayer as a theological process.</DIV>