Thoughts on “Every Eye Beholds You: A World Treasury of Prayer” – Thomas J. Craughwell (ed.)

I bought this book many years ago when I belonged to one of those book-of-the-month clubs. When I first read it, I recall being somewhat disappointed with it, but I decided to re-read it as a sort of daily meditation, reading a prayer each morning. I have to say that I was as disappointed this time as I was the first time.

So here is my problem with this book. While it purports to be a collection of prayers from diverse traditions, it is so heavily slanted towards Christian prayers that it fails to give other traditions equal treatment. For example, Catholicism is the tradition with the most prayers in the book. The second place goes to Eastern Orthodox Christian prayers. Then factor in all the Protestant prayers, and what you have is essentially a book of Christian prayers interspersed with prayers from Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, etc.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking Christianity. But I am criticizing this book and the way it is presented. If you are advancing a text as a survey of world prayers, then you should provide a balance. Splitting up a collection of Christian prayers up into Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox and saying you are providing a “world treasury” of prayers is basically a bait and switch.

Anyway, I’m thinking this book will be in the next box that finds its way to Goodwill. I have way too many books to allow this one to take up precious space on my shelves.