Christian -- Perhaps Not So

I am a faith-filled person.

I have situations in my life that I would like upheld in prayer.

It astounds me, at times.  "The more things change, the more they
remain the same."

I started to sign on to a site for prayer.  I backed away when they
required a credit card and minimum $9.00 payment to enact such a
request.

A huge impetous in the Protestant Reformation was a contention that the
Catholic Church in effect "sold" prayer:  particularly plenary
indulgences [for those unfamiliar with the term, it means that if you
paid a set fee and said so many particular prayers, you would receive a
level of forgiveness for sins.]  Some felt this very un-Godlike,
and it was a leading edge in the Protestant Reformation.

Today, nearly ALL of the "new" Christian groups, who reject Catholicism
on various terms, have revived this philosophy of "if you can pay for
prayer, you can have prayer.  But if you can't even afford to pay for
the prayers, then you have no right to expect them."

How anti-Christ-like can that possibly be?  It was those to whom prayer
and other resources were MOST unaffordable that Jesus reached out.

These groups represent themselves as Christian, rejecting the Roman
church [which by the way does more charitable work than almost any other
organization in the world, so some request for financing is justifiable
there], but they charge indiscriminately [therefore even the starving]
a minimum of $9.00 to even have prayers said.

It's a shameful state of affairs.  They reject the Roman church but
practice EXACTLY the sorts of abuses that the original Reformation
Protestants rejected.

And while I believe profoundly in the power of prayer, I don't believe
there is any kind of "power" in any form of prayer which one, in effect,
has to "purchase" with money.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.  These more
"modern" versions of Christianity reject Catholicism [the original, along
with Orthodoxy before the schism] form of Christianity:  yet
they practice precisely those things that could legitimately
get called into question as the source of "protest" against
Catholicism.

We never once, in Scripture, see Jesus "charge" people for prayer.

Doing so is simply wrong, and incompatible with genuine Christianity.