Ain't Too Proud to Beg

Theology professor Telford Work takes the Lord's Prayer out of devotional isolation and holds it up against the noise of the contemporary world — wars, elections, spiritual doubt after 9/11. The book's frame of an ongoing email exchange with a skeptical friend named Cammassia gives it an unusual honesty; Work never pretends faith comes easy. Each chapter closes with a reflective sermon, and the book ends on an open Amen rather than a tidy resolution — which is either refreshing or frustrating depending on what you came for. Pastors and seminary students will find the ecumenical, postmodern approach stimulating. General readers wanting straightforward prayer instruction may struggle with the academic vocabulary and the deliberately unresolved tone.