Does Praying for the Persecuted Really Help? 

By Dr. Greg Cochran, ICC FellowNot long ago, CNN published an article regarding the cultural emptiness of the phrase “Thoughts and prayers are with you.” Beyond a massive collage of memes equating the phrase with garbage, emptiness, or inaction, the CNN piece argued that — as a phrase — “thoughts and prayers” has reached the point of semantic satiation.   “Semantic satiation is the phenomenon in which a word or phrase is repeated so often it loses its meaning. But it also becomes something ridic