I enjoyed the prayers offered at the events surrounding Barack Obama’s inauguration, and felt they captured what Phillips Brooks once described as “the communication of truth through personality.” So it was interesting to read a British perspective from the Telegraph Online by George Pitcher who puts forward the argument that American public prayer is a political act and that a more reserved public prayer life may be more authentic to the British taste.
American public prayer is a political act. Listen to Pastor Warren or Rev. Lowery – or Bishop Gene Robinson at the gig on Sunday – and they are issuing political manifestos; heralding a new political order, telling us their society is still racist or demanding equal rights for gays and lesbians.
They are not gathering the thoughts and prayers of their congregation, as we might in Britain, and offering them up to God. They are making a statement. They are telling God which way is up.
We may be increasingly familiar with this style in some of our more evangelical churches over here. The prayer leader who prays very fast on our behalf, impeaching the Almighty to make us see that we need to give more generously to aid projects in Africa and a more Christ-centred approach to Sunday school.
But generally, prayers rooted in a more diffident Anglican style are meditative aids and those who say them publicly are performing an act of Christian leadership, shepherding but not commanding.
We often envy American devotion and commitment to faith. But we may underestimate quiet, prayerful witness, uncontaminated by politics. The psalm says “Be still and know that I am God.” A more reserved public prayer life may even be more authentic.
I wonder. Isn’t the petition, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” just a tad politcal in scope? Read the entire column here.
