The liberal blogger Hilzoy has a good line:
I would think that people of faith, in particular, should be wary of politicians holding ceremonial observances of National Prayer Day. For one thing, one’s communications with God are intensely personal. If you think of God as a person, and not as a political weapon, the idea of having a ceremony of this kind would be like observing National Have A Serious Talk With Your Spouse Day by having such a talk in front of TV cameras.
Well … yeah. You wouldn’t even have to think of God as a person, just as a force, the Prime Mover, whatever. You would just have to be thinking about God, not how you could PR the masses into having the right attitude toward God.
As a nonbeliever (I settled the question here), I’m always surprised by how easily God slips from the minds of people who say they believe in Him/Her/It. If I believed in Him/Her/It, I’d believe 24-7. He/She/It would be a really big deal to me.
Good thing I don’t, because who needs the hassle. But to say you believe in God, and then to figure that praying ought naturally to be a photo op, or that you’ll follow this injunction of your faith but not another … it sure looks lame from the outside.
UPDATE: A commenter at the site where Hilzoy posted (it’s the Washington Monthly, no permalink that I can find; the commenter is named Racer X) says the following:
Obama may just be trying to do what Jesus supposedly told us to do; pray in private and avoid the ceremonial prayers of the Pharisees. The bible is extremely clear on the directive, and yet the churches always have violated it.
Okay, but is it ceremonial if everyone is just praying at the same time? And is it in public if they’re at their place of worship and not somewhere in front of nonbelievers? And where did Jesus say whatever Racer X claims he said?
But I’d like to believe Racer X is correct. To me the most interesting thing about religion is the way people can think they believe in it while choosing which bits to ignore.
UPDATE 2: From comments, the Jesus quote and Bible cite. Thanks, Naomi.
Matthew 6:5-6:
“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”
Wow, that seems pretty open and shut. So for 2,000 years, or close, Christians have been gathering together to do what Jesus expressly told them not to do. That’s bizarre. There’s got to be an explanation here. UPDATE 3: Or I would think there had to be an explanation if I hadn’t just said in comments that the “whole thing is weird and inexplicable.”
Okay, this kind of pisses me off. Do people not have any idea that there are other religions besides a handful of related branches of Protestantism?
Prayer, in traditional Judaism (the only religion that I’m intimately familiar with), has always been first and foremost a communal activity. The idea that prayer is by definition a private, one-on-one communication is completely foreign to me.
Thanks for letting me know I’m not religious, Hilzoy!
Well, I don’t think “personal” has to be strictly individual. I gather that Christians pray together in church — “Let us pray.” But bringing tv cameras into the deal changes things. There’s a difference between a group ceremony and a photo op.
It’s public in lots of Protestant denominations too. Quakers, for example. And there’s the whole evangelical thing. You could argue that making a public testimony of your faith is actually sort of required.
Hilzoy’s great when she’s talking about public policy, but I don’t know how much she cares about religion really. Accusing religious people of not living up to their faith for whatever reason seems kind of pointless. Being religious doesn’t make you perfect or any more consistent than anyone else. And, yeah, religious politicians are hypocrites not because they’re religious, but because they’re politicians. It’s kind of in the job description.
Well, to be fair, I do find the concept of National Prayer Day to be kind of weird and squicky. And certainly a prayer event that was staged for the sake of TV cameras is antithetical to the spirit of prayer as I understand it — but I’m not sure the presence of TV cameras at a prayer event is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the event was staged for their benefit.
I do think that Hilzoy introduced the idea of prayer being individual when she compared it to having a serious talk with your spouse. Granted there are polyamorists out there, but to most people, a serious talk with your spouse implies one-on-one. And, despite the existence of chruches, the ideal of individual prayer is well-attested in Christian scriptures, and as far as I can tell in certain streams of Christian thought. Certainly there are a lot of people on the internet who are fond of quoting Matthew 6:5-6:
“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”
My problem is that the ‘hypocrites’ in those verses are my spiritual forbears, and, well, me.
All of this is symptomatic of a larger thing where people of one faith, or no faith, take it upon themselves to lecture people of a different faith on the tenets of the second group’s own faith. It all smacks a bit of mansplaining.
I’d better say this up top: The mistake Hilzoy and I made was to talk about religious belief as if that were synonymous with the majority religious belief in the US, which is Christianity. I can’t speak for her, but if I knew more about religion, and if I had thought an extra 20 seconds, I wouldn’t have made that mistake.
“I’m not sure the presence of TV cameras at a prayer event is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the event was staged for their benefit.”
Well, if a president’s involved, and there are tv cameras, and he’s not just walking down the street or something … I’d lean toward thinking it was staged.
“I do think that Hilzoy introduced the idea of prayer being individual when she compared it to having a serious talk with your spouse. Granted there are polyamorists out there, but to most people, a serious talk with your spouse implies one-on-one.”
Hah, good point. But after all, Obama’s a Christian, so are most of the people criticizing him, so are most of the people who would be edified (or not) by a broadcast of the president with his hands together. What Christians supposedly believe would appear to be the key issue here. But … well, see what I said up top.
“All of this is symptomatic of a larger thing where people of one faith, or no faith, take it upon themselves to lecture people of a different faith on the tenets of the second group’s own faith.”
Hey, I’m not lecturing you about Judaism. What I did was behave as if Judaism (and any other religion that favors group prayer) did not exist. Which was certainly a mistaken thing to do.
But as to lecturing someone else about their beliefs … I might do that. It’s good for people to have their beliefs criticized from the outside.
“despite the existence of chruches, the ideal of individual prayer is well-attested in Christian scriptures, and as far as I can tell in certain streams of Christian thought.”
If it’s certain streams of Christian thought, then is it really the Christian ideal? On the one hand you’ve got a quote from scripture, on the other hand you’ve got all those churches and congregations praying.
To me the interesting thing here is that, to believers, something Jesus said turns out to be just something Jesus said. And some of these same believers give up sex for life because of something St. Paul said (I think). “Hypocrisy” (Noah’s term) ain’t the point. This whole deal is just strange and inexplicable.
The Bible also has Jesus saying, in Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” I always took this to be the reason for churches and Sunday services and so forth. The more the merrier, in other words.
That sounds fine to me, but how do you choose? He says this, he says that, and one of the remarks makes the cut and the other doesn’t.
Often there are traditions (folk, scholarly, theological, sectarian, historical) which help people decide which passages are important and which are less so. In isolation, those preferences can seem bizarre or arbitrary, but in practice they are fairly grounded.
Ultimately, it’s useful to remember that most religious belief isn’t solely of the legalistic variety you’re positing — Jesus said this, so I should do that. Instead, it tends to be built around personal experience of God, or around a tradition, or around some combination of all of those.
Sure, but … that’s all human, and religion is supposed to be divinely based. Somehow human tradition and interpretation outrank the supposed word of the divine being the religion is supposedly organized around.
Sure. But religious people are human too. That’s not a contradiction or confusion in religion. Most religions don’t say, “our practitioners are divine.” Religion sets up ideals, but it doesn’t suggest that by adhering to them you’ll become perfected. Certainly Christianity, which is what your talking about primarily, doesn’t do that. The fact that Christians don’t live up to every word of Christ, or can’t reconcile the contradictions in the Bible, isn’t a refutation of the religion. It’s a confirmation of it, in some ways.
The fact that Christ contradicts himself is a confirmation of Christianity?
Is there any other subject on which people would make a claim like that?
The fact that there are paradoxes that humans can’t understand is, at least, not a refutation of the existence of God.
As for other topics where the same sort of claim is made…sure. Scientific truth claims often rely on assertions of expertise which come down to, “well, you need to be an expert to understand that.” The fact that most people can’t figure it out bolsters the argument; it’s more true, or a deeper truth, because it’s incomprehensible to most folks. The difference is that in science you assume some person understands it, while with religion you assume god does. We could argue back and forth about which is sillier, but the construction of the argument is the same.
It’s worth noting in this context that, in fact, for example, *nobody* really understands how gravity works. But I’d hazard that the vast majority of avowed atheists or agnostics think that *somebody* understands it. They’ve got faith, just as Christians have faith that Jesus’ words make coherent sense. (For that matter, I have a certain amount of faith in both those things.)
“The fact that there are paradoxes that humans can’t understand is, at least, not a refutation of the existence of God.”
Maybe we’d better say one person’s paradox is another’s self-contradiction. God’s son says pray in public, then he says don’t pray in public. To me, that isn’t some Kierkegaardian existential dilemma (if you’ll excuse my namedropping), just a case of crossed wires.
“As for other topics where the same sort of claim is made…sure. Scientific truth claims often rely on assertions of expertise which come down to, ‘well, you need to be an expert to understand that.'”
I think we’re a bit out of alignment here. I wasn’t talking about argument from authority, just the idea that some doctrine is correct because its central figure contradicts himself.
Also, I’d better make clear that I’m agnostic and therefore not arguing against God’s existence. And I’m not saying believers are hypocrites. To me that would imply that the contradictions in their beliefs prove something invidious about the honesty of the people holding the beliefs. Whereas my point is that the beliefs themselves don’t seem to hold together too well.
Anyway, I think this is a case where you and I are walking in different territory. So I will await your response but will also make this my last entry in the discussion, and I hope my flippancy hasn’t been offensive.
One person’s crossed wires is another person’s existential paradox. There are lots and lots of ways to deal with contradictions in the Bible, though. Many Christians don’t believe the text is literally true. There’s textual and historical analysis which tries to figure out which parts of the book are more authentic…and which tries to decipher the original sense, which isn’t always as clear as translations make it, I think. And then there are some things which really are parodoxical; it’s a poetic and prophetic book, after all. And so forth.
I’m agnostic too, and even an atheist, some days.
I think arguments from authority are often essentially arguments that the doctrine is correct because it doesn’t make sense. I think science is as much founded on faith (and often silly faith) as is religion. History too. That doesn’t make any of them wrong, and I happen to believe in science and history more than I do in religion. But belief is central to any truth claim.
I need to get in on these sooner.
I’ll just add that the source quote strikes me as a very American version of religion. From where I sit, the dominant texture is not Christian so much as Southern Baptist– that is, their doctrine of “the individual priesthood of the believer,” which says there’s no church hierarchy, priest, or deacon who gets in between you and God.
In other words, free market religion. If “one’s communications with God are intensely personal” and you don’t like how the snakes are handled, shop around.
Which is a very weird if you’re born into a religion.
“and you don’t like how the snakes are handled, shop around.”
That’s the best quote. You win.
My wife’s family not all that far back actually did handle snakes.
And Tom Spurgeon grew up in a tongues-speaking congregation. A reminder of how little my corner of the world is.
Bill, are you from the South? I was wondering because you’re courtly.
Yeah. But courtly? God forfend!
Tom Spurgeon grew up in a tongues-speaking congregation.Good for him! I like to think that Tom’s got Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the “Prince of Preachers” in his blood.
Bill,
I’d’ve said Protestant generally, rather than just Southern Baptist. I’m an agnostic Unitarian Universalist (raised UU, at that), and although I’m strongly of the opinion that I, a mortal being, cannot know the existence or non-existence of God for certain, I’m quite sure that if God does exist, my relationship with God is entirely between the two of us. That’s not about public versus private worship, though; it’s about my perception of spiritual hierarchy (non-existent), and my idea of what divinity would really constitute (something that would manifest internally, not externally).
The Puritan emphasis on literacy came from the belief in the need to read the Bible individually in order to do your spiritual stuff, not to prepare you to shop around in the denominations; if you read the Bible and came to the wrong conclusions, they kicked you out of the colony and you had to go found Rhode Island, but that wasn’t the idea. I find it quite possible that Protestants do denomination-hop more than other Christians, though, what with that long legacy of sects splintering every time a church couldn’t reconcile with another on some point of doctrine.
Anecdotally, I do see people who born into one religion or another hopping around all the time (usually into UUism, or practicing UUism along with something else, like Reform Judaism), so between that and my deep belief that a relationship with God is personal and private, it doesn’t seem weird to me at all. UUism makes a good denomination of last resort for people who desire spiritual fellowship but who can’t reconcile something with their original church–homosexuality, mixed marriages, disbelief in hell, etc. It’s really been a big deal to most of the people I’ve known, though–they consciously made a switch in how and where they practiced faith because it mattered too much not to do it, not on a whim.
cerusee,
I chose Southern Baptist because they're the largest Protestant denomination the US. They've got that theological quirk on the books, as well as Rick Warren & Billy Graham. For Mainline Protestants, like Lutherans and Episcopals, the Old World hierarchy says you can't just up and form a new church (or Rhode Island). And for purely American religions, the Mormons did so most spectacularly, with an alphabet besides; the Scientologists just did it for tax purposes.
And I agree with your anecdotal observation: few change faiths on a whim, though exasperated clergy might think they do. Still, the whole idea of religion as inside, as a personal choice, fits the American bother: we have to choose leaders, spouses, careers, and now this too? I think it's weird if, say, religion's in the community and not the person, for a Malay kid in east Malaysia, somewhere you don't choose to "be religious," it's just in the air.
Back to the post, Hilzoy finds a problem with religion mixing with democracy; I find a fascinating conundrum in democratic religion. Some people found a business model, like the cats behind Willow Creek, designing their megachurch based on market research. Evangelicals have followed suit: every suburb has a Six Flags Over Jesus, with concourses instead of narthexes. Give 'em what they want.
Back to comics, I live not too far from Cane Ridge and its frontier revival, adapted delightfully by James Sturm.
“Hilzoy finds a problem with religion mixing with democracy”
Yo, she finds a problem with religion mixing with staged publicity offensives; so do I.
Religion can mix with democracy in ways that strike me, at least, as perfectly fine. Every liberal’s favorite example is Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, and the right has counterparts of its own. But having someone pray for the tv cameras in order to set a good example strikes me as an abuse of prayer and tv cameras.
Oop, me favoring little dichotomies from what’s actually said. I generally agree with you, though I get queasy more than offended.
Publicity whoring is always kind of icky, religious or otherwise. And being a politician is more or less full-time publicity whoring — even more so than being an artist.
I couldn’t listen to Obama’s 100 days speech; tried to, and then it was so clearly facile puffery and self-serving half-truths and barf. And he’s a politician I like and even respect.
But he doesn’t pray in public for National Put ‘Em Together Awareness Day. That you’ve got to give the guy.
Yeah. I said I like him.
Bill,
I ought to have known that (my father’s family is Southern Baptist by heritage), but I didn’t. Thank you for pointing it out. Come to think of it, that’s probably why my grandparents are no longer Southern Baptists, but Texan Baptists.
I’m a Christian. I entered this fascinating discussion late. I’d like to take it back to the quoted text (Matthew 6:5-6). The common interpretation of this scripture by those who read it in context is that Jesus is forbidding praying for the purpose of looking pious to others, not necessarily all public prayer. The quote is from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ longest continuous monologue in the Gospels. Among other things, the Sermon on the Mount repeatedly calls people to exercise a purer morality, one that comes from a righteous attitude of the heart. In other words, intent matters as much as action. This was revolutionary in an age and a place where the Pharisees, the leading religious sect, were advocating strict compliance to an externally visible, rules-based religion, and using social opprobrium to enforce it. A tendency toward Pharisaical legalism and its accompanying hypocrisy is endemic to humanity and probably all religion. We want to reduce God to a genie in a lamp. If we follow the rules, we get what we want. The God Jesus is talking about wants a real relationship, and He (for lack of a gender-neutral personal pronoun) wants to help us become better than what we are. It’s the difference between an ATM machine and a parent, or between a prostitute and a loving spouse. Correcting this fundamental mistake and enabling real connection with a loving divine creator were what Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection were all about. It’s also why He got so enraged about hypocrisy.
I think communal prayer can be an effective and even instructive part of worship, and it is hugely beneficial to spiritual intimacy and fellowship in smaller groups, as when “two or three are gathered together.” However, trying to please people instead of God is a constant danger in prayer and almost every other aspect of worship or life in general. Consequently, it’s one many of us talk about a lot, like teachers harping on drugs in schools.
Apparent contradictions in the Bible can often be resolved by looking at the text in context — often the immediate context, but sometimes scripture as a whole. That said, Noah makes an excellent point that as in science, there are some things even the most knowledgeable people of faith (e.g., Ravi Zacharias or Norm Geisler) don’t fully understand and can’t adequately explain. I like Noah’s comparison to the mystery of gravity; one of my other favorites is the dual wave/particle nature of light, since it reminds me of the Trinity — a mystery so puzzling that Christians came up with a name for it. It sounds much more impressive to say “Oh, that’s the Trinity,” than to say “We really can’t explain why Jesus talks about God the Father and the Holy Spirit in third person sometimes and first person others, why He claims to be God, and yet He talks to God, and doesn’t contradict Jewish monotheism, etc. It’s a real puzzler.”
Hey, John. Thanks for the comment; that was all fascinating.
John, yes, that is an excellent contribution. Thanks.
Two points. What is it about the context that gives the passage from Matthew the meaning you ascribe to it? In isolation, the words seem clearcut: “when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.”
My other point is just to note that the meaning you give the passage brings us back to my post’s starting point: “compliance to an externally visible, rules-based religion, and using social opprobrium to enforce it.” But I understand that not all believers are in favor of televising politicians at prayer.
First, thanks for the kind words. After all that about pleasing God and not people, it’s ironic that I‘m happy to have pleased you, but I respect your opinions, so I guess it makes sense. Now on to Tom’s questions.
My argument (with some borrowed bits) that Christ wasn’t forbidding all public prayer goes like this: First, it’s consistent with the rest of the chapter, starting with verse 1: “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of people, to be seen by them. Otherwise, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” Second, He himself prayed in front of others in Matthew 11, Matthew 27, and Luke 9, although the first two were VERY brief, and in the other, we don’t know what was said. He also strongly implied that group prayer was okay in Matthew 18, verses 19 and 20: “Again, I assure you: If two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there among them.” I know one of these was already referenced, but I think the two verses quoted together strengthen the case. Side note: I am walking right past the theological questions this passage raises, like to whom those verses apply and what it means to be gathered “in His name” – at least for now. I have to go to work eventually.
Finally, the Acts of the Apostles (also written by physician/historian Luke) describe the Apostles and other early Christians as praying both privately and communally. There are recorded instances of the Apostles and early believers holding each other accountable on points of doctrine. Consequently, one would not expect this to go without dispute if at least some of them understood Jesus as totally forbidding prayer in front of others. Paul even called Peter on the carpet once. It wasn’t related to prayer, but it was about trying to please people instead of God (Galatians 2).
Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that the Gospels portray Jesus as habitually slipping off and praying in private. So He practiced what he preached, to the point frustrating the Apostles and others attempting to track Him down.
Finally, the annual National Day of Prayer and national days of prayer in general are intended to promote prayer, especially prayer for the nation. Congress and occasionally the President have been proclaiming them since 1775, although not unanimously. They’re based on the idea that prayer makes a difference in the real world, and until they were made annual, mostly associated with times the U.S. was in a jam. They’ve always been ecumenical and therefore respecting no particular established religion. Also, they’re resolutions, not laws that people have to follow, so most have not had Constitutional issues with them. Being seen as a supporter of prayer was probably also the right answer politically for most of our history. The history of national days of prayer and their more recent promotion by the evangelical community can be viewed on these sites (http://www.religioustolerance.org/day_pray2.htm, and http://www.ndptf.org/about/index.cfm). The problem with all this, obviously, is that it’s difficult to promote prayer without coming across as self-righteous and Pharisaical, or maybe even becoming so (just a little bit?). Jesus managed to do it by living as unpretentious, sincere and unselfish a life as one could live (which must have made the occasional claims of deity simultaneously jarring and more credible). If we had more credibility, as we once did, this would be more accepted. It still is accepted on a peersoanl level from Christians with whom people have personal experience and a relationship of trust.
Apologies for typos and two “Finallys”