Historical Background: Prayer

Tensions inherent in Christian prayer coalesced with the Protestant Reformation. They linger today:

Tension 1: Set prayers versus personal, individual prayers

 

Set prayers--prayers established by tradition or institutions and often, though not always, associated with ritual--evoke the accusation of being "works," actions performed for the sake of gaining favor (points), not for actual communion with God.

 

Philip and Carol Zaleski in Prayer: A History do a decent job of generously allowing for the beneficial experience of both the set prayer and the individual prayer. That is, a set prayer can evoke nostalgia as well as group solidarity. Moreover, the Zaleskis quite openly address the fact that an element of magic flows through all prayer, especially penitentiary prayers. 

 

Tension 2: Magic & prayer

 

The definitions that follow are my own: Magic is the use of actions and words (a spell) to bring about an event. That is, the actual actions and actual words produce a result whatever the character of the petitioner, the value of the result, and, presumably, the desires and wishes of the listening gods. 

 

Magical thinking, for instance, entails the parent saying to a child, "Have a good day today" with the unstated belief, If I don't say it, the child will not be well. The statement has almost nothing to do with whether the child has been sent away safely in a raincoat with enough money to buy lunch...whether the child is being bullied at school...or any other factor. The statement barely acknowledges deity. It is a "spell" set on the child to keep the child safe.

 

An invocation is about what God or the gods will do rather than what the actual actions/words/spells accomplish.

 

The Zaleskis make the entirely correct point that prayer and magic cannot be un-entwined. An element of magic filters through prayer. And the Zaleskis detail how acts/words themselves can create transcendent moments. That is, communion with God/gods is often set in motion by actions and words that are not inherently religious. (Humans are physical beings after all and react bodily to physical acts, such as meditation.)

The Protestants, specifically the Calvinists, were less than happy with the idea of magic/ritual. Alan Jacobs points out in his tome about the Book of Common Prayer that Cranmer wanted to create a common culture (which the Protestant Reformation both willfully and unintentionally did away with) by instituting the Book of Common Prayer. Moreover, he was (luckily for generations of Anglicans) an artist in his own right, so many of the set prayers are truly beautiful. And he was trying to find middle ground between the "traditionalists" and the Continental Calvinists. Many Anglicans greet the prayers with fondness and nostalgia.

 

The Calvinists were having none of it. Set prayers were popish, anti-Christian, episcopal (reliant on priests/bishops), devilish and part of the lingering rituals that traduced Christianity (it's hard to know at this late date how many Protestants didn't go down the Calvinist route simply because they, like me, rather liked a little bit of ritual in their religion). 

 

Tension 3: Petitionary prayers

 

From a Calvinist point of view, petitionary prayers fell into the "magic" category. They were arrogant, blasphemous and not even religious. First, God is omniscient so He already knows what people want; they don't have to ask, so they shouldn't. Second, asking for things implies that God's mind can be changed. Third, asking for things implies that God's job is to give stuff to humans.

 

In all honesty, the Calvinists kind of had a point when one considers what some people consider to be God's job (as if God were their personal life coach). But the Zaleskis quote C.S. Lewis pointing out that if one starts fussing about whether or not prayer can accomplish anything, one might as well go down the rabbit-hole of fussing whether anything that people do accomplishes anything ("rabbit-hole" is my addition). In other words, asking for stuff is as human as when we "put on boots."

 

My entirely personal view is that God preserves agency to a greater extent than humans can understand or want to understand. Petitionary prayers may be partly for our sakes (to make us aware of our need for God). They could also be for God's sake. In whatever way the relationship between God and agency and human volition operates (and I don't know), prayer could be part of helping God help us.

 

The Calvinists would accuse me of being an Antinomian since after all I am implying a God who either is limited or limits Himself.

 

And, yup, I am implying exactly that!

 

I would answer the Calvinists, "Yeah, well, folks, you're the ones who started this."

 

Tension 4: The intensely private, unquantifiable nature of prayer

 

Catholics in the Middle Ages engaged in private prayers. Augustine's Confessions alone prove that conversion and a relationship with God can be intensely personal. Not-set and unregulated prayers are a human norm.

 

However, the Protestant Reformation made them the only alternative--since set and regulated prayers were not-okay (most of the time). However, the Calvinists then discovered that unregulated prayers were...frightfully unregulated. 

 

As the Zaleskis point out about Pentecostalism: 

 

"[H]ow could one recognize the arrival of this climactic third stage [baptism in the Holy Spirit], of such burning importance to personal salvation?" 

 

The form of "recognition" for the Pentecostals was speaking in tongues. That is, the answer was a group experience that was nonetheless highly individualistic. 

 

Unfortunately, the answer by other religious groups--not just Protestants--has been to become entirely abstract and metaphysical or entirely legalistic (and sometimes, both). That is, many religions/ideologies don't feel comfortable just taking people's word for their communion with God/Truth. 

From an anthropological point of view, the need for some type of yes-we-are-on-the-same-page agreement within the group makes sense. I favor the solution of an individual response to an institutional ritual over the metaphysical-legalistic solution that was unfortunately favored by late Calvinists, as it is by Woke Progressives. That is, the late Calvinists--in an attempt to compete in a changing religious environment--got a little obsessed with how exactly people were confessing their sins...and whether they really meant it...and whether those people had hit all the markers of acceptable confession.

 

And within 70 years, people had deserted Congregationalism for Methodism and other Protestant off-shoots.

 

To be continued...