 |
| Image text: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." Image source. |
I was recently thinking about the Lord's Prayer, and I realized that if I don't view it as "talking to God," I actually really like it.
In my experience in Christianity, prayer is defined as talking to God. We believed that God is literally on the receiving end, listening to what we're saying in real time, having opinions about the things that we prayed about, making decisions about what actions to take in response to our prayers. As the Christian cliché says, God always answers our prayers with "yes", "no", or "wait."
But now that I'm ex-evangelical and the concept of a "personal relationship with God" really weirds me out, I don't pray. I don't want to talk to Them. I very much don't want to talk to Them. I don't want Them to be there reacting to my prayers in ways that steamroll my freedom to have my own opinions and think my own thoughts and make my own choices.
For many years, I've been saying "I don't pray." But just now I've thought of something, a whole different way to conceptualize what prayer is. Get this: What if prayer is a ritualized way to express our hopes and our understanding of our place in the world?
I think there are some subgroups within Christianity that view prayer something like this. Many many times, when I was evangelical, I encountered other Christians who prayed in ways that felt "fake" to me, like they didn't really believe an all-powerful God was right there listening and taking it seriously. Using language that's flowery rather than language that reflects the urgency and power of literally talking to God. A lot of sentences starting with "may."
Now I'm like, maybe there actually *is* something to that, and I shouldn't just dismiss it as "fake." I'm still coming from a very evangelical mindset on this.
There's no way I'm the first Christian to come up with the idea "maybe we should conceptualize prayer in some way other than 'talking to God'" - but if I ever encountered this when I was evangelical, I would have dismissed it as fake Christians not taking their beliefs seriously. But here's an idea, what if there are Christians who pray in ways very different from how I did, because they have a well-thought-out belief system where that would make sense, not because they're "not taking it seriously." (Do leave a comment if you have experience with a thoughtful and robust belief system that values prayer but doesn't view it as "talking to God.")
So let's walk through the Lord's Prayer. (It comes from Matthew 6:9-13, but the language I'm using here isn't the exact wording from the bible, it's the wording that is traditionally used in churches.) I want to talk about how I understood this when I was evangelical, and how it now means something new and exciting and inspiring to me, if I view it as a picture of what I want the world to be like, rather than "talking to God."
Our Father, who art in heaven
When I was evangelical: God (he/him) is our Father, and we are talking to God. He is all-powerful, and he is listening and doing things in response to our prayers.
But now: In some ways, we can use the metaphor of God being like a father (also mother, also nonbinary parent). In particular, it means all humans are children of God; we are all equal, and all deserve to have a good life. We should care about people, all over the world, people who are different from us- we are all God's children.
Hallowed by thy name.
When I was evangelical: God's name is holy. We want everyone to recognize that God's name is holy. Ugh, isn't it terrible that people don't believe in Jesus, don't respect God's name, don't dedicate their lives to Jesus like they're supposed to?
We're talking directly to God here, saying, hey God, *I* know that your name is holy and deserving of respect, doesn't it suck that other people don't know that? Can you do something about that, God? Can you get people to believe in you?
But now: We want God's name to be honored. And so *we* as Christians need to behave in such a way that people see we are doing good, and they respect our beliefs because of that. Yeah, this is on us. A lot of Christians are acting like Christianity means we're better than other people, and we're gonna pick fights over displaying the ten commandments in schools, and other such nonsense. But imagine this, imagine if Christians were known for doing good. Imagine if people were like "oh, Christians, they're always feeding the hungry and fighting for equal rights for everyone." Imagine that. I think if that were true, then "hallowed be Thy name" would be true.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
When I was evangelical: In heaven, God is in charge, and everyone obeys God's will. That's the way it's supposed to be, and we want it to be like that on earth too. We want everyone to become a Christian and believe what they're supposed to believe, and obey God like they're supposed to.
But now: The kingdom of heaven is a world where there is justice and freedom and everyone is able to have a good life, and we need to do the work of bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth. This is something that *we* need to do. *We* need to fight for a better world.
Give us this day our daily bread
When I was evangelical: We are dependent on God for everything, and we shouldn't forget that. We are pathetic and shouldn't feel like we are competent to do anything ourselves. We are nothing without God, and we should pray for even our basic daily needs, because we are dependent on God for everything. Yes, we should even be *asking God* to provide for our basic food needs. We worship the sort of God who is petty and might smite us if we aren't grateful enough.
But now: I feel like, I'm lucky that I have enough money that I'm able to take care of my needs. (I don't thank God for this, because that would imply that God chose to give me money and chose to not give other people money.) We should help other people who are in need. We want to live in a world where everyone has enough food.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors
When I was evangelical: We are all sinners who deserve to go to hell. You have to forgive anybody who sins against you, no matter how bad it is, or else God might not forgive *your* sins and you'll go to hell.
Yeah, and we should directly ask God to forgive our sins, to remind ourselves that he's not obligated to do it, and we shouldn't take it for granted, because we're sinners who don't deserve that.
But now: We should have some grace and understanding for other people who mess up and hurt people in ways that we've also messed up and hurt people. Like, if someone gets mad at you over some little thing, they shouldn't do that, but also, you should think to yourself "well, there have been times I've gotten unfairly mad at people, and that was wrong" and so don't judge them too bad for it.
I *don't* believe we're required to forgive literally everything. What if someone's a murderer or child abuser or something? The teaching that victims always have to forgive is a big part of how sexual abuse gets covered up and allowed to continue in conservative religious environments.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
When I was evangelical: Oh, we're all such horrible sinners, we're susceptible to temptation, and we need God to help us not sin.
But now: I'm not sure about the "temptation" part- I don't really know where "temptation" fits into an ex-evangelical ideology. Maybe temptation to just kinda take the easy way out, to just take care of ourselves and not look for ways to do more and help other people- this isn't a specific discrete event where we make a choice to do the right or wrong thing, but more about our overall lifestyle.
And again, this is on us. Know yourself, know your emotional needs, and use that knowledge to set up good habits for yourself. Make deliberate choices about what kind of lifestyle you want to live. If you have a tendency to waste time on social media, for example, set up your life so that it's inconvenient to do so.
Maybe I'm discounting the role of God too much here. Many people can tell you about some feat of willpower or emotional health they accomplished, and they say "God helped me do that- I could not have done it myself." I have had experiences like that too. They felt so real, that I still believe in them now, even though I'm like "I don't really believe in that."
For "deliver us from evil," how about we understand that as keeping us safe from the evils going on in this world- rather than our own "evil"/ "sinful nature"? We want people to be safe from evil- and so that means we should take action and help people.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
When I was evangelical: God is all-powerful, and God wins in the end. Even though here on earth, a lot of people are not living the way God wants, and not believing in God like they're supposed to, fortunately it won't be like that forever. Eventually God will get everyone under his control.
But now: Even though we see bad things happening in the world, it will get better. There is something greater than the power-hungry exploitation which defines so much of how the world works. This isn't "just the way it is"- we should fight for a better world than that. God, heaven, justice, will win in the end. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
---
What if we don't view prayer as "talking to God," asking God to do all the things that *we* think should be done, assuming God agrees with us, confident in our superiority because we believe the right things and other people don't?
What if instead, it's a way of expressing our vision for how we want the world to be- and we're not telling it to God and asking God to act according to our ideas, because that relies on the assumptions that God agrees with us, and that God is the one who primarily takes action. No, we proclaim that this is the way we want the world to be, and then we have to do it. We're not telling God to do it- if we were, then we just need to say it really really sincerely, performing the right emotions, and that's enough- no, God is not going to answer our prayer and do this; we need to do it ourselves.
If we don't view prayer as "talking to God," then it's obvious that the act of just *saying it* isn't enough. We need to take action. We need to be the sort of people who are working in the direction of "thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven."
---
Related
No comments:
Post a Comment