You've heard them before. At church camps; along massed rows of pews; in corners of the room, there they congregate. Huddling and linking hands, they petition for sunshine, sweetness, lightness and good:
"Dear Father Gad (sic), thank You for bringing us safely here today Laad (sic) Gad. Father Gad, The Bible says when two are three are gathered in Your Name, there You are in the midst if them – come into our church camp today Abba Father. Fill this place with Your presence. We pray Dear Gad that You hold the rain from the skies and let our games carry on smoothly so that we may fellowship and discover more about each other and more about You. Laad Gad, by Your Holy Grace keep us safe from injuries and mishap. And bless this food that we will now partake in; may it nourish our bodies dear Gad, and empower us so that we may do the work of Your Great Commission. In the Father's name... and everyone says... Amen."
Smooth? You bet -- I used to admire my Barker Road church elders who could rattle off similar rhetoric with lugubrious, well-oiled ease. But it was only sipping Chimay at Rail Mall with Z a few weeks ago that the absurdity of such prayer struck me.
Isn’t the will of the Judeo-Christian god supposed to exist independent of anything and everything? No one can presume to influence or understand this will – but such petitions appropriate divine power. Two decades in church had shown up so many prayer-leaders who, alarmingly, profanitised prayer, belittling his god when he should be only humble. Consider the thought that this format is echoed across the plethora of churches to masses of mind-swept devotees week in, week out: shocking.
Then when it rains; when someone breaks his arm playing captain’s ball; when the food causes stomachaches – many church-goers struggle to deal with it spiritually and emotionally. I’ve been there; I’ve felt the emo before: it was a simple case of electrical failure at a campsite, and someone fell and got cut in the mini-panic. People were huddling after that, feeling genuinely scared – “was it a satanic attack?”
It is only this: self-created misery. Their panic was caused only by their seriously flawed prayer – If you gave yourself and your younglings up to your god’s will, then you should be prepared to face and deal with all manner of doom that The Everyday stirs up. Let’s not be naïve and assume that the only good experiences are the smooth ones. Misfortune is quintessential to everyday life. But if it’s the will of your god, then whatever happens -- great or garbage -- is the good will of your god.
Many in mistaken reassurance, look to Jeremiah 29:11 says "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." But, all their glorious weakness, they presume that ‘prosper' means ‘things favourable’. No: history irrevocably illustrates that ‘harm' spares neither cuckoo nor Christian. For someone who believes his god has for him a masterplan (and also knows the number of hairs on his head), he must fully surrender to his god’s will for -- don't take that action easily now -- that necessitates that ‘bad’ is always only good.
In this circumstance there seems to be only one legitimate format of prayer. I've adopted it from the first format. For seriousness sake, I’ve dispensed with the irksome mispronunciations of and the inane pre- and post-sentence repetitions of the holy holy’s aliases I so often hear in prayer. Tolerate the hyperbole and seeming hilarity, but this seems to me the only way to pray that is humble, circumspect, and non-appropriatory.
“Dear God, thank You for bringing us safely here today. We could have gotten into an accident, and from that you might have taught us how to to be more considerate road users... But today, us being unbloodied is probably more suitable for the lessons we hope you will teach.
The Bible says that when two are three are gathered in your name, there you are in the midst if them – come into our church camp today. We ask you to fill this place with your presence.
We ask dear father that you hold the rain from the skies and let our games carry on smoothly so that we may fellowship and discover more about each other and more about you. But if it pours and we all catch a cold and miss school next week, let us realise that it’s all part of your wonderful plan. Maybe you want the doctor who has been praying for more money to earn it, or that this will give our poor over-worked teachers in school a well-deserved break.
Dear God, we don't deserve it, but we pray by your holy grace keep us safe from injuries and mishap. But if someone slips and twists her ankle, let us realise that it’s alright. You might be teaching her the value of pain, wearing better footwear, and endurance.
Bless this food that we will now partake in, if that be your will. May it nourish our bodies and empower us so that we may do the work of your great commission. We know that we might get food poisoning from this because the flies are out in full force today. But in our pain, we know you might be helping us realise how dirty the food our brethren in Africa consume, and jolt us to pondering how we can care for our fellow neighbours.
We give ourselves up to your will and even though things may turn sour in our eyes, help us be fine with knowing that you work in mysterious but wonderful ways. In the father's name... and everyone says... Amen.”
But no one ever prays such prayer. Why? Taken out of context, bible verses like Philippians 4:13 (I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me) offers an cushy route through life -- in seeking strength from their religion, devotees religiously (pun unintended) avoid such dark thoughts and macabre possibilities. But without an alternative to the naïve gimme-milk-and-honey rhetoric, Marx’s infamous indictment entrenches further and further in reality: religion is but an opiate of the masses.
"Do you think it's reasonable to pray that it wont rain, and hope that it won't?
If you dont want it to rain, you seed the clouds before hand." - Alphonsus Chern
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This entry is first of a three part op-ed series, 'The Absurdity of Religion'.
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