Yesterday was apparently the National Day of Prayer. I've been listening to commercials for it on the radio in the past few weeks. The people talking have mostly been pastors of large churches. And I've tuned them out for the most part. So it wasn't until yesterday was half over and I read this wonderful post by my friend Stephen Lamb that I remembered that it was the National Day of Prayer.
Honestly, the whole idea just strikes me as silly. Why Christians would or should need a National Day of Prayer escapes me. The idea should be offensive to us. If we are what we say we are, then we are already practicing a national day of prayer every day. Prayer is not an occasional event. It is a constant inflow and outflow. It is the effortless communication and the labored plea. It is the petition and the praise. It is the learning and the being. It is the silence and the cry. And it is constant. It makes about as much sense to me to declare a National Day of Breathing.
Unfortunately, while we're still being honest, no one expects that the National Day of Prayer is simply an extension of the normative Christian discipline. It is a special occasion. And it is not one open to individual interpretation. It is a calculated and cultivated effort to promote a view of the United States as a "Christian nation" and to promote American militarism.
I fully understand that there is a generational and political divide with regard to the issue of America being a "Christian nation." I don't expect everyone to agree on this, but I cannot and will not let go of my questions in response to such an assertion. The first is, "What part of America was Christian while we were committing genocide and stealing land from the indigenous population of North America?" And the second is, "What part of America was Christian while we were enslaving an entire race of foreigners brought here against their will to enrich us?" The obvious answer is neither act could be construed as testimony to our Christianity. Were Christians at the head of the formation of our country? Of course they were. But in no way could our nation, or any nation, be considered Christian. A Christian is a person, not a place or a thing. And to quote Rob Bell, "Christian" makes a wonderful noun and a terrible adjective.
I can appreciate that what I've said is not sufficient to change the mind or heart of someone who is convinced that America is somehow "Christian." But what cannot be denied is that the National Day of Prayer is propaganda in support of such a view. For proof, one need look no further than the website for the National Day of Prayer: www.nationaldayofprayer.org. There it clearly says that one of the values of the National Day of Prayer is to "Publicize and preserve America’s Christian heritage." The fact that it presupposes such a thing as true is patently obvious.
Perhaps more disturbing than that is the way that the National Day of Prayer is being shamelessly used to promote American militarism. Pastors are bold and unashamed in calling for prayers for American victory in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is troublesome on multiple levels. The first is that it presupposes that "victory" in Iraq and Afghanistan were a good thing. Someone like me, a devout Christian myself, might argue that it is an offensive notion and that we shouldn't even be engaged in military action in those other nations in the first place. And before I get accused of being anti-America, (or worse: liberal), let me inform or remind that my father served in the US Air Force for 30 years and his father served in WWII before that. My father was stationed in the Middle East during conflict. The best way to protect the lives of our soldiers is not to pray for their "victory," it's to get them out of the path of the bombs and bullets in a land in which we have no business.
The second way in which it is troublesome, though, is best not told by me. And it really goes to the heart of my objections to the obvious goals of the "National Day of Prayer." And it also brings me back to my friend Stephen. He quotes Mark Twain's short story/letter to the editor, "The War Prayer." I'll post it here below. It ties in to some of what I was expressing earlier this week about how the words we say in prayer and about God really do matter.
The War Prayer by Mark Twain
written approximately 1904-05
Editorial Note: Outraged by American military intervention in the Philippines, Mark Twain wrote this and sent it to Harper’s Bazaar. This women’s magazine rejected it for being too radical, and it wasn’t published until after Mark Twain’s death, when World War I made it even more timely. It appeared in Harper’s Monthly, November 1916.
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation
God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!
Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory —
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import — that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of — except he pause and think.
“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory — must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
I'll leave this subject by saying I obviously do not object to praying on the National Day of Prayer. No call to prayer should ever be ignored, and no opportunity to commune with other believers in prayer to God should be ignored. But we should be wary of ulterior motives in calls that have to do with nationalism. And we should remember that our words have meaning. They have consequences. And we are absolutely responsible for the extensions of those words and thoughts.
And if you are looking for an occasion for prayer, I would guide you to my friend Shaun's post today for a healthy dose of perspective. Why Christians feel the need to feign persecution, invent outrage, and drum up resentment will never make sense to me. In the course of this life, hardship and tragedy will come. We don't need to look for it, and we don't need to conflate relatively lesser pains in to large ones in order to mitigate the guilt of our comfort.
Pray for those truly in need. Even on the National Day of Prayer.
