So tomorrow is supposed to be a "national day of prayer." We're supposed to pray for our troops to win the war, and for President Bush, and all that jazz.
Or, if you like your directed group prayer a little less martial, we can join together in prayer for Bush and send him peaceful messages of love. This was suggested by Psychic Children in Hawaii, or something like that.
Well, what the flipping hell? I really, really dislike this concept of God as vending machine, or prayer as a way to get what you want. Sure, I've prayed for a given outcome. We all do. It's human. But to encourage it en masse like this seems frankly icky to me.
I've got company, at least. Roger Ebert doesn't just write movie reviews; he set forth the different between private prayer and Prayer That's Designed To Make An Impression in this beautifully written column. He calls them "vertical prayer" and "horizontal prayer" respectively. The latter "serves one of two purposes: to encourage me to join them, or to make me feel excluded."
I'm sure that the peace-praying crowd have the best of intentions. They're trying to counter the Jerry Fallwell - Angry God stuff. But people are going to do this thinking that it makes a difference somehow, when that energy would be better spent elsewhere. Want to influence the government? Vote, write letters, make phone calls, lobby. Want to strengthen your spirit? Do it the way that feels right to you. That may very well involve prayer, but use it carefully — and not cynically, and not because you think the Psychic Children are going to send a message to President Bush.
Relevant quotes:
This is really an argument between two kinds of prayer — vertical and horizontal. I don't have the slightest problem with vertical prayer. It is horizontal prayer that frightens me. Vertical prayer is private, directed upward toward heaven. It need not be spoken aloud, because God is a spirit and has no ears. Horizontal prayer must always be audible, because its purpose is not to be heard by God, but to be heard by fellow men standing within earshot.
To choose an example from football, when my team needs a field goal to win and I think, ''Please, dear God, let them make it!''--that is vertical prayer. When, before the game, a group of fans joins hands and ''voluntarily'' recites the Lord's Prayer--that is horizontal prayer. It serves one of two purposes: to encourage me to join them, or to make me feel excluded.
Although some of the horizontal devout are sincere, others use this prayer as a device of recruitment or intimidation. If you are conspicuous in your refusal to go along, they may even turn and pray while holding you directly in their sights.
This simple insight about two kinds of prayer, which is beyond theological question, should bring a dead halt to the obsession with prayer in public places. It doesn't, because the purpose of its supporters is political, not spiritual. Their faith is like Dial soap: Now that they use it, they wish everyone would. I grew up in an America where people of good breeding did not impose their religious convictions upon those they did not know very well. Now those manners have been discarded.
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