Whether during services or delivered as part of a ceremonial occasion, a public prayer presents the leader of prayer with a terrible temptation: to speak to the audience rather than to God. The purpose of prayer is to adjust the relationship between the one praying and the One to whom the prayer is addressed, not to lecture the audience.

Some Catholics recently expressed valid concerns about this sort of co-opting of prayer for pedagogical or even political purposes, in discussion of a prayer to be delivered by Pope Benedict XVI at Ground Zero in New York City, but prepared for him by others. It is a problem common to all religions.

AUR’s stance on this is simple: homilies and sermons are the proper occasions for teaching and discussing; prayers are for setting right one’s relationship with God. Prayer should not be used to make a point to people who might overhear, including the group in whose name the prayer is delivered. As Jesus put it:

When you pray, don’t be like the play-actors, because they love to pray standing in the worship halls and on the street corners to be seen by others. I tell you: they’ve received their reward in full. But, when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, Who is unseen. Then your Father (Who sees what is done in secret) will reward you. And when you pray, don’t keep on rambling on like the pagans, because they think they’ll be heard because of their many words. Don’t be like them, because your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. – The Gospel Of Matthew 6:5-8

Of course, for the purposes of building and maintaining religious community, spoken prayers are necessary temptations, but they must be faced as temptations, their potential corruptions resisted in a conscious and concerted fashion. The leader of prayer should keep in mind that the advice above was followed by the example known as the Lord’s Prayer, a simple request for basic needs (and a promise to forgive others in return for being forgiven) kept modest with the Humility of Gethsemane: “Your will be done.”

Delivered prayers should be addressed to God, and should not be taken as an opportunity to deliver a sidelong lecture to those within ear shot. The necessary “I” of a spoken prayer necessarily includes the “We” who are participating in the prayer, and the leader of prayer should respect the moral autonomy of this We. Prayers may be topical, but should also be general (where required by ettiquette and piety), non-controversial, and humble.

(The photograph above is from the Roman Catholic parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, whose excellent instructions on sincere prayer can be read here.)

One of the major dichotomies of Christian religion is the chasm separating the pietist approach, emphasizing a rigorous Christian lifestyle, from the liturgical approach, emphasizing ritualized public worship.  It may be most appropriate to address this issue as America receives Pope Benedict XVI, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, which is one of the most liturgical of religions.

It should be noted that American Unitarianism arose from the pietist tradition of Protestant Christianity, which has been very critical and even suspicious of ritual and ceremony.  However, the tide has been turning in favor of liturgical forms recently, and we have learned much in the centuries since the beginnings of American Unitarianism about the important role that social ceremony plays in reinforcing personal lifestyle.

In fact, the supposed conflict of liturgical vs. pietist can be seen as precisely the sort of Law vs. Wisdom, Justice vs. Mercy, Knowledge vs. Life, and Lion vs. Lamb dichotomy that AUR views as the greatest danger to true monotheism, in which all things must ultimately be reconciled.  When these complements are placed in contradiction to one another, as mutually exclusive options in an either/or choice, they defy divine reconciliation and slide into authoritarian and licentious corruption: Law becomes the tool of the tyrannous Beast, Wisdom the excuse of wanton Babylon.

The truth is not found in the mere balance of opposites, as some simplistic New Age philosophies insist, but in their functional reconciliation.  Just as the voice of Yahweh was said (Numbers 7:89) to speak from above the Ark of the Covenant’s “Reconciler” (kaporet, כפורת) and between the two cherubim which Moses Maimonides claimed represented God’s punitive and benevolent aspects, it is in the reconciliation of Justice and Mercy; Law and Wisdom; Knowledge and Life; and Lion and Lamb that the Word of God is found.

To this end, AUR seeks to reconcile liturgy and piety, to use each as the antidote for the other’s flaws, and therefore derive the spiritual benefits of both.  Liturgy should renew pietistic rigor, and instill a sense of coherence between social and individual religion. 

For example, liturgy typically includes some sort of communal prayers for intercession  or pleading, in which the leader of the prayer asks for assistance from God with the congregation closing out the prayer together with some form of doxology.  A common form is, “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.”  Despite the misunderstanding of this phrase by Nicene Christians, AUR accepts it as a valid doxology with the understanding that it describes a stream-like flow of divine power from God through the Logos to the many gifts of the Spirit.

 However, to insure that such prayers of pleading reinforce the core image of AUR piety, the Prayer in the Garden, the doxology closing the prayers of Reformed Unitarian services should repeat the Humility of Gethsemane, “nevertheless, Your will be done, Amen.”  In this way, the congregational ritual reinforces the attitude at the core of individual piety: the recognition of one’s contingent and temporary nature as a mortal creature before All-Encompassing God.

Is Reform Unitarianism pietist or liturgical?  Insofar that it is truly Unitarian, it cannot idolize either side of the coin.

A February 15th article in the Chicago Tribune about the Unitarian Universalist Assocation’s recent advertising push, describes the problems with the Association’s “Free Religionist” stance quite well.

The Rev. Jennifer Owen-O’Quill, 37, minister at Second Unitarian Church, said all that diversity can leave people feeling lost. “We’re going to give you the opportunity to explore all the religious wisdom in all the world — and good luck,” she said. “That doesn’t really help people form themselves as religious people.”

This is an unavoidable liability in a nominally creedless religion, which does very little except provide people the leeway to explore. One might reasonably ask, in a country where the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause already gives us “the opportunity to explore all the religious wisdom in all the world,” is there really a need for this sort of thing?

But, there are also questions about whether the de jure creedlessness of the Association translates to a de facto creedlessness. Some more traditional Unitarians and Universalists complain of an unspoken anti-theist dogma pervading the organization. Continue reading →