When I was ordained as a pastor of a church with a strong sacramental theology, I spent a lot of time thinking about the difference between sacramental ritual and ritualistic magic. In my mind, the difference between magic and prayer was who was in control. If we were trying to compel God to act in some certain way through our ritual, it was magic. If we were celebrating and participating in God’s action through our ritual, it was prayer and worship, and thus okay.
Suddenly, I was looking at Baptism, Communion, Marriages and Funerals very differently. What happened if we refused to baptize someone? If we could not compel God to include someone in His family, could we, through our inaction, compel God to leave someone out? It made no sense. We could celebrate God’s inclusion of someone, and choose whether or not to participate in it, but we could not, through providing or denying the act of baptism, compel God to include or exclude anyone.
What about divorce? Did that prove that though the church celebrated the marriage, God did not marry these two people and thus they did not have the fruits of marriage? And on the other side, if two people lived together, loved each other, and raised a family, could we say for certain that God did not join these two together, though the church did not participate in the act? We could recognize the fruits of a good marriage in their relationship, after all. And what about loving, monogamous, homosexual couples? Were they married in God’s eyes, if not in church law?
When the current Pope was still a Cardinal, he wrote a letter explaining the requirements for the elements of the Eucharistic sacrament also known as Holy Communion or the Lord’s Supper. This broke my brain. Is the Lord’s Supper a ritual spell we must get the ingredients correct for so as to compel God to give us gifts? We needed the right amount of gluten for the bread to be considered bread? One church I was a pastor at sometimes offered hotdog buns or soda crackers as the “bread” in the Holy Communion. It was a small church of a few families, and that’s what they had at hand. I believed that God honoured that.
Luckily the practise of refusing funerals or burial in sacred ground to some- notably suicides- had fallen out of common use, but I still heard of such things. I even had one woman crying to me that her father-in-law had insisted he be buried facing south, instead of east like every other grave in the graveyard. The sun (Son) rose in the east! Would this hinder his chance at eternal life?
I had no idea that all graves faced east, but I quickly introduced her to the concept of “liturgical east”. Churches, too, are supposed to face east, but not all do. So the direction the church faces is considered “liturgical east”, or “east, for the duration of the liturgy”. If it worked for churches, surely it worked for graves. I was happy that this seemed to comfort her.
The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if we could legitimately exclude anyone from any sacrament. If not, what could we really say we knew about who was excluded from salvation? I began to look at Jesus’ words “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Mt. 16:19, or 18:18 ) in the context of the popular story of the monkey trap. (The monkey reaches his hand into a jar and grabs a nut, making his hand too large to withdraw from the jar. So long as he refuses to let go of the nut, he is trapped.) When we included or excluded others in sacraments, were we really loosing or trapping ourselves? I preached on that more than once in my three years as a pastor.
What could we do but accept everyone, and look for good fruits to see where God’s blessings were being given? Of course, God “sends rain on the just and unjust alike”…
What, really, could we know about what God was doing in the lives of others? Or in our lives? Or how God wanted us to respond to others? These are questions I could not let go of.
Hey Quester. You may remember me as ‘Sarah’ from the decon site.
I’ve been trying not to think about prayer lately. I’m trying to hold on to the concept of God/ess, just altered from my fundamental church.
Prayer was a major force bringing my husband and I together. He considered(s?) himself an intercessor and up until recently we spent a lot of time crying out to God to heal the injustices of the world. For me, prayer was waiting until I got a piece of God’s heart, usually a vision of healing of some wrong in the world such as rape victims of the Congo, and then using that anger of injustice to fight verbally against it.
Many of the women in my family consider themselves intercessors and have spent hours daily in prayer, never feeling that they were doing it right or were humble enough to pray ‘in God’s will’. (“A woman on her knees is more powerful than the prime minister” but if the right change wasn’t happening, it was your fault.)
For me, prayer was a way to feel like I was doing something noble when I was really helpless.
Still, prayer has been a large connection point in my relationship with my husband. He has also been teaching our toddler to pray spiritual warfare type prayers when she gets scared in the middle of the night.
However, prayer is contingent on having someone to pray to, right? Can prayer just be a way to connect with something beyond ourselves without asking for things or trying to find the magic formula? Is it just an easy way out of taking action against a problem?
I don’t want to give up the emotional connection you get with other people when you pray with them. Lately, I’ve been using prayer as a hug, a way of sending good wishes on to friends that are used to praying with me.
Sorry, I’ve completely forgotten my question for you.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on prayer and spells.
Having grown up in the prairies, I quite approve of your new nick.
When I was first deconverting, a number of people (mostly online) told me that while they did not believe in a god, they saw value in the ritual of church, and would join in on the prayers, hymns, etc., having established meanings for themselves that they assigned to the words “God”, Jesus”, “divine”, “miracle”, and such. They repurposed the symbols for themselves. I could not do the same thing. I could not go through the same rituals I always had, considering them to mean something else.
When a friend introduced me to a group of naturalist druids, who were doing the same thing- using the language and rituals of Druidic traditions as symbols which they understood metaphorically- I thought I’d try to see if I could adopt a new set of symbols to use in ritual and in contemplating the world. Despite the amazingness of the group of people, I couldn’t do it.
I’m now much more impressed with marginalized groups who have claimed symbols of hatred and repression and repurposed them as positive symbols of identity. I don’t think I could do the same.
For me, prayer is a way of participating and building a relationship with someone I no longer believe is there. Spellcasting is attempting to move non-existant forces with your will. I can’t do either, even metaphorically.
I can offer my best wishes, though I don’t believe they are any more effective than any other form of moral support. And perhaps this is what prayer can be for you. I think there is good in consciously choosing to value another, even if only in your thoughts and words. For I do still believe that there is something beyond each of us– and that is all of us. Can we connect to this something through prayer? Well, not as connecting to a god, but can we connect to a community if we do not take the time, at least occasionally, to consciously choose to value the other members of it?
An athiest friend from highschool told me that his view of prayer was merely sending out positive energy. I guess that is the most benign version.
Repurposing symbols, or ‘redeeming’ them as my husband puts it, I find helpful. I often retell fairy tales to the neighbourhood kids in order to change the messages to be more empowering.
For right now, I’ll continue to pray as a conversation with other people when asked- which is still often.
Even if no one else hears the words I can still use them to affirm the people I’m with. It still strikes me as a two-edged sword. “Please give so and so the wisdom and strength do deal with such and such” when I’m both encouraging them to deal with it and also undermining their own capabilities to do so unless its through an outside source.
Looking at the edges of your sword, are you sure that your prayers are affirming the people you’re with?
Hmm. I guess the prayers themselves aren’t affirming the people, but the joining with them seems to.
Its hardest when its my 3 year old waking up in the middle of the night.
So, joining with the people in prayer is a good thing, in that it gets you what you seek- a chance to affirm the people you are with and build community. Praying that God does things for people, however, is undermining the reason you are praying in the first place. This is less than ideal.
You are a creative person, and skilled with words. Is it possible for you to rephrase, for example, spiritual warfare prayers so that they, like the fairy tales you tell, are more empowering?
Possible, but tricky. Today I had a conversation with a lovely woman whom I admire and who happens to be a pastor’s wife (and daughter).
The topic was prayer and God’s will for our lives, families, and churches. I mentioned some of your points on prayer and spells.
A lot of our friends are pastor couples from different churches. Now that is a group that needs a lot of support as you probably know
As a pastor, would you have been open regarding spiritual matters with someone whom you knew wasn’t a Christian?
I may indeed have some passing familiarity with the concept.
As for being “open regarding spiritual matters with someone whom you knew wasn’t a Christian?” Gah. There is a hell of a lot packed into that simple sounding question. It would depend a lot on the relationship between myself and the non-Christian (pastor, potential pastor, friend, neighbour, family member, stranger), and the spiritual matter being discussed (articles of faith, dissent in the church, oddities in the Bible, differences between religions, my own personal struggles, etc.). How can I sum this briefly? I would be quite open regarding religious matters, fairly open regarding spiritual matters, and greatly varied in openness regarding personal perspectives, depending on the person and the matter.
Does that actually say anything?
It means that you would base your openess to discuss things on the relationship you had with the person instead of what you thought their beliefs were. Right?
Perhaps the issue then what kind of relationship we have and the only way to find out if it is based on more than just having similar beliefs is to stop pretending that we do.
Huh. Well that sounds intelligent to me. Then again, I’m suffering a bit from once bitten, twice shy. The first friend I came out to with my doubts accused me of attacking him under the guise of friendship. Shocked me speechless, then left me in tears. And I don’t cry easy. We’d been friends for fifteen years by that point, and I did not see that coming. I’m a little less open, offline, these days.