Human Rights

I found myself getting angry at the reports that's Devon Council is being taken to court for beginning its proceedings with prayers. The argument is that the human rights of those who do not believe are being abused.

To which I want to say, What about the human rights of those who do believe in God?

I am not suggesting this is a Christian or good response. But as news items do not often get me angry, I have been pondering it.

From time to time I am at a 'secular' committee where proceedings do not begin with prayer. It always seems that something important is missing, even if only the opportunity to stop and say to oneself: this is an important meeting; I must stop, focus, prepare, that I may make good decisions.

Unfortunately silence is not an option for the Devon Council. Even that is alleged to abuse human rights.

My anger? I realise how important words are to me. They create the universe we and I inhabit. By this I mean that they create a climate in our minds, individual and corporate. So, if there is not prayer, I am being required to live out a lie. This abuses me, if I may for a moment be a fool.

As a fool, I do not object to a majority decision not to have prayer. But I do object to a minority veto.

However, this leaves me wondering what my response as a Christian should be. The example of Jesus is to respond with grace, mercy and truth. How might we do this as a Christian community?

The importance of words for our health and well-being presses itself upon me. This is therefore a gift that I might offer others in a 'secular' context. (I use quotes since I don't subscribe to the sacred/secular divide but it is useful shorthand. But perhaps I need to challenge this language as well.) After all, Jesus said, You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

The lie being propagated is that to banish God-language is to somehow be more impartial, to use language that surely any reasonable person should agree on - neutral language.

At this point 'David Bentley Hart's book Atheist Delusions may be of help. At p 21 he writes: "Modernity's highest ideal -it's special understanding of personal autonomy - requires us to place our trust in an original absence underlying all reality..." "[A]ll judgment, divine no less than human, is in some sense an infringement upon our freedom."

Hence, he points out choice, not what we choose, is for us the first good (p 22). And thus we deny both a God who is beyond us and also a stable human nature which would confine our decisions within certain inescapable channels.

So what actually makes me angry is the folly of the situation. On the basis of a leap of faith, that there is no ultimate reality not even human, we are banished from using faith language. It is a poverty of thought.

But how then to speak? How do we speak to those who for the most part are blinded because of the culture around? For we can only use the words and the forms of thought that are to hand.

Perhaps a rediscovery of prayer may help. A friend and colleague is also careful to listen to what it is that others are praying about. This is a healthy corrective to most praying when we are anxious to speak, or to be silent, or to listen to God, but place less emphasis on the listening to one another.

But surely this is hinted at in John 20 (If you forgive the sins of others they are forgiven) and is implicit in Romans 8 when Paul speaks of God's Spirit praying through is. Incarnation is true in prayer as much as anywhere. God 'articulate' his purposes through us. And so it is that if two or three agree on earth it shall be done for them in heaven.

So how doe we speak of prayer in a 'secular' world. Perhaps we can speak of prayer as the ultimate listening to one another. The Christian sees this as part of the Spirit's work. But it is also true at a lesser level, when we truly hear each other. This is not merely beginning with silence; it is using that space of time to articulate what is in our hearts at a deeper level. If we are not ready for that, well, silence is a good start.

Silence

'The perfect never say anything of themselves.... They only say what the Spirit suffers them to say.'
- The Monk of Mount Athos, Archimandrite Sophrony (his biography of Father Silouan, quoted by Michael Ward, Planet Narnia, 250.

In occasional better moments, I seek to discern what God's Spirit is doing through the day, seeking to follow Christ's example. But often I wonder where God is at work, or whether I have lost the plot of faith. No doubt I often have, but perhaps sometimes it is because I need to trust to the silence: those moments of waiting for God's words or acts, like Jesus waited when confronted by the woman taken in adultery.

Sometimes perhaps I need simply to wait. "The meaning is in the waiting" - R S Thomas: Kneeling

I sometimes worry how this links to prayer. Despite what I write and read and find in the scriptures, I find within myself a sense that I ought to be asking, or at least, ought to be asking more. I think of verses such as Paul's 'pray all the time' (1 Thessalonians 5:17). I guess there is a balance here, but Stephen Cottrell (our Bishop) is helpful. I quote from CPAS's Church Leadership for Summer 2011: "In that slightly irritating way of hi, St Paul says 'pray all the time'... I don't think he means 'do that activity we call prayer all the time'. I think he means 'make your life a prayer' - arrive at that point where you are so inhabited by the Spirit that your life is translucent of the gospel."

In the Lord's Prayer, we pray 'Your kingdom come'. This is a request, but it is also very general. I must say, I find that God 'answers prayer' much more when somehow I am in that state of being alert, prayerful in myself, to God's kingdom coming. Especially I learnt of this when I was visiting my mother in her final illness in hospital. There would every day be some sort of 'God moment', if I may put it that way' which came out of the blue.

Jesus spoke of 'watching and praying'. This is probably very similar, if not the same. C S Lewis, in Letters to Malcolm,, Ch 14, writes: "We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labour is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake" (- emphasis his.)