Bishop Gene Robinson has been chosen to give the invocation at the "We are One" concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as part of Barack Obama's inauguration. Bishop Robinson gave an interview with NPR regarding the invocation, which can be heard here. In the interview, Robinson describes reading the past 30-40 years of inaugural prayers in preparation and being
"schocked at how aggressively Christian they are. And my intention is not to invoke the name of Jesus, but to make this a prayer for Christians and non-Christians alike. Although I hold the Scripture to be the word of God, you know those Scriptures are holy to me and to Jews and Christians, but many other faith traditions have their own sacred texts. And so rather than insert that and exclude them from the prayer by doing so, I want this to be a prayer to the god of our many understandings and a prayer that all people of faith can join me in."*
I've heard other people claim similar intentions in other contexts, so I'm taking Robinson as an example of a wider phenomenon.
It seems to me that what we have here in an instance of the following schema:
- x claims to be a person of religious tradition T1
- x offers a prayer which is explicitly formulated to be acceptable to people not only of T1, but also of other religious traditions T2, T3 (and perhaps more) [assuming that T1, T2, and T3 are contraries]
I wonder how we're to understand such prayers, as it seems to me that they involve one form or other of either bad faith or confusion:
Bad Faith 1: x publicly claims to belong to religious tradition T1, but does not actually consider himself to belong to T1
Bad Faith 2: x really does belong to T1, but offers a prayer which he realizes is not to the god of T1.
Bad Faith 3: x really does belong to T1 and intends the prayer to fall under T1 rather than T2 or T3, and hopes that the members of T2 and T3 who 'join in' with x in the prayer fail to notice the tacit promoting of T1.
Confusion 1: x thinks that he belongs to religious tradition T1, but is confused about what commitment to T1 requires of him (e.g., the promotion of the god of T1 rather than the god of T2 or T3).
Confusion 2: x really does belong to T1, but is mistaken in thinking that a prayer can be neutral with respect to the god of T1, the god of T2, and the god of T3.
Confusion 3: x really does belong to T1, but is mistaken in thinking that members of T2 and T3 can pray to the god of T1 without violating their own traditions.
I'm not claiming that Robinson himself is acting in bad faith or under such a confusion. But I'm having a hard time seeing how prayers which fit the schema above don't involve either some element of bad faith or confusion.
Thoughts?
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(*the transcription is my own, but I think I've got it correct.)
Kevin,
Couldn't someone in tradition T1 offer a prayer that affirms views at the intersection of T1-T3 in a spirit of ecumenism? It may not be that he is implicitly abandoning or forsaking T1, but rather looking for common ground with other faith traditions. Doesn't seem like such a bad thing to do.
Might it be a form of the agnostic's prayer—"God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul"? (I heard that prayer from J. L. Schellenberg.) Perhaps he is saying, I believe that T1 is correct, but I also recognize that I may be mistaken and any one of T1-T3 may be correct, and so I shall pray in such a way that, whichever of T1-T3 are correct, my prayers are heard.
x believes that there is only one god (the god of T1), so that those who worship the god of T2 or T3, in as much as they are worshiping any god at all, must be (with some confusion) actually worshiping the god of T1. x thus offers a prayer to the god of T1 (the only god there is) in language neutral with respect to T1, T2, and T3 out of deference to those other (confused) worshipers.
This conception could fit with your standard, run-of-the-mill inclusivist view or with various pluralist views. Whether these views represent bad faith or confusion is, of course, the question for debate.
Don't we all do this to some degree or other, as long as we disagree on anything? Suppose you and I disagree on a proposition p. You believe not-p and I believe p. The proposition need not be expressly theological. Let's suppose for the sake of argument that we disagree on whether there is more than one species of giraffe. Maybe you accept the current view of biologists that there is more than one, while I accept the older view that there is only one (to be honest, I don't know what to think about giraffes).
Suppose we are having a meal together, and I am to say grace. Then I could say: "Almighty God, who givest being to exactly one species of giraffe, bless this food which we are about to receive of thy bounty, through Christ our Lord." But that makes it impossible for you to join in all of my prayer. It seems perfectly reasonable for me to omit the "who givest being to exactly one species of giraffe" clause, or replace it by the phrase "who givest being to at least one species of giraffe" which is neutral between your and my views. In doing so, I am not denying that there is only one species of giraffe. I am not even acknowledging (though in this case I should!) a possibility that I am wrong. I am simply making it possible for you to fully join me in the prayer.
Now, of course, how many species of giraffe God gives being to is not a claim of deep theological importance as far as we know. But I can do the same thing in cases where the claim is of deep theological importance but I have good reason to omit it in order to include you in my prayers. I need to choose between two goods: To affirm the important theological claim, and to include you in prayer. It is perfectly reasonable in some contexts to opt for the one good and in other contexts to opt for the other good.
For instance, I think divine simplicity is of very great theological importance--I think it is one of the most central doctrines of developed Western monotheism. But there is no need for me, when saying grace at a meal with someone who does not share this belief, to invoke God as "the one most holy Trinity, three distinct persons, one perfectly simple substance."
Who would have thought I would ever defend Gene Robinson?
Thanks for the comments. While I think there is merit in your responses, I want to push the issue just a little more.
Mike,
Couldn't someone in tradition T1 offer a prayer that affirms views at the intersection of T1-T3 in a spirit of ecumenism?
Yes, one could do that. And I agree that looking for common ground with outher traditions is a good thing. But in some contexts where such prayers are issued, I wonder what kind of common ground there is. For instance, USD has an Inter-Faith service every year. A few years back, it included representatives of Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and a Native American tribe (I can't remember which one). Now, one might wonder what religious beliefs form the intersection of these four traditions, and while the answer isn't obvious, I suspect that it's a pretty small subset.
Jonathan,
I think that the kind of fallibalism you're suggesting is also good. But (1) it's not been clear to me that, on the occasions that I've heard such prayers offered, the pray-er exemplifies such a spirit. Though this well could be the case and I simply wasn't aware of it. (2) There seems to me to be a difference between (a) praying in such a way as to affirm only beliefs at the intersection of T1 and T2 because of a senes of fallibalism, and (b) praying according to T1 while at the same type realizing that perhaps T2 is instead true. So I see the spirit you're suggesting as consistent with a prayer that fits that schema, but not entailing it.
D C,
Your suggestions striked me as either a case of bad faith 3 or confusion 3, depending on how the details are spelled out. (It perhaps could also be both.)
Alex,
Don't we all do this to some degree or other, as long as we disagree on anything? Suppose you and I disagree on a proposition p. You believe not-p and I believe p. The proposition need not be expressly theological. Let's suppose for the sake of argument that we disagree on whether there is more than one species of giraffe.
True, but there seems to me to be the following relevant disanology. Beliefs about the number of species of giraffe don't seem to be essential to the act of worship in the same way that certain theological beliefs are (e.g., whether there is one god or many, whether God is triune or not, whether God because incarnate or not). These beliefs, rather than how many species of giraffe he created, seem to define or individuate acts of worship.
I need to choose between two goods: To affirm the important theological claim, and to include you in prayer. It is perfectly reasonable in some contexts to opt for the one good and in other contexts to opt for the other good.
This seems right.
Who would have thought I would ever defend Gene Robinson?
This comment alone may have made the whole post worthwhile. :)
One could also make a Hick-style maneuver and say that, while T1, T2, and T3 appear to be contraries (perhaps they are phenomenal contraries), they really and truly aren't (they're noumenally consistent, or something like that).
I think the point of such a non-denominational prayer is not to limit its theological content, but to open it up. Presumably the prayer is meant to be shared. As the bishop prays, belieers of various traditions will fill in the gaps with specific content from their own tradition.
Luke,
True, but the truth of that sort of religious pluralism is a separate issue (and I was assuming that it was false, as I think there are good reasons for believing).
Gordon,
Yes, that seems to be the point. But I'm trying to understand what's at work in the practice. In what way is such a prayer to be shared, when it is being shared by people with contrary religious beliefs?
Interesting thoughts, but I'm not entirely sure we should assume that there are separate, distinct Gods in traditions T1, T2, etc. Some of these traditions could have the same referent, only there is a confusion as to the nature of the God. The confusion, to me, is not that T1 is praying to a particular God of T1 that T2 and T3 don't pray to. The confusion is what the God of T1 is like, and the description of what God is like in T2 and T3 when fully articulated, according to T1 is wrong. However this still allows for T2 and T3 to be right about some properties of God. The referent is the same the nature of God is wrong.
Perhaps one could paint a case where one talks to an individual S that goes by various names, and people describe S in different ways, and different people act in different ways towards S, some of these descriptions of S are more accurate than others and some of the actions are more appreciated by S.
This is not an argument for religious pluralism, however, one can still hold that they are generally right and others are wrong in a strict sense of the word. In addition there are traditions that probably do genuinely have different referents.
I think there is some equivocation or confusion in calling T1, T2, etc. "contraries". This could mean (a) their theological commitments can't all be true, or (b) they worship different gods. While (b) entails (a), the reverse is not the case. Consider Christianity and Judaism, which worship the same god but have different beliefs, or even Catholicism and Protestantism, or (according to some) Islam and the other Abrahamic faiths.
Robinson's view seems to be that many or all religious traditions worship the same god, knowingly or not. Maybe he is wrong about that, but it is tricky to know how to tell. Mere theological difference isn't going to prove it. (I think it turns on some kind of direct reference theory for the name 'God' but that's a different discussion.)
Now if it is possible for Jews and Christians to pray ecumenically together, and if Robinson's (presumed) views on everybody really worshipping the same god are true, then it is possible for Robinson to pray ecumenically as he intends. And even if Robinson's views are false, still, what he is trying to do makes sense, and he is not guilty of a transparent confusion or bad faith.
(I share Alex's astonishment that I am defending Gene Robinson.)
Hi Kevin,
OK, though I thought you were trying to understand the intention behind the prayer, or how the one praying understands what he/she is doing. (If the question isn't about the intentions of the one praying, but about some more objective notion of the coherence of the prayer, then the bad faith interpretations seem unfair.)
Kevin,
Maybe I am missing something deep, but I don't see the problem
Suppose we rae in an airplane, about to crash, you believe in a personal God, I believe in an impersonal foce of good. Our beliefs our contradictory. Yet it seems we can both pray, and encourage each other to pray
The point of the prayer is to ask for divine assistance to the new adminintration. Everyone who accepts some supernatural thingy, will be able to join in the prayer. There is no contradiction in the point of the prayer (to aidd/suport/guide/ president Obama.
The only sort of contadictory belief that would matter is if someone thought "hey I want my divine thingy to work AGAINST President Obama"
But that is not at issue here.
How many gods do we have? If the bishop believes what his holy text teaches, then he is confused. According to the scriptures there is one and only God and the only way to get to him is through His Son Jesus Christ.
The issue is not about "some supernatural thingy" as Kevin puts it. Pray is not a means to an end, for the quality of prayer depends on who the prayer is offered to.