25 January
Dear Friends,
This week, prayer made headlines—not only because it coincided with the ironically timed Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, but also due to two significant public discussions about prayer that followed poignant prayers surrounding the inauguration of the now US president, Donald Trump. The first prayer was offered by Rev. Franklin Graham during the inauguration on Monday, and the second was delivered by the Right Rev. Mariann Budde at a service attended by the president on Tuesday, held at the National Cathedral in Washington.
Both of these prayers reminded me of the South African book titled When Prayer Makes News, which highlights the controversy that arose on June 16, 1985, during the grim days of apartheid. Back then, a call for public prayer to end the unjust rule of apartheid sparked significant debate. Many churches rejected this call, and numerous leading theologians sided with the government against the prayer initiative. Allan Boesak summarized the reasoning behind their desire to pray during that time: “If the rulers will not hear the cries of the people or change their ways, if they continue to prevent justice, let us pray them out of existence. God will hear our cry... We do not believe in the power of violence, but we do believe in the power of prayer.”
This moment raised numerous questions and criticisms, particularly from the ruling elite: Who is the church? Who speaks for the church? What constitutes a church leader? With whose voice were they speaking?
Despite this, many who were involved in the struggle against apartheid would later assert that it was, in fact, the power of prayer that helped shift power dynamics in South Africa. However, prayer can also become intertwined with our own misunderstandings. The nineteenth-century German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach stated, “The ultimate essence of religion is revealed by the simplest act of religion—prayer. Not the prayer before and after meals, the ritual of animal egoism, but the prayer pregnant with sorrow, the prayer of disconsolate love, the prayer that expresses the power that crushes man to the ground, the prayer that begins in despair and ends in rapture.” Theologian John De Gruchy reminds us that Feuerbach did not believe in the existence of God. To him, prayer was merely the act of bringing our imagination into being to meet our own needs: “Thus, what is prayer, but the wish of the heart expressed with confidence in its fulfillment? What else is the being that fulfills these wishes but human affection, the human soul, listening to itself, affirming itself unhesitatingly?”
As someone once said, God created us in God’s image, and we returned the favour. In our time, we should heed Feuerbach’s critique once again. False piety manifests in many forms, inevitably replacing the God who exists beyond human control with a god that can be manipulated to serve and endorse self-interest.
This week, we heard similar questions echoing through the halls of the social media platform X, as Trump demanded that the “so-called Bishop” Budde apologize for her “boring and inappropriate” sermon. She chose not to.
Personally, I’m glad she didn’t. This is a time for prayer—compassionate and gentle, yes, but also clear in its message of mercy and compassion. Perhaps it’s as simple as praying the kind of prayers that Jesus prayed: asking for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done. We are called to show mercy to our enemies, resist temptation, and acknowledge that the kingdom, power, and glory belong to God forever and ever.
If you would like to have a look at the prayers, please follow these links:
Rev. Franklin Graham: https://youtu.be/xwwaEuDeqM8?si=UJGzzTQ3YBy3LbTY
Right Rev. Mariann Budde: https://youtu.be/2k8E7PBs-xw?si=Hu-FC5RfAtzZqquI
Blessing
Marius Louw