The Twisted Prayers of the Fearful

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Recently one of my aunts died.  Her decline had taken a number of years, but she was so ill at the last, that to us who watched her husband suffer with her felt that death was a merciful release.  (I realize that this language is borrowed from Christians, and this is particularly ironic, because I want to write about the quandary in which an atheist finds him- or herself.)

My aunt's greatest joy and satisfaction was to be the librarian of her choir in Phoenix.  It was a large church, and it had an enormous organ, and vast quantities of choir music that it had accumulated over the decades, and my aunt was the one who painstakingly kept track of who had borrowed which items, and got them back with great persistence.

In her youth she had an incredibly high and accurate soprano.  I remember her singing an octave above everyone else, when we were all together on this pilgrimage to honor a team of missionaries who had traveled a great distance to bring The Gospel to the heathens.  To believers, such great endeavors are evidence that God Exists.  But we are all aware that a dream need not be real to inspire people to mighty things; false dreams continue to inspire individuals to both wonderful and horrible things.

Since my uncle was unfamiliar with church music, and in any case not in a fit state of mind to focus on a funeral service, and since, despite all my atheism, I was; and above all, since my aunt's life had been given a great deal of structure and (probably) meaning by her church, I found myself setting aside my determination to keep away from religious things, and undertaking to collaborate with the funeral music.

Rather than the dismal dirges that are common in funeral services (or whatever you want to call them!), I decided that we should open with a hymn of praise, a versification by the great hymnodist Joachim Neander of psalm 150 for which my hero, J. S. Bach had provided harmony.

It begins: Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!  It continues with noble and poetic sentiments; the CyberHymnal has all of the numerous verses, most of which I was familiar with, though I had chosen it primarily because I associated it with a generally uplifting mood.  But then, to my deep regret, we came to the following verse:

Praise to the Lord, who, when darkness of sin is abounding,
Who, when the godless do triumph, all virtue confounding,
Sheddeth His light, chaseth the horrors of night,
Saints with His mercy surrounding.

Though the psalmist here uses the word "godless" to refer to the enemies of Israel, modern congregations would surely take the word to mean atheists.  This prayer was saying, inadvertently or intentionally, "Praise the lord, because when atheists succeed making believers really upset, He shines his light, and gets rid of the Horrors of night (probably more atheists), and protects his Saints with his mercy."

Well, I had only myself to blame.  A regular hymn, such as "Abide with Me" would have focused on general misery and despair, and left us atheists out of it.  But noo, I had to be different.  Fortunately, the other hymns were OK (The Lord's my shepherd, and For all the Saints), and almost everyone, without exception, were glad that the dirges had been left out.  But they didn't know that I had endorsed a hymn that prayed for chasing me off, if indeed I were to be identified as one of the horrors of night.

Recently, most of you must know, a group was set up on FaceBook to pray for the death of Barack Obama.

On one hand, this is amusing.  But the implications of this prayer are interesting to list.

• If the group is serious (and I doubt that they are, really), they have made a mockery of what prayer is supposed to be for.  I'm by no means an expert, but prayer isn't intended to petition the Deity to kill off inconvenient people.
• If the group is an attempt at humor, it is interesting that the believing community tolerates it.  Evidently cynicism is alive and well in Christian America!
• It seems to suggest that Barack Obama alone is responsible for all that a particular sector of the population considers bad or undesirable --bad enough to take out a prayer contract on him.  This ascribes greater powers to the President than is warranted by the facts.

Finally, FaceBook appears not to regard this group as founded on Hate Speech, and refuses to shut the group down.  Meanwhile, a number of FaceBook members have started up a counter-group to petition FaceBook to shut down the Prayer group.

One of the most fascinating --and amusing-- features about this prayer business is that we atheists are puzzled over how to respond.  To take it too seriously, of course, would seem to suggest that despite our skepticism, we believe that prayer is efficacious.  (To the extent that it focuses the feelings of the person who offers one, it probably is efficacious, but that is far from the objective of a typical prayer.)  This is repugnant; if there is one single thing that is part of the agenda of all atheists, it is probably to wean The Faithful away from prayer, and towards positive and productive action.  So we're left wringing our hands in futile and ineffective dismay.  It is left to those among The Faithful with a conscience to point out the wrongness of it.  In the present case, such individuals seem very few.

If it is hate that inspires such a prayer, I can only feel sorry for the individuals concerned.  Those who support such Obama initiatives as overhaul of the health system and overhaul of the financial system cannot possibly have ulterior motives --unless it is perceived in certain quarters that success in these areas will result in certain political parties being seriously discredited.  (It is sad that all those who are outspoken about their dissatisfaction with  Congress take each of its success as a personal defeat.)

If it is fear that inspires this sort of prayer, just as it most definitely inspired the Psalmist, we must wonder why universal health care frightens people so.  How can anyone imagine that health care legislation is horrible enough to pray for a man's death?  It is both funny and alarming.  One has to wonder whether there's something in the water that makes people stupid.  Okay, taxes may go up, but people act as though the Dems are ruining the noble face of civilization!  I can't believe that the Insurance Industry alone is orchestrating this symphony of hate that is sweeping the nation.  What is going on?

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