Interfaith prayer …

IN REFUSING to discuss the case in point--Dave Benke's suspension by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod--Gilbert Meilaender offers an antiseptic analysis of interfaith prayer ("Interfaith `prayer,'" Oct. 23-Nov. 5). Here context is everything.

First, Benke's action has to be understood as a pastoral response to the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. In a city grieving its dead, it was essential that the Christian voice in general and the LCMS voice in particular be represented at this major show of solidarity with victims. It was first and foremost a pastoral act.

Second, Meilaender quickly dismisses another point of context--the "heavy-handed response of the LCMS hierarchy." Here too there is a lack of analysis. Benke was suspended for making a pastoral decision, in the midst of crises, that was in line with synodical policy and made in consultation with his ecclesiastical supervisor.

Kenneth J. Doka
New Rochelle, N.Y.

Meilaender does not explain how a "pagan" god can at the same time be impotent, with no real existence, and also exert "real evil power." Would Meilaender equate the pagan gods of the Greco-Roman world with the object of veneration of a Muslim, a Buddhist or a Hindu? Nor does he explain how Christians would be "denying" Jesus by their praying alongside of those who do not accept Jesus as part of the Godhead. We Christians can be true to our own traditional formulations while respecting other approaches to God.

Meilaender tentatively considers the possibility of a situation "in which a Christian and a Hindu, praying alongside each other, might also be said to be praying `to' the same God." Fair enough, but then he condescends to the Hindu in his conclusion: "... though that God is incompletely known to one of those who prays." Only "one of those"? Do we Christians "completely know" the true God?

William E. Oyler
West St. Paul, Minn.

Abjuring the "salvation" issue did nothing to mask Meilaender's implicit judgments--his sense that Christians have a lock on the love of God so complete that, thank you Karl Barth, Christians "cannot grant the non-Christian the right to be blessed in his own way."

Meilaender concedes that "the peoples of the world--at least sometimes--pray to the true God when they cry out in their need. Although they do not fully know that God, he still is present to them and may receive their prayer ..." Theological gatekeepers parsing God's willingness or capacity to be a blessing need more prayer in their lives. Idolizing your own explanations misses the spiritual mark, whatever the tradition--dishonoring God and those who love God in the multitude of ways our author has not seen or heard.

Paul Chaffee
Interfaith Center at the Presidio,
San Francisco, Calif.

It would have been helpful if Meilaender had clarified his position on civil religion. Would he apply the warnings against Christians reverting "to the rituals of civil religion" to other events as well, such as the inauguration of the president of the United States, where the trapping of civil religion are hauled out every four years? If Meilaender is suggesting that the church should make a decisive break with the surrounding pluralistic culture, does he prefer a public square where God is not a part of the national discourse? Does he agree with the Ninth Circuit Court that the phrase "one nation under God" would be better left unsaid? It seems to me that he is heading in that direction. The elimination of a civil religion would certainly solve the problem he discusses, but at what price?

Donald G. Matzat
Zion Lutheran Church,
Bridgeville, Pa.

COPYRIGHT 2002 The Christian Century Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning