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Pray in the name of ....... whom?

Pray in the name of … whom?  (By Paul Langkamp)

Prayers for a Multicultural Church, Mission Prayer Handbook (1991-2003) is published by the Uniting Church National Assembly and can be viewed on the UCA website. It is published for use by cross-cultural congregations. Some of these prayers sound Christian and holy, but on closer inspection, are neither.

The first prayer in this collection is called, God of Many Names. The prayer begins invoking the “God of a thousand names” and then lists 14 “forms” in which this god comes to “us”. Each form is as a supplier of a need to the needful. For example, god is “rainbow” to the depressed, and “water” to the parched. Each form is a ‘name” for God. The other 986 “forms” or “names” are not mentioned. The prayer seems to imply that whatever one thinks god does, that is indeed his name. There are problems here.  The prayer’s logic is deceitful. The sequence of stating: god has a thousand names; think of what god does; that is god’s name; all these names are one: is done at the precise moment when the worshipper trusts the ordained to lead their innermost worshipful thoughts. The prayer allows the pantheistic idea that praying to rainbows and water is a good thing. And the prayer allows any “form” to have legitimacy as a “name”: remember, ancient Israel confused the golden calf as legitimately god.

As Christians we have to be careful. It has to be said that, one thing God does, that is not mentioned in this prayer, is that he judges. He will judge those who misuse his name. (3rd commandment) Fortunately, we already know who God is when we pray, “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed by thy name.” The one name we confess is the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in whose name we are baptized, as is stated in the Basis of Union and the major church confessions, also listed in the Basis of Union. It is God revealed in the man Jesus Christ on the cross whom we worship. We are saved in Jesus’ name, and nothing else. There is no need for vagueness about whom we worship. Getting the name of the God right is important: after all, to the name of Jesus every knee will bow.

The third prayer in this collection goes further – it seems to despise God’s name. Taken from Mission Prayer Handbook 1993 ( page 62) the prayer is called, In the Many Faces.

This prayer puts a new twist on God s name. Unlike the first prayer, which prays that any name will do, this prayer prays to a no-name God. The prayer begins: “We thought we knew Your face, O God. It was the face of the strong father watching over us and holding us like a rock.” By using the past tense and the verb “know”, the prayer implies misunderstanding of God’s name: it also dismisses some of the most comforting, ancient psalms that use the image of rock. Then the prayer does an apparent about-face by having the congregation apparently affirm this image with the words, Praise to You, God who is like a father: it’s still arrogant to make a simile what in the Lord’s prayer is God’s name.

The prayer then continues this play with images that bear no relation to what God has revealed himself to be in his Jesus on the cross; “Then we saw you as a mother, bending over to feed us and rocking us gently against Your warm breasts.” The prayer seems to be appealing to earth-mother-goddesses that the writers of the New Testament took care to avoid.

Then the prayer reaches its best idea of god, “And then we found You as a friend treading the road of life before us.” Even the best idea reduces God to a mere simile, “God who is like a friend.” The idea of equality that “friend” implies seems hardly adequate when we want to lift our hearts in gratitude to God who knows us intimately, who saves us, and yet still makes himself known to us. 

Finally, the prayer asks the congregation to pray to “Great God, unnamable and glorious” This prayer doesn’t know whom to worship, and yet it ask others to follow.

Well, God has already given us his name to use. We already know what that is. The name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is holy and our salvation depends on it: If we confess with our hearts that “Jesus is Lord” and believe in our hearts, we will be saved. These prayers of are not worthy of Christian use and should be discarded by the Uniting Church.

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