Religion: A People at Prayer

“Somewhere in every man there is the capacity for worship and prayer, for the apprehension of God and the love of him,” wrote Manhattan’s famed Preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick. “Praying is a practice like breathing or eating.” From Pentecostal ministers roaring hallelujahs to Greek Orthodox choirs chanting the Divine Liturgy in four-part harmony, from a widow silently mourning her dead husband to a child asking for a wanted toy, the nation last week was praying.

Some of the open, worshipful recognition of God was visible in news stories across the U.S. In San Francisco, after St. Mary’s Cathedral had been destroyed by fire. Archbishop Joseph McGucken asked the 750,000 Roman Catholics in his diocese “for prayers of thanksgiving that no lives were taken, and prayers of guidance for the future.” Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Jack Cox, a guest preacher in the Disciples of Christ, reminded a G.O.P. rally in Richardson, Texas: “Most of us are prone to forget to whom we owe thanks for what we have, for what we are, and for what we hope to be. For these things we owe thanks to God and not to the state.”

Near the charred remains of the Mount Olive Baptist Church in Sasser. Ga., which segregationist whites had burned to the ground. Temple University Student Prathia Hall, 22, led the all-Negro congregation in a worship vigil. “We may not be free in our lifetime,” she prayed, “but O God, Lord in Heaven, we’re going to be free.”

This Monday in Denver, Mayor Richard Y. Batterton presides at the opening of a city-wide week of prayer to request divine guidance for citizens and city officials alike, so as to spare the community any repetition of the police scandals that shamed Denver last year. Next Sunday, at the climax of this rogation period, more than 200 clergymen will read to their congregations an admonition from // Chronicles: “If my people . . . shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.””Recreation & Renewal.” Not all the prayers were offered for such solemn causes. In Atlanta’s Morningside Presbyterian Church, Dr. Arthur Vann Gibson offered prayers of guidance for candidates in the Democratic primary. The sunburned congregation at Washington’s Calvary Baptist Church bowed their heads to join in a post-summer oration: “We are thankful for the return of those who have been away enjoying days of recreation and renewal of body, mind and spirit.” Prayer is mostly personal, and judging whether it is growing more common is an exercise in measuring unknowns. Nonetheless, an impressive majority of ministers and laymen interviewed by TIME correspondents across the U.S. last week argue that the quality of the nation’s praying has never been better. “I think there is more serious prayer.” says Dr. Harold Kilpatrick. director of the Texas Council of Churches. “There has always been the foxhole prayer and the Santa Claus prayer, but there is now more identification with the Lord and submission to his will.” “As a nation, we are praying more,” insists the Right Rev. John Vander Horst, Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee.

Short & Eloquent. How the nation prays has changed mightily over the years, but the Shema (Hear, 0 Israel) remains the most common set prayer in Judaism, and the Lord’s Prayer is predictably the favorite Christian formula. “Everybody knows it,” says one Atlanta minister. “It’s reasonably short and really rather eloquent.” Thanks to Protestantism’s liturgical revival, congregations have found new inspiration in the stately collects and antiphons of the prayer books, the classic prayers of the church fathers. One modern prayer that has been widely reprinted is a request for God’s blessing upon the astronauts, composed by Dr.

Duell Kean of Washington’s Epiphany Episcopal Church: “Almighty God . . .

we beseech thee to protect with thy sustaining presence those who venture to explore the heavens.” At civic ceremonies, invocations are somewhat shorter and simpler than in the past—and may even on occasion live up to the standards of frankness set by the Right Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes Jr., Episcopal Bishop of Boston, who suggests that his priests say: “God forgive the graft that went into this building.” Despite the Supreme Court decision, many schools opened this fall with some form of prayer. In San Francisco, the midmorning snack for kindergarten, first-and second-grade children is invariably preceded by a bouncy hymnlet that teach ers have dubbed “The Graham Cracker Song”: We thank thee, God, for food we eat, For family and friends we meet, For books we read and songs we sing; We thank thee, God, for everything.

Washington’s Episcopal-run Beauvoir El ementary School incorporates a dose of natural theology in its kindergarten prayer : Great grey elephant, little yellow bee; Tiny purple violet, big tall tree; Red and white sailboat on a blue sea.

All these things you gave me, God, When you made my eyes to see.

Thank you, God.

Haunted, but Hunting. Among teen agers, says the Rev. Andrew Greeley, a sociologist and assistant pastor of Chi cago’s Christ the King Roman Catholic parish, “there is a hunger to find some thing of significance or meaning. These kids are haunted, but they are hunting.” Church leaders have tried composing prayers in slang for the generation raised by Dick Clark — so far with little success.

One such recent effort is a hortatory “hu manitarian prayer,” composed by Meth odist Scout Leader Clifford John Mer cer, 23, that has been used in a summer camp run by the Detroit Council of Churches. Sample lines: “God . . . God . . . Hey God! Can you hear me? 0 God, sometimes talking to you is like talking to a brick wall . . . Hey, Fa ther, look at the world — will you look at it, Father?” Churches are constantly experimenting with new ways to bring prayer to the peo ple. On their own initiative, dedicated Christian laymen are experimenting with new forms of corporate worship. In some business firms, the prework prayer service is now almost as customary as the coffee break. Oklahoma City has at least 100 separate groups of Protestant businessmen and factory hands who gather during the day to pray in common for such causes as world peace and the recovery of sick friends. Detroit Lawyer Robert Choate. a Congregationalist. belongs to a cell of laymen who gather at 8 a.m. each Wednesday in a downtown office and hold a session of prayer. “All through the state I keep hearing of people who get together aside from regular church hours and pray,” he says.

Getting in Tune. Dedicated worshipers are making it easier for others to pray along with them. Continental Airlines distributes cards containing a grace-before-meals along with its lunch and dinner trays. Los Angeles Disk Jockey Dick Whittinghill of KMPC calls up his teen-ager listeners between records, asks them to join him in reciting a close cousin of the New York State Regents’ Prayer: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon thee, and we beg thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers, our loved ones and our country.” Hollywood Psychiatrist Bernice Harker. a Methodist, has installed a tiny chapel in her office for the benefit of waiting patients and passersby. “I don’t claim any miracles from it,” she says. “It is my idea that God is available and loves everybody, and we might as well get in tune and let him help.” Some ministers and rabbis wonder whether this apparent ocean of national prayer is more than ankle-deep. “Prayer is often a conditioned reflex,” worries Dr. Edgar S. Brown Jr., executive director of the Commission of Worship for the Lutheran Church in America. “It’s a handy thing to have around in time of trouble.” Other clerical skeptics argue that their congregations have lost the art of praying; worship, they say, has become placid and mechanical—as if a boxer were absently crossing himself before each round of a fight.

Peace, Not Minks. In answer, other ministers point out that the day of the “gimme, gimme” prayer is over. “Prayer is not so materialistic any more, like asking for a mink coat to show off,” insists Psychiatrist Harker. Ministers and priests point to a recent surge of lay interest in theology and Bible study; as a result, many Christians understand better than ever before that prayer is basically a dialogue with their Creator rather than a summary demand for divine action. Even in prayers of petition, ministers note, the requests are more impersonal: there are fewer demands for better jobs and glossier convertibles, proportionately more requests that God guide Congress and the President in their search for peace.

“Many people no longer pray to God to change external events,” concludes a Methodist theologian named Georgia Harkness, “although under some circumstances this is legitimate. Prayer today is more a petition to God for direction and power to change these events. There was a time when people prayed for rain or riches, but that no longer seems common. Christians today believe God expects us to help.”