The Reformation left interior prayer behind

The Shadow of the Reformation :: A Short Series on Why Protestants Have Trouble With Prayer

Part Four

All this changed in the sixteenth century with the advent of the Protestant Reformation. The change had been coming for centuries; medieval scholasticism was no stranger to abstract ideas and words, books and debates. But the Reformation turned the corner abruptly, leaving the legacy of interior prayer behind. For most of the last four hundred years the practice largely disappeared . . . until recently.

There is no question that the Protestant Reformation was not only a great gift to the Church but also to society—the democratic reforms arising from the Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Anabaptists, and much later, even the Pentecostals, have deeply influenced movements for justice and peace around the world and shaped political ideologies and structures. They also influenced important reforms within the Roman Catholic Church. However, there is a shadow to the Protestant Reformation, and as a Reformed Christian I know this shadow intimately—not only its effect on my own spiritual life, but also its legacy in the lives of those Protestants I’ve taught to pray over the last quarter century, and those who, having grown up in Protestant churches, lost their faith and walked away.

To be continued . . .

The mind stands dumb before its Maker

The Shadow of the Reformation :: A Short Series on Why Protestants Have Trouble With Prayer

Part Three

From earliest days, Christians were taught to relinquish their ideas about God in order to embrace (and be embraced) by the one thing mere thoughts can’t give them. This doesn’t mean that Christianity shunned the intellect; it simply means that in the end, the mind stands dumb before its Maker, and the only way to the Heart of God is through the human heart—that is, through love. So prayer, especially wordless, interior prayer, was the ultimate expression of prayer for most Christians for most of Christian history. And even if Christians didn’t all practice some form of the prayer of the heart, its value was rarely questioned, and its practice always had teachers.

To be continued . . .

I must love the one thing I cannot think

The Shadow of the Reformation :: A Short Series on Why Protestants Have Trouble With Prayer

Part Two

The anonymous author of the fourteenth century spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, and probably an English Christian monk, sums up the mainstream teaching this way: “We can know so many things. Through God’s grace, our minds can explore, understand, and reflect on creation and even on God’s own works, but we can’t think our way to God. That’s why I’m willing to abandon everything I know, to love the one thing I cannot think. He can be loved, but not thought. By love, God can be embraced and held, but not by thinking” (Carmen Butcher, trans., p. 21).

To be continued . . .

What music can teach us about prayer

Prayer is listening, resonating, participating in the fulness of God and creation. In this TED talk, percussionist Evelyn Glennie explores music as more than mere notes on a page. Rather, as an expression of the human experience. Playing with sensitivity and nuance informed by a soul-deep understanding of and connection to music, she talks about a music that is more than sound waves perceived by the human ear.

I wonder in what way(s) prayer is the resonance of sound, the sensation of something deep, even eternal...a participation in the eternal song of the Trinity.

If the Eternal Word was made flesh, that is, a human being in what way are we human beings invited to participate in the Word of Eternity, the deep music of the cosmos?

In what ways are our very bodies, offered in prayer, a "resonating chamber" for the deep music of God as Trinity and of the angels, saints, and drumming of the creation?

A little book on the Jesus Prayer

"When you pray," it has been wisely said by an Orthodox writer in Finland, "you yourself must be silent. . . . You must be silent; let the prayer speak."  To achieve silence: this is of all things the hardest and the most decisive in the art of prayer.

So begins Bishop Kallistos Ware's little booklet on the Jesus Prayer.  A theologian at Oxford University, Ware insightful draws the ancient Christian practice into the modern world.  I've written often about the Jesus Prayer or Prayer of the Heart, and commend the little book to you.