{"id":2437,"date":"2004-12-02T11:21:52","date_gmt":"2004-12-02T17:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2004\/12\/02\/the-right-way-to-pray\/"},"modified":"2023-10-11T18:40:47","modified_gmt":"2023-10-11T23:40:47","slug":"the-right-way-to-pray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2004\/12\/02\/the-right-way-to-pray\/","title":{"rendered":"The Right Way to Pray?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s an interesting exchange of views in the comments for this recent post<\/a>. My pal Jeff takes gentle exception to my semi-snarky comment about President Bartlet’s hospital room prayer for a wounded soldier in last week’s episode of The West Wing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In this scene, the president asks the soldier if there’s anything he can do for him, and the soldier asks him to pray for him. The president agrees and immediately launches into the Lord’s Prayer<\/a> (but the scene fades out before he gets past the second line).<\/p>\n

This seemed to me to be the most politically correct way for Hollywood to show that it, too, has values without getting all icky and evangelical-like. Jeff rightly points out that there’s nothing wrong with praying this prayer, and it’s been oft-used especially in battlefield situations where the mind simply cannot function well enough to come up with anything else.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Scripture addresses this human weakness, this inability to express our heart to God:<\/p>\n

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. [Roman 8:26-27 (NIV)<\/a>]<\/span><\/p>\n

So, in one sense, the use of the Lord’s Prayer in this situation is perfectly acceptable, and I would never<\/em> question the sincerity of someone who prayed it. In fact, I would never question anyone else’s attempts at prayer, period. That’s something we each need to work out with God, and I don’t think He’s particularly choosy about how we come to Him; He just likes hearing from His children.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I believe this scene was carefully scripted in an attempt to mollify a large population of Christians who are increasingly vocal in expressing their discontent with Hollywood’s inability or unwillingness to include their values in its programming (or, if they are addressed, it’s only to dismiss or make fun of them). If that’s the case, then the use of the Lord’s Prayer in this scene was simply the safest way to emanate a faint aura of “values” without getting into those nagging issues like absolute truth, the sovereignty of God and the saving grace of Jesus Christ…three bedrock foundations of Christian faith.<\/p>\n

Well, one could argue, it’s not really a TV drama’s job to present an evangelical Christian message; what do you expect? I agree, but once the decision was made to put “Our Father, which art in heaven…” into the make-believe president’s mouth, the horse was out of the barn, so to speak. At the very least, this is a Christian prayer, offered by Jesus himself to his disciples as a model<\/em> of how they should come before their heavenly Father in worship, confession, thanksgiving and intercession. If reality is Hollywood’s thing — and everything else in the show is intended to paint a believable picture of how things work in the White House — then why not show how a Christian actually prays on behalf of someone laying in a hospital bed?<\/p>\n

Or…is this, indeed, how many (or most) people pray? That’s the question of the day. I’ve prayed for many a hospital patient or been in the presence of others while they prayed for them, and I’ve never heard anyone recite the Lord’s Prayer in those situations. But, admittedly, I come from a religious background that doesn’t place much emphasis on ritual, even (or especially) in areas as personal as prayer. Perhaps it’s my view that’s skewed.<\/p>\n

I raised this question with friends over coffee last night and their reactions were the same as mine. One friend said that she recalled how, as children, she and her sister were present in her mother’s hospital room when a member of the clergy (whom her mother knew) stopped by and prayed the Lord’s Prayer over her (the mom). My friend remembers how she and her sister were both taken aback; they had never heard such a thing. But it is an example of how some use the Model Prayer in times when others feel something more personal and specific is called for.<\/p>\n

In the end, I still believe that Hollywood doesn’t know nor does it want to know how the average Christian views and relates to God on a personal level. And, frankly, I suspect that the average Christian is now beyond caring whether Hollywood gets it right or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s an interesting exchange of views in the comments for this recent post. My pal Jeff takes gentle exception to my semi-snarky comment about President Bartlet’s hospital room prayer for a wounded soldier in last week’s episode of The West Wing. In this scene, the president asks the soldier if there’s anything he can do… Continue reading The Right Way to Pray?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12697,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437\/revisions\/12697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}