Since I grew up in a home where the mother passed out tracts with tips and even with fares for turnpike tolls, I will be forever scarred by an evangelical piety that was always in the “car sales†mode, always looking to make the deal. (For a particularly empathetic treatment of this piety – as well as way too many ehff bombs for those with sensitive consciences, see The Big Kahuna.) Part of my mother and father’s piety included prayer before every meal, not only at home but also in the restaurant or diner. Oh, the embarrassment for a pubescent boy when the waitress brought the house salad to the table while dad was prayerfully thanking God for his provision. For that reason it became a source of comfort to learn while doing dissertation research that Machen was no fan of praying in public, say in a restaurant before a meal with commissioners to General Assembly. During my time in the Christian Reformed Church I also welcomed the practice among Dutch-American Calvinists that you did not need to say grace if a meal lacked potatoes or used no utensils. This meant a meal of just burgers at McDonald’s could be consumed without an audible prayer. Add fries to the order and you had to pray out loud.
The point of these memories is to introduce a question for readers of Oldlife: what do you do when you are invited to dinner at the home of non-Christians? Do you bow your head and pray silently before eating? Do you pray with your spouse and/or family by the curb before entering the house or apartment? Or do you simply go with the flow and not pray? My own sense is that good manners involve respecting the rules of the house in which I am a guest. Better then to pray before entering the non-believing home than to make the hosts feel uncomfortable or embarrassed when I bow my head, say a prayer, and invariably miss the mashed potatoes while they are being passed. Doh!
What is impermissible, it seems to me, is for me to turn to the head of the non-Christian household and say, “let me lead us in prayer,” stand, and ask God’s blessing in the name of Christ. If I use the words “we†and “our†in my prayer, I am rightfully including my wife. But I am also including people who have not professed Christ and perhaps given them the impression that they are Christians by the use of “we.†If they are generic God-fearing Americans, that won’t alarm them. If they are some of my secular academic friends, they will think I’m nuts and likely lose respect. And if I pray in the first-person singular – “I just want to thank you Lord†– then why am I praying out loud? Am I not guilty at that point of doing exactly what Jesus told his disciples not to do when he said, “When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men†(Matt 6:5)?
But so far these questions and considerations are only the sub-point for this post’s point, which is how Christians act in public life in the greatest nation on God’s green earth. For a long time in our country’s history — 1789-1965 — Protestants acted like the public square was their dining room. They could go out and pray in Jesus’ name and not have to worry about anyone else taking exception because those from other faiths were not “real†Americans. The genuiness attributed to being American could sometimes reach back to New England’s Puritan federal theology, or sometimes to the nation-shaping energy of the Second Great Awakening’s Benevolent Empire, or sometimes it was simply a civil religion that put “in God we trust†on coins and “under God†in the Pledge of Allegiance to show those atheistic Russkies just who was God-fearing. But no matter what version of Christian America, Protestants believed that this land was their land and they did not have to be bashful about praying in public. The public and private were indistinguishable. For proof, just look at the way that Protestants defended prayer and Bible reading in public schools.
The problem with this conception of “real†America was that lots of non-Protestants were also citizens of the nation. The U.S. public square was also the home of Jews, Roman Catholics, Mormons, and various strains of unbelief. In which case, to enter into the public square and speak in Christian categories was akin to going over to a non-Christian friend’s home for dinner and insisting that a prayer be said before the meal. It is one thing to do that in your own home when non-Christian friends come over for a meal – though even then what pronouns do we use for such a prayer to show respect for the guests but not pray falsely to our Lord? But to go over to a non-believers house and be pushy about including non-Christians in forms of Christian devotion is rude.
It seems to me that this is what happens when Christians insist that faith and religious discourse be part of American politics. They don’t seem to recognize that non-Christians also live in the United States. This nation belongs to non-believers as much as it belongs to Christians. In which case, the insertion of religion in American public life is a modern version of Nativism – that nineteenth-century phenomenon that sought to keep Roman Catholics from becoming citizens of the United States (and sometimes burned Roman Catholic buildings). Driving unbelief from the land was wise domestic policy for Israel in the centuries before Christ – not just wise but holy. It is folly for any nation after Christ. For Christ’s followers, it is down right inhospitable.
Old Life 
Darryl
Would you pray in your own home before a meal at which, for example, your secular academic friends were attending?
Blessings
Matt
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Matt, I have and I do, but it still makes me feel like I’m praying in homeroom at public school — “who is this ‘we'” Christian man?
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I would like to make just a couple of points and get your feedback. First it seems you are using the same superior piety that you indicate your parents used by handing out Gospel tracts when you were a child. It seems you are judging your parents for trying to be a witness for Christ. Was it not the great preacher Charles Spurgeon who said “When preaching and private talk are not available, you need to have a tract ready . . . Get good striking tracts, or none at all. But a touching gospel tract may be the seed of eternal life. Therefore, do not go out without your tracts.”
Second, you have to be kidding about praying in public right? Did not the King of the Universe, pray in public. Now of course we should be careful of not becoming a Pharisee who is praying in public to pump ourselves up for prideful purposes, but I think its a stretch to say that praying before we eat because we are forever grateful that the Lord has not only provided the food, but uses the food to strengthen us is wrong.
Third, I do agree we should never be pushy about prayer. But does that mean we should worry about offending someone if we pray, so then we do not pray? No of course not. An argument could be made that if you are not offending people you should be examining yourselves to see if you truly belong to Christ. Jesus Christ is offensive because He tells the whole world they are not respecting and honoring Him as the provider and sustainer of all things. Does this mean we are rude and not polite about prayer when we have friends over or they have us over, or we are in a restaurant? No again of course not.
Now let me end this way. This is how I handle prayer over my food. I always pray before eating by myself, but I have had to repent for being repetitive and not sincere about being grateful for God’s provision. I have stopped strongly encouraging my 3 year old to pray before he eats and have started asking him does he want to thank God for his food (I want my children and family to pray out of the overflow of gratefulness in their heart).
In restaurants or someone’s home where I am not sure if there are non-believers in my midst, I always ask if they mind if I pray before we eat. If they say yes they do not want me to pray then that’s it, I do not pray out loud. If they say sure they do not mind I pray usually like this “Father thank you for this food, thank you for loving us – In Jesus Name. Amen.†Now they might get offended that God loves them but that’s not my concern. My, and really all believers only concern, is how to get a conversation going about spiritual things if we believe there are non-believers present. An opening prayer is an ice-breaker with the end game being the Cross.
One last thing I always do in restaurants that have waitresses or waiters if I’m by myself or with other known believers is tell the waitress or waiter that I’m a follower of Jesus Christ and I always thank Him for my food. I then go on to ask them if there is anything going on in their life (family, money, school, etc..) I can pray for. I’ve had the restaurant workers breakdown in tears to this question. People have come out of the kitchen to ask me to pray. Friends this is where the rubber meets the road about being a Christian. Are we concerned about those who are perishing or are we concerned about not offending people with our prayers.
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I agree. Protestants should vacate the Public Square, and leave it to Romanists, Jews, Muslims and Atheists.
After all, that’s what pietists and fundamentalists have done for most of the 20th Century, and we should return to the pure pietistic and fundamentalistic view. Protestants in the public square are delaying the Rapture. Let’s end it now.
I should know. I was a teenaged fundamentalist.
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Brian,
Not all of us share (or can sustain) your piety. It seems like your evangelistic zeal makes “sealing the deal” for Christ on behalf of every restaurant worker you come across your driving purpose in dining out. Which is fine I guess, but I am usually out for a good meal. Concern for the perishing can quickly become pretext for foisting the gospel on people without a fundamental respect for the person.
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Brian, how does your prayer before non-Christians rescue them? The function of the prayer is to thank the Lord for his provision and ask for his blessing. Are you proposing that a prayer works like a tract?
Roy, how is it abandoning the public square to work in it as a Christian who has a calling to be a citizen in a republic that welcomes all faiths? It seems to me that on your view you can’t possibly enter it before you change the laws to get the non-Christians out of the square. That’s an honorable position. But it is different from working in the public square with non-Christians and not assuming that the square is a Christian place.
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Brian,
There is a lot going on in your comment. But what struck me particularly was this bit:
I have stopped strongly encouraging my 3 year old to pray before he eats and have started asking him does he want to thank God for his food (I want my children and family to pray out of the overflow of gratefulness in their heart).
What happens when one doesn’t meet the law inwardly? Does it really mean that one should cease outward obedience (i.e. praying)? Does this logic extend to, say, public worship or marriage vows?
Is it really true that an external exercise’s final value can and should be measured by the participant’s inward enthusiasm? But it seems to me that love and duty are not mutually exclusive. Nor are “habit†and “routine†four-letter words, but, in point of fact, quite pious. It could be that the logic that informs what you tell your child is prone to more tyranny than piety.
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“Not all of us share (or can sustain) your piety.” Great point Jed, but you are off base about “sealing the deal.” That is not up to me and really not my concern. My life is supposed to be a living reflection of God, or at least from my elementary understanding of Scripture that’s what I believe my life is supposed to be. I’m not sure how if we do not allow people to see our faith they can see our faith.
Of course my concern for the waiter is not the driving force in why I’m out to eat, but while I’m out it is an easy way to strike up a conversation and show some compassion towards another creature.
My respect for the person has nothing to do with how I try to give the Gospel. I believe people who die in their sins without Christ go to hell. I’ll offend anyone to warn of this and bleed to call people to repentance and faith in the Christ.
My prayer for the server is whatever request they ask (unless it is in volition to God’s law), that God would so move in a overwhelming way to make His Name great in their life. I want to get as many people in heaven as possible. Not just my buddies.
Dgh – I’m not sure how you read me saying my “prayer before non-Christians rescue them?” I’m not sure where you get your definition on prayer, but is it not also the function of prayer to ask the Lord to “hallow His Name?” No I’m not proposing prayer as a tract. Or at least I don’t think I am. I do however believe God answers prayers.
All I do is show compassion again as noted above towards another creature while I’m out to eat instead of being selfish and not caring about them. I then proceed to ask the Lord to show up in their live in such a mighty way that there is not question that He is real. I also pray that His Name is made “hallowed” in their hearts and he would lead them to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. I never leave my name or my local church information. I do usually leave a clear Gospel tract with a very large tip that has a website where they can get more information. Again I’m not concerned about “sealing the deal†or “getting a notch in my belt†but only to sow the Gospel into someone’s life and pray that God would grow it.
The fact is you guys can break down my line of thinking but you cannot break down Scripture. We if Christians are to go out into the world and be His witnesses. Keeping Him to ourselves and not caring for those we come into contact with is disobedience, whether we offend them or not. We do not have a choice if we are followers of Christ but to move into the public square and speak up that Jesus Christ is King. It’s one thing to claim to be a Christian and another to actually live it out where we might be condemned or seem offensive. Our witness must be done with love but we must be witness, unless of course there is nothing in our lives to witness of.
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Zrim you bring up some good points and why I’m seeking the Lord’s guidance here. Thanks for pointing it out because there is a issue. If you are a brother in Christ please pray the Lord helps me with being a Godly husband and leader in my family.
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Brian, I am definitely not trying to dissuade you from sharing your faith. But understand that your approach is not one that many of us would choose to take, and for good reason.
As an aside, be sure to tip your waiter well in your urgent attempt to win their soul. More often than not evangelistic diners are the worst tippers. Buck that trend at least.
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Jed, No doubt on the tipping but lets be honest….most self proclaiming Christians have no concern for the lost souls of the thousands that are around us.
You are a Christian because brothers and sisters in Christ moved into the public square. Remember Paul in Athens. Just like most Christians are bad tippers, most christians are bad witnesses. Again it’s most likely because they have never seen themselves in Truth and met Christ.
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Darryl – I think you missed my point. Your agrument sounded just like the pietistic, fundamentalist dispensationalists who gave me the gospel, and first grounded me in the Christian faith. So my comments were made with tongue firmly planted in cheek.
But allow me to respond to your response in this manner: The American public square was treated by protestants as their own, because it was theirs. And they welcomed other faiths to the public square because they were protestants. But since they lost the public square (and lost their protestantism) doesn’t mean that w should shed our open, public commitment to Christ to compete in the public square. Which, frankly, is how your piece reads.
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When I was a non-Christian in my early-twenties, I worked as a waiter and bartender. Everyone who works in food-service knows that the worst shift of the week is Sunday afternoon. Why? The God-Squad. I know that most Old-Lifers do not frequent restaurants on Sunday afternoon, but any act that identifies one as a Christian (praying, taking prayer requests, leaving tracts) inducts one into the God-Squad. Members of the God-Squad are usually rude, overly demanding, often have unruly children who make a huge mess with no effort to help clean up by the parents, and are notoriously bad tippers. Overall, the God-Squad does far more to hurt the witness of Christians than help.
This is not to say that Brian and others who identify themselves as Christians in a restaurant are guilty of any or all of these things. This is merely a suggestion that if you are going to put yourself out there as a Christian, do not be rude or weird. Above all, if you leave a tract, be sure that your tip is bare-minimun 20%. Tight-wads are lousy evangelists.
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Brian, I have lost any illusion that my bleeding heart can bring one soul to glory. Saying that you have even the capacity for concern for the lost thousands around you seems a bit disingenuous. You don’t know the lost thousands around you, and if you devoted yourself to knowing any of them adequately, that number would dwindle to a handful. I find that maintaining a healthy witness with the handful of non-Christians that I am honored to call friends is a tall enough task. Christ is both sovereign and competent enough to care for the lost souls of this world, and last time I checked he has built his church well regardless of how well I manufacture sentiments for people I do not know.
As for your public square theory, again, you are conceiving things on far too grand of a scale. My grandfather had the good sense to fall in love with a newly converted Christian woman who came to faith through the influence of a close friend. He became a Christian to marry her. They raised their kids in a Christian home, and my parents raised me in a Christian home and viola, here I am. I am not a Christian because someone pestered their waitress, or had a grandiose vision for the public square, rather through the organic process of passing the faith down through the covenant family.
Claiming that the reason that most Christians are bad witnesses because they have never “met Christ” is taking things a bit far don’t you think? I have yet to see anything in the NT that demands that those who are truly Christian also possess adequate evangelistic zeal and compassion for lost souls. Last time I checked, faith in Christ is sufficient to qualify one as a Christian.
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Roy, how could my piece sound like my mother’s. She would have said that praying in public was what Christians should do. I didn’t exactly say that. My mother is a pietist, fundamentalist, dispensationalist (when aware). So how could I be if I am disagreeing with mom?
Also, how was the United States’ the home of Protestants? Wasn’t is also the home of the heterodox like (at least) our first three presidents (Washington, Adams, Jefferson)? So it belonged to others who only prayed in the name of providence.
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Roy,
You cite a fundie background to lend credence to your criticism here. But I have an IFCA background, too (ok by conversion and marriage and not birth), and am as perplexed by your point as I am affirmed in DGH’s. My fundies were and remain quite involved in the public square, but really only as antagonists instead of fellow workmen. And public square prayer is understood more or less to be an extension of this antagonism, sort of like the way one speaks at an elevated pitch at a cocktail party to the person in front of him because he’s really making an obnoxious point to the rest of the room. The way they do public square generally is how they do public prayer specifically: wear it on your sleeve to prove your piety to God, yourself and others.
But there are two kinds of otherworldliness and two kinds of this-worldliness, one bad and one good. It seems to me you may be confusing bad kinds of each with good kids of each. Fundie withdrawal and participation just isn’t the same as confessional withdrawal and participation. (At least, judging by the criticisms I as a confessionalist get from my fundie family, it seems we’re on two very different pages.) In the same way, good public prayer is in public worship, bad public prayer is (usually) in the public square.
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“I was a teenaged fundamentalist” sounds almost as good as “I Was a Teenaged Werewolf.” Only more scary.
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So what should evangelism look like?
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Jeff, more like preaching and less like juggling (ba dop bop).
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Quoted from a post: “I have yet to see anything in the NT that demands that those who are truly Christian also possess adequate evangelistic zeal and compassion for lost souls.”
How could a Christian not possess compassion for lost souls? It is not a requirement for salvation, but it is the result becoming a believer. It is part of the heart of God.
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Allison,
As a qualifier, I do care for lost souls, and seek to maintain a fair witness to them about Christ. We show our care for the lost as congregations joining together in corporate prayer, praying for the advance of the gospel as we bring our petitions to God. We show it by inviting our unbelieving friends and family members to church to hear about Jesus as the gospel is faithfully preached on Sunday. Some show it by answering a call to plant churches that proclaim the gospel where it is barely heard or not at all.
However, I am not wringing my hands over the lostness of humanity at every given moment. I am under no compulsion or ministerial call that obligates me to “witness” everywhere I go. When I have the rare opportunity to have a babysitter so that I can take my wife out for a nice meal, my focus will be on her, not getting the gospel out.
Brian’s comments are indicative of many well meaning Christians who unwittingly leverage others less inclined to evangelize by calling the character of faith into question. I know he means well by this because about 10 years ago you would have heard the same rhetoric from me. In my own experience this kind of zeal is not sustainable for most believers who are called to live godly, quiet, and contented lives. Romanticizing the evangelistic zeal of the “spiritual giants” like Moody, Spurgeon, Wesley, Whitfield, Edwards et. al. creates a heroes and zeros kind of Christianity, where the truly godly are the ones who exude the same searing heat as these characters. In the long run I think this approach wears faith down and unnecessarily alienates believer and unbeliever alike, all while sounding earnest and compassionate.
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When I have the rare opportunity to have a babysitter so that I can take my wife out for a nice meal, my focus will be on her, not getting the gospel out.
Spoken like a father of young’ns. I hear ya, man.
However, I am not wringing my hands over the lostness of humanity at every given moment.
Not criticizing you, since I’m in the same place. But given that the Church’s witness is anemic (as in, we aren’t keeping pace with the birth rate), I wonder whether our hands ought to wring more.
It *does* strike me that, for better or worse, “transformationalism” tends to be a disrupting influence in the church, and “SOTC” tends to be a status-quo-preserving influence in the church — except in the area of worship. I wonder which one we need at this time.
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Jeff, I don’t think that SOTC and evangelism are mutually exclusive or that we can’t make a better effort at reaching our lost neighbors. I think that Dr. Clark is onto something in this post:
http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/holograms-gnosticism-celebrity-and-mission/
Evangelism and church-planting should go hand-in hand.
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Evangelism and church-planting should go hand-in hand.
That’s true enough, Jed. But I have always found it curious how the onus always seems to be inordinately upon the confessional ethic to prove its evangelistic sense, while there is barely any on the evangelical ethic to indicate its care for covenantal nurture. Why are confessionalists always having to prove they care about evangelizing, but nobody presses evangelicals to prove they care about catechizing? And why does it seem like so many confessionalists assume the premise instead of challenge it?
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No, the question wasn’t a challenge. It was open-ended, as in, “So what should evangelism look like?”
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DGH,
So, at home, we pray of course, but when in a neighbor’s house, we just follow their customs. But there is a third situation. Often, especially at large family gatherings, I am asked to pray among a crowd of the baptized-but-likely-unconverted. And so I pray in Jesus’ name, but I always put some sort of qualifier in like “for those who trust Christ,” so that I am not offering false hope that all those present are under God’s blessings. And yet, as they are all baptized, and consider themselves Christians, I make no bones about pressing their need to thank God for the food before them, and to trust Christ as Savior.
So, by analogy, if asked to pray at a public gathering, I think we should accept and do it, in Jesus’ name, and let the chips fall where they may. But nothing much is lost if we don’t pray in public when not asked, and so I have never understood the modern evangelical tendency to fight for it or demand a place at the table. It seems to go against Luke 14:7-14, I Corinthians 4:1-13, and a host of other passages. Jesus is Lord, even when hidden from the world.
At restaurants or coffee shops, I am almost always meeting someone in the capacity as a pastor, and so with their permission, I pray with them after the meeting, at the table, fairly long but also fairly quietly. I don’t mind this public display of piety, because it is a pastoral task, not a street corner thing. And I tip plenty. I used to do it the parking lot, but it was just awkward. On cold days, we would get in the car, and it looked like a drug deal going down. So it’s the table now.
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I’ll never forget back in 7th grade when Brother Wally gave the lunch prayer at our Christian School.
“Lord bless us as we munch and crunch upon our lunch. Amen.”
A nice easy rhyme to remember without too much pietistic flair and a call for common grace.
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All,
I am not sure that we have really grasped the point of Daryl’s post if we focus on the question of where and how to pray publicly. I think his point had more to do with how Christians see themselves in the midst of unbelieving American culture. And I think he’s made a great point – whether you pray in restaurants or not.
Though I did find it somewhat funny that Daryl spoke about God-fearers not praying in front of unbelievers for fear of losing their respect! Something seems at odds here.
So, I think there is a motivation question to ask here. Can you pray in public in such a way that you are not violating Jesus’ commandment to not pray in public? Yes, if it is not done in such a way that one is showing off their piety for the praise of men. But the question can also be legitimately put: can you abstain from praying in public (or before unbelievers in whatever context) in such a way that you are equally violating God’s Word? Absolutely! If you are abstaining out of fear of man and fear of losing their honor and respect seems to me as much an affront to biblical principle.
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Jim, this is a legitimate point. In my defense, I’d say that my secular academic friends who know my convictions and my practice. If they lost respect for me when praying in front of them it would involve seeing me change from someone who doesn’t wear his faith on his sleeve to the point of making others feel uncomfortable. I don’t mind making others uncomfortable regarding the cross, which is an offense. I do mind making my own practice the source of offense.
And you are right about the point of the post — how American believers handle living with unbelievers. But here I’d turn the conversation back to what I thought was my point — namely, how we live in a home (land) with unbelieving people who also consider this land to be their home. What does that mean for the way we think about the American nation (or the Israelite one)?
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Right on, Daryl. Your Hermeneutics is spot on at this point. To regard America as a covenanted nation is the first mistake which leads to a long list of more mistakes. I always found it strange that evangelicals find it strange when Americans act like unbelievers. I mean, is our nation any less pagan – really – than Rome?
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Oh, Jim, you multiperspectivalist you. Motives *and* norms *and* situation all at once. 😉
(I liked your analysis, IOW)
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Also, dgh didn’t really say it explicitly in his reply to you, Jim…but the loss of respect referred to in the OP was a loss on the part of the onlookers for him, not a loss of respect on the part of dgh. So his concern is rightly for his fellow countrymen’s loss, and not one for himself, per se. It’s a fine point, but one worth keeping in mind, imho. Here’s the line in question:
“If they are generic God-fearing Americans, that [i.e. praying in their presence] won’t alarm them. If they are some of my secular academic friends, they will think I’m nuts and likely lose respect.”
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http://osch.info/2009/04/16/ein-schild-fur-zensursula/
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How should a Christian approach life in the public square?
My own experience with the Christian Reformed Church in Calvinettes/GEMS taught me this:
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8 (NIV)
Apply this to life in the public square:
Act Justly: seek justice for all, Christian, non-Christian, regardless of age, race, gender, and sexual orientation.
Love Mercy: be compassionate, forgiving, and generous
Walk Humbly with your God: your faith should not be flashy and showy, but genuine
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A-J, makes sense to me. It doesn’t have the problem of transformationalism’s wanting to change everything.
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