Using Prayer as Political Tool

Many christians have been taken in and they are involved in the culture wars. We are operating in a culture or
subculture in which appearing to be holy carries social weight. With such attitude, we’ll eventually
encounter the temptation to use prayer as a sort of socio-political tool. By this I don’t
mean that we shouldn’t pray that people will do politics for God’s glory and according to
His will. Politics needs to be hallowed just like anything else, and no sphere of human
action should be viewed as off limits to grace. What I mean is that the visible fact that
we’re praying, or that many others are praying with us, is not to be parleyed into a form
of political pressure or social enhancement.

In our present secular culture, many of these temptations are much reduced.
Nonetheless, to take but one example, there are dangers in those prayer vigils which are
designed in part to be a public demonstration of prayer and power. We must examine our motives.
Is our purpose to apply pressure through the demonstration, relying on strength of
numbers to effect change? Or is our purpose to pray for God’s help? This is a fairly
subtle distinction; it reminds me of the old joke about two seminarians who enjoyed
smoking and praying at the same time. The first seminarian asked his spiritual director if
he could smoke while he prayed; he was told no. But the second asked if he could pray
while he smoked. The answer was “yes”.

The purpose of gathering together in prayer is to seek God’s help, not to use the
external fact of prayer to apply pressure or enhance our reputations. Extraneous
calculations, hopefully mostly unconscious, can even affect our liturgical choices or our
attendance at particular devotions, depending on the circles in which we move. We may
be seeking opportunities to gain favor, to project a certain image, or to appear holier than
others.

I do not wish to go too far. There are certainly legitimate reasons to pray while giving
public witness, and there are many good reasons to let someone know we’re praying for
them, when this will be an encouraging word. But an external show of prayer with the
goal of enhancing our stature or increasing our influence is simply the politics of the
Pharisee. When prayer becomes political in that sense, its spiritual power—no, its very
identity as prayer— is lost. “Amen I say to you, they have received their reward, Mt.6:5