From: mueller@owlnet.rice.edu (Ernest Conrad Mueller)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Prayer for South Africa
Date: 29 Jul 92 08:00:02 GMT
Organization: Rice University

Matthew Huntbach writes:
>From: PPUTTER@dos-lan.cs.up.ac.za (Phillip Putter)
>>Greatings in the wonderfull name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Please join my in
>>praying for South Africa. We have a situation of large-scale violance and
>>unrest which is leading to much loss of life. We strongly believe that if the
>>Lord does not save our nation more bloodshed awaits.

>>We would like you to pray specifically for:
>>- the Church to wake up and start praying,
>>- revival in all our Churches and a massive anointing of the Holy Spirit,
>>- Church leaders to break with tradition and return to preaching the full
>   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>  Word of God as the only Truth,
>   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>I am sorry, I have held back on several recent occasions, but
>here it comes again - sectarian insults disguised as a pious
>call to prayer.

>If you want to call for prayers for South Africa, fine. If you
>want to criticise those churches which believe the Bible must
>be interpreted in the light of church tradition, fine. But
>don't mix the two together.

Perhaps you are not acquainted with the "traditions" of the churches in
South Africa.  Like racism for example.  I also believe that "the Bible
must be interpreted in the light of tradition."  However that tradition
does not include any old sin or heresy that happens to be popular at the 
time.  When I read the first post I thought "OK, a Christian in South
Africa who is sick of racism and injustice corrupting the church."  Then
I read this second post accusing the writer of the first of "sectarian 
insults."

I think you have just misinterpreted what Phillip was trying to say.
You need to be much less hasty in your taking of offense.  If we say we
must take into account the context of the Bible, we must also take into
account the context of letters written today.  This man is writing about
the "tradition" of oppression in *South Africa*!  Not the Tradition (big T)
of the Church (big C). 

He advocates a "return to the Word of God as the only Truth" because no
church tradition, big or little T, may go against Scripture.  As far as I 
know, little Tradition does, since the Church is pretty scrupulous in
that respect.  However plenty of "tradition" is anti-Scriptural, racism
being a pretty darn good example.  We must be careful to never confuse the
two, and to realize that everything done by the Church is not part
of the Tradition we need to keep in mind.  

Ernest Mueller

[That's certainly the way I read the original posting.  However I do
understand the point the response was making.  There's a tendency when
we pray to put our own views into the prayer.  This is natural, and
not necessarily bad.  But is some contexts it can be upsetting.  When
you're leading a diverse group in prayer, what happens when you ask
them to pray for something that not all agree with?  Say you're in a
mixed group and you say "let us all pray that God will show all
Christians the evils of abortion."  This is all well and good for you,
but what is it going to do for the prayers of people who take the
other side of this issue?  What I find is that something like that
jolts me out of my prayer.  I think people who are leading prayers
need to realize the difference between helping a group of people
concentrate their thoughts in prayer, and advocating a position.

On the other hand, I'd also like to recommend a certain amount of
latitude on the part of hearers.  While I think people who write
prayers for a broad group need to keep in mind how it is going to look
to everyone, we also need to have a certain understanding for people's
background.  When someone is calling for a renewal of the church,
they're going to conceive of this in their own terms.  For a
Protestant this is going to mean a renewed commitment to the authority
of Scripture.  For a Catholic it might mean letting the influence of
Mary come forth.  If what we're talking about is purging the church of
racism -- a goal that I think we all agree with -- I think we need to
accept some variety of this kind.

I think my advice is sort of the religious equivalent of the old
Internet saying "be strict in what you send and liberal in what you
accept".

--clh]