The Socio-Political Challenge of the Lord’s Prayer

I have been sharing a number of theological papers that I have written. This is a copy of an article I wrote for Cambria Nostra, a publication that engaged with society’s relationship with culture, politics, history, and religion.

In recent years, the number of those people who define themselves as Christian has fallen dramatically in the UK. To a generation brought up on social media and globalization, the Christian faith seems like an archaic quirk from a long-forgotten age, with little, if anything, to contribute to the big societal questions of our time. Not that churches always help – all too often they are torn apart by certain doctrinal or ethical issues that leave non-church-attenders bewildered or even amused. As a result, Christians are sometimes accused of being unworldly, sometimes even anti-worldly.

Yet those of us who are working on the coalface of Christian ministry, with communities that are groaning for restoration and renewal, know a different story. We know all too well how hope, compassion, and transformation can flow from spiritual beliefs. The prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, now known as “The Lord’s Prayer”, is a manifesto of the hope that the Christian faith can offer. It is not a prayer that allows Christians to hide away in churches or to remain passively on our knees, but is a rallying call for us to reach out to others. It demands that Christians stand alongside the poor, defend the defenceless, liberate the persecuted, offer justice to the oppressed, campaign for environmental issues, and speak for those with no voice.

The fact that Russell Brand’s book Revolution dedicated a whole chapter to this radical, revolutionary prayer, shows something of how this prayer can also speak powerfully to those who do not define themselves as “Christian”. All of us, from an early age, are sold a particular worldview. We are taught and told how we should act and what we should value. In the contemporary world, this is often a worldview that glorifies the individual, places wealth and prosperity as the ultimate attainment, and views competition and success as defining our very being. We are led, often in subtle ways, to the lie that greed is absolutely necessary for so-called “progress”, that inequality is essential for the flourishing of society, and that “survival of the fittest” is not simply a scientific truth, but a way-of-life that defines our species.

The Lord’s Prayer challenges us to re-evaluate this prevailing worldview – a worldview that champions wealth, consumerism, and materialism. “No one can serve two masters”, Jesus asserts in the verses following the Lord’s Prayer, “either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24). Yet, we have been conditioned from the cradle to believe that we are helpless to change the huge inequality between poor and rich in society, as it is the natural order of things. We are told that our own meagre efforts to care for the environment will do nothing in the large scheme of things. We are told that we can placate ourselves by becoming happy and fulfilled through obtaining more money in our banks, owning more objects, upsizing to bigger houses, or becoming more successful and popular. The Lord’s Prayer explodes this myth, allowing an open and realistic confrontation of the real and pressing issues of our time – poverty, welfare cuts, economic debt, political corruption, asylum seekers, international aid, inequality, peace and reconciliation, sexual harassment and abuse, economic greed, ethically-blind business, and climate change.

In John Carpenter’s cult classic film They Live [1988], the protagonist discovers a pair of magical sunglasses that allow him to view “reality”. By wearing the glasses, propaganda and lies are revealed all around. Instead of advertisements, billboards suddenly spell “buy” or “obey”. Instead of the usual pictures on money, “this is our God” is printed on the notes. Like these sunglasses, the Lord’s Prayer can help open our eyes to the falsehoods that have been propagated since we were young. It can help clear the fog of modern living to reveal reality and truth. This is what the Christian faith can gift to our society – ways of helping us recognise the reality of existence and ways of inspiring us to transform situations. This is the radical call of Christ, who speaks to all of us, whether we are Christian or not, in the same way as he spoke to those around him – urging us to shed our complacency and hypocrisy, and to live out compassion and justice in our daily lives.

Those who do not define themselves as “religious” will see from the Lord’s Prayer that spirituality does not simply bring comfort, ease, and security to those with faith. Prayer is not about personal and private satisfaction. Ultimately, that would lead us to a tame and arid apathy obsessed with personal, petty concerns. As Homer Simpson philosophises in The Simpsons: “What’s the point of going out – we’re just going to wind up back here anyway”.

The revolution of Christ, as shown in the Lord’s Prayer and in the life of Jesus himself, instead calls for an outward-looking and radical way of living, which champions resurrection, hope, love and compassion for all. It calls for individuals to live out communal lives focused on the plight of the other. It calls for us to reach out to others, however different they are to us, as brothers and sisters (“Our Father in heaven”), to reflect God’s nature by standing alongside the marginalised and oppressed (“hallowed be your name”), to usher in a society of justice and compassion (“your kingdom come”), to fight poverty and inequality (“give us today our daily bread”), to model truth and reconciliation (“as we forgive those who sin against us”), to recognise and transform our inclination to egotism and self-interest (“lead us not into temptation”), and to oppose powers of corruption and greed (“for the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours”). As such, the Lord’s Prayer is as contemporary and relevant as it was two thousand years ago. “This prayer cries out for justice, bread, forgiveness and deliverance;” concludes theologian Tom Wright, “if anyone thinks those are irrelevant in today’s world, let them read the newspaper and think again”.

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation

but deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours

now and for ever. Amen.

My book Living the Prayer: The Everyday Challenge of the Lord’s Prayer (BRF, Abingdon 2017) further explores the radical and revolutionary socio-political challenge of the Lord’s Prayer. Available from Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Prayer-Everyday-Challenge-Lords/dp/0857466232/ ) and all other good booksellers.

Why the Lord’s Prayer really is dangerous and offensive

The agency that handles British film advertising for the major cinema chains, Odeon, Cineworld and Vue, has banned a Church of England’s advert featuring the Lord’s Prayer because it believes it would upset or offend audiences. I am currently in the process of writing my next book on this short 70-word prayer. For me, the question of “why has this advert been banned?” should be recast as “how can Jesus’s radical call-to-action be seen as anything other than dangerous, offensive and inflammatory?”

Our Father who art in heaven

By referring to God as our Father, we are making a statement about God’s loving relationship with us, but we are also saying something profound about our relationships with each other. If God is our father, then we are compelled to treat each other as if we are brothers and sisters. This is a revolutionary call to show love and compassion to those who we don’t get on with and those don’t agree with. It is a call to care for the ill, the poor, the hungry, the disenfranchised, the refugee, the alienated, and the oppressed. As Desmond Tutu puts it: “In God’s family, there are no outsiders. All are insiders. Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, Jew and Arab, Palestinian and Israeli, Roman Catholic and Protestant, Serb and Albanian, Hutu and Tutsi, Muslim and Christian, Buddhist and Hindu, Pakistani and Indian – all belong… We are members of one family. We belong… God says, ‘All, all are my children’. It is shocking. It is radical”.

Hallowed by thy name

To Jesus’s disciples being “holy” (“hallowed”) would have meant something very different from how we might view the word. In the Old Testament, God’s holiness is frequently related to his role as deliverer and redeemer of the oppressed. The theologian Karl Barth asserts that by praying that God’s name be hallowed, we are asking that we become worthy bearers of God’s name in our loving and compassionate actions. ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy’”, God tells Moses in Leviticus. We have, then, a revolutionary imperative – to stand alongside the poor, to defend the defenceless, to liberate the persecuted, to offer justice to the oppressed, to speak for those with no voice. Holiness is a radical call to action, and not a retreat into inaction.

Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven

This is not an appeal for us to wait for God to reveal himself. It is God who is waiting – he is waiting for us to open our eyes and recognise his kingdom breaking through all around us. God’s kingdom comes to us through those driven by “the imperative for practical service and love” (Rowan Williams). When pain and suffering are countered, the kingdom breaks through. When violence, wealth, power, and prestige are opposed, the kingdom flourishes. When people reach out to those in need, those who are oppressed, and those who feel they have no hope, then God’s will is being done. The revolutionary call of the kingdom is to bring God’s light to the most hopeless and desolate situations.

Give us this day our daily bread

In this line we are, first of all, asking God to help us combat poverty. It is commendable that we support food banks and other ventures to help those struggling on the bread line, but it is scandalous that such charities need to exist in the first place. “We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside,” asserted Martin Luther King, “but one day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed”. Secondly, though, by asking for “daily bread”, we are also asking God to keep us away from wealth. The predominant ‘story’ that our society teaches us is that money matters, that it is worth something, that it is something we should be desiring. Christians are called to question this myth of money incarnate, and offer a liberating alternative. After all, the gospel of grace and selflessness surely stands in direct opposition to the financial law of supply and demand.

Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us

“Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive”, asserted CS Lewis. Forgiveness is difficult, but it is what God expects from us. It is part and parcel of what it means to be Christian. It’s not an optional extra for us. It is, though, radical and revolutionary. After all, forgiveness is far harder and braver than retaliation and hatred. But we do get a pay-off through forgiveness. By forgiving, we are released from our personal prisons, to move forward and onward in our lives. The Huffington Post recently reported that many in the Middle East are turning towards forgiveness, rather than retribution, for the terrible crimes of Islamic State. “I won’t do anything to them,” one young Christian refugee said after seeing her community and family decimated by the group, “I will only ask God to forgive them”.

Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil

Temptations promise us joy and fulfilment. Our faith, though, teaches us the radical truth that we are being sold a lie. The comedian Russell Brand was drawn at an early age into a world of wealth, fame, and excess. “I was treating a spiritual malady… I was actually seeking salvation”, he writes. It is not easy for us to grasp that lasting joy and fulfilment will not be found in those places where we have been told excitement, fun, and fulfilment comes from. Brand writes that he sometimes sees old photographs of himself emerging from London nightclubs with blonde women on his arms. “I can still be deceived into thinking, ‘Wow, I’d like to be him’, then I remember that I was him”, he concludes. Temptation merely promises us fleeting joy; faith reminds us that a deeply satisfying life can only be found in spiritual peace. This is a message that our world does not want to hear; it is a truth that our world does not want to face.

For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory

In 1975, a team of students from Manchester University subverted BBC’s quiz University Challenge by answering every question they were asked with the name of a Communist leader: “Karl Marx”, “Trotsky”, “Lenin”, “Che Guevara”, and so on. As Christians, though, the answer to all our questions really is “Jesus”. He offers life, he offers a new way of thinking, he offers a profound transformation in our understanding of the concept of power. His is not extrinsic power, foisted on us all from outside, compelling us to be obedient. His is, rather, an intrinsic authority, persuading us and inspiring us to join him on a revolution of compassion. As we face terror on the streets of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere, the Lord’s Prayer is a dangerous, radical alternative to today’s powers of military muscle, violent extremism, fleeting fame, and rapacious wealth. But Jesus offers a different kingdom, a different power, a different glory. Jesus offers radical and revolutionary love.

To view the Church of England’s advert: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlUXh4mx4gI&