All in Good Faith

Author(s): Jean Potter, Marcus Braybrooke
Publisher: World Congress of Faiths

Page 10

Introduction
their views of interfaith prayer, in the context of their religion's understanding of prayer or worship or meditation.
The texts included in the anthology have also been chosen by members of the different religious communities. This explains the unevenness in style. In many cases the quotations are English translations from another language. There are those for whom it is usual to address God as 'Thou', others who prefer 'You'. Some people insist upon 'inclusive language, whereas others are used to 'mankind' rather than 'humankind'.
There are other questions of language. Some people speak of 'All Faiths Services', some of 'Multi-faith Observances' or of 'Interfaith Prayer'. Some people spell inter faith as two words, some as one and some use a hyphen. Some people avoid the word 'Worship' or 'Service' and perhaps prefer 'celebration' or 'observance'. Again, we have not imposed editorial consistency. There are different shades of meaning in the various terms and it would be wrong to disguise this and to mask the variety of viewpoints reflected in the terms people choose to employ. Some names, however, are chosen to avoid offence rather than on philosophic or theological grounds. The Westminster Abbey Commonwealth Day 'event' is called an 'observance' although it includes hymns of praise to God, sung by the whole congregation, and so would normally be considered worship.
The book is in four sections. The first section gives some history of the development of interfaith services and of the discussion about them. It then highlights the key issues. There follows a series of chapters in which members of different faiths explain a little about their religions's view of prayer or worship or meditation and explain the attitude of members of that religion to interfaith prayer. In several religions there are, not surprisingly, differences of view and each writer offers his or her personal contributions from his own her own perspective. Not all traditions could be represented. There is no contribution, for example, from Confucianism, Shintoism or Native Spiritual traditions, although some members of all these religions have shared in prayer with members of other faiths. There is then an article on practical matters, based on answers to a questionnaire, which was sent to many people who have arranged interfaith services.
The second part of the book is an anthology. Twelve themes which are often used for interfaith services have been chosen and several members of different faiths have been invited to suggest suitable passages. This section should be useful to those arranging interfaith services. They may not have copies of all the scriptures available. Here they will find
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