All in Good Faith

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

Page 29

All in Good Faith
Rio in 1992 or to mark the new political order in South Africa or the many gatherings to pray for peace during the Gulf War.
It was recognised that interreligious prayer - the term the group used for the whole phenomenon takes many forms. Sometimes it may be quite informal: praying at the bedside of a friend of another faith who is ill or at an interfaith marriage. Visits of members of one religion to the place of worship of another religion happen quite often. The guests may be invited, in some way, to participate, which requires sensitivity and respect both on the part of the hosts and the guests.
The statement distinguished between 'united interreligious prayer' and 'multireligious prayer'. Multireligious prayer is when each religion in turn offers prayers. The advantage of this form of service was seen to be that the integrity of each religion and its distinctiveness is honoured. The disadvantage is that those present may most of the time be mere bystanders and not enter into the spirituality of the other.
Interreligious prayer, where there is an united order of service with some prayers or affirmations said together and perhaps some hymns which everyone is invited to sing, was seen to allow everyone present to pray together. The disadvantage is that the content may be reduced to a lowest common denominator (although it could be raised to the highest common factor) and may mask the uniqueness of each faith tradition. Such services, it was said, could be enriched by the introduction of new creative symbolic actions.
It was noted that some Christians have found meditation a point of meeting, whereas some Buddhists insist that their non-theistic meditation is quite different from Christian theistic meditation indeed some Buddhists resent Christians borrowing their techniques.
This led to considerable discussion of the whole question of borrowing from another tradition. Quite a lot of Christians read devotionally the scriptures and prayers of other faiths. It was asked whether the Upanishads should be read in India at a Christian eucharist. If so, should the reader add 'This is the word of the Lord'. At some Christian ashrams, the eucharist includes the Hindu ceremony of arti, or passing the light, and the offering of flowers with the bread and wine. Yet, it was pointed out that the way in which Christians have appropriated the Hebrew Bible as pointing to Christ is resented by most Jews and some Hindus resent Christian adaptation of Hindu ceremonies.
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