All in Good Faith

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

Page 46

6. CHRISTIANITY AND INTERFAITH WORSHIP
John Pridmore
Where Christians take part in interfaith worship, or allow it to take place in their churches, it is usually out of courtesy rather than conviction. When half the Scouts are Sikhs it seems rude to forbid their prayers at the parade service. However, while good manners may be a good reason for inviting those of other faiths to pray with us, there are better reasons for doing so, reasons which rest, not on liberal sentiment, but on the bedrock of Christian belief about Christian worship.
There are four distinct and essential characteristics of Christian worship which can be claimed to justify Christians in taking part in worship with those of other faiths, whether by attending their acts of worship, by welcoming them to Christian services, or by participation in interfaith observances. For Christians worship is corporate, the criteria of its authenticity are ethical, it is our primary response to God and it is always situational. The implications of the first and second of these features of Christian worship will be indicated only briefly. The third and fourth considerations, that we worship long before we define our creeds and that our worship is always in a given context, will call for a fuller discussion.
A corporate activity
Christian worship is essentially a corporate activity. I can pray by myself but normally I will worship with others. When I worship I am already alongside someone. That other person may be a baptised and communicant member of my church who affirms with conviction his or her faith in the words I use, meaning by them the same as I do. Or he or she may have made no such commitment and remain deeply agnostic about some central claims of Christian faith. Or again, my fellow-worshipper who says the same creed as I do may understand much of it quite differently. I do not know what my neighbour believes, how well he or she believes, or whether the words of the creeds we share mean the same to him or her as to me. Nor, most Christians would hold, is it my business to find out. To that extent the Christian Church already accepts in practice that those who worship together need not share the same faith. Most Christian church services are to some degree acts of interfaith worship. To be reassured that all are of one mind who take part in Christian worship would mean subjecting those present to tests of confessional conformity. To be sure such scrutiny has been known in some Christian traditions but it is foreign to the spirit and custom of most.
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