Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief By Gretta Vosper.

1. Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in
a World Beyond Belief
By Gretta Vosper

2. Who is Gretta Vosper?
Gretta is a United Church minister, ordained in 1992. She
has a Master of Divinity from Queen’s Theological
College, Kingston and has served at West Hill United
Church, Scarborough, since 1997.
Gretta’s partner is Scott Kearns, music director at West Hill
United. She is a mother and grandmother.
In 2004, Gretta founded the Canadian Center for Progressive
Christianity.
Gretta’s first book, With or Without God: Why how we live is
more important than what we believe, formed the basis of
our first study group when Open Circle was formed.

3. BOOK OVERVIEW
• Intro: Why write this book?
• Part One: In a World of Beliefs: What is the Core Narrative
of traditional Western religion and how does it
shape how its adherents view the world?
• Part Two: In a World Still Tied to Beliefs: Deconstructing
traditional prayer.
• Part Three: In a World of Exposed Beliefs: Why we need to
change the language of prayer.
• Part Four: In a World Beyond Beliefs: What would prayer
“without God” look like?
• Part Five: In a World in Need: What is “Empact” and how do
we achieve it?

4. WHY WRITE THIS BOOK?
Prayer can be:
1. An active part of people’s lives, providing
a) A sense of connection to God
b) A sense of meaning and purpose
2. A source of frustration, despair
3. A ceremonial function only
4. Of no interest
And yet prayer remains an important part of millions of lives.
Most of the “prayer” literature assumes there are benefits and is
written for an audience of traditional believers.
So the book asks: What are the benefits, if any, of prayer, and how can
we make these benefits, if any, available to everyone, believers and
non-believers alike?

5. PART ONE: In a World of Beliefs
Examining the Core Narrative
• The Core Narrative is the lens through which we
view our reality, a lens that we may not even
perceive is there
• Those that control the Core Narrative, control the
system
• In the past, this control has been in the hands of
religious leaders
• The core narrative has consisted of a series of
“revealed truths” that may be found in a particular
set of sacred documents and which are interpreted
by trained religious officials
• The most constant threat to a core narrative that is
based on “revealed truths” is reason

6. The Problem with the Core Keepers
As in her previous book, With or Without
God, Vosper accuses religious leaders, as keepers
of the core narrative, of not passing on new
information, insights, and understandings
(contemporary scholarship) to the lay adherents of
their faiths
She suggests that people are not given the
information they need to be able to move forward
on their faith journeys
In Xianity, for example, upholding the view that the
Bible is TAWOGFAT, locks people in Stages 2 & 3 of
Fowler’s Stages of Faith

7. Fowler’s Stages of Faith (1981)
Stage 1:Fantasy world of pre-school
children
Stage 2:Literal understanding of stories
told to them by faith community
Stage 3:All encompassing belief system
with authority placed in
individuals or groups that
represent one’s beliefs
Stage 4:Understanding that much of what
we were taught is not literally true
Stage 5:Ability to embrace previously held
beliefs as myths that are helpful in
life
Stage 6:Ability to offer one’s self to world
without thought of personal loss

8. • In Vosper’s view, the stage of faith that one is experiencing
depends largely on information and context, not maturity
• People deserve to be given up to date historical and critical
perspectives on the Bible and Xianity so that they may choose
based on full disclosure.
• Do you agree with Vosper’s statement that stage of faith
depends largely on information and context?

9. Tracing the Influence of Core Assumptions (The Core
Narrative)
• A flood hits your town. People die. How do you understand this
occurrence if your core narrative is grounded in:
a) Theism? Belief in a supernatural god who is all
powerful, all knowing, source of all good
b) Deism? God created world, then backed away
c) Pantheism? God and Nature are the same thing
i.e. Everything is God
d) Non-theism? Scripture is not TAWOGFAT, but a
humanly constructed set of writings that
can be examined critically and challenged
based on contemporary scholarship
e) Religious non-realism? The real world is the natural world,
nothing more. (Sh** happens)

10. What are the assumptions of the core
narrative of traditional Christianity
based on a theistic view of God?
God is perfectly good and the source of all goodness
(source)
God is active in our lives (agent)
God is in control (promise of good now or after death)
How do these assumptions shape what prayer looks
like?
In prayer we turn to God because:
•God is the source of what we need
•God will act for us
•God is the promise that all will be well eventually

11. PART TWO: In a World Still Tied to Beliefs
Formal prayer in traditional
churches, then, continues to reflect the
core assumptions about God outlined on
the previous pages (God as
source, agent, and promise)
It also reflects and provides an outlet for
4 basic human responses:
•Adoration
•Confession
•Supplication
•Thanksgiving

12. PRAYER OF ADORATION
• Usually included at the beginning of a service as an offer to God of our
devotion, love, or attention
“Blessed are You, O Lord our God,
Wellspring of all that is.
You are the sea on which we float,
You are the wind that fills our sails,
You are the storm that buffets us,
You are the calm that brings us peace.
Open our ears to hear Your word,
Open our eyes to see Your beauty,
Open our hearts to be warmed by Your love.”

13. Hymns of Adoration support the prayers
“O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!”
When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

14. Can you see how the prayer of
adoration might be useful to the
keepers of the core narrative?

15. The adoration prayer reinforces the belief in a God that is all-
powerful and all knowing. It invites believers to be open to
the possibility of something much, much greater than
themselves, and in their openness, to be made completely
vulnerable to whatever the worship leader might offer.

16. PRAYER OF CONFESSION
The basic premise of Christianity emanates from the idea that sin came into the
world through the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden
Even those who believe the story of Adam and Eve to be myth continue to
present without question its concepts of sin and forgiveness.
Images of hell and punishment are not signs of a benevolent Creator, yet these
images continue, to this day, to be a significant part of the Christian worldview.
In the prayer of confession, the believer lays her/his sins before God and asks for
forgiveness from God

17. A Prayer of Confession
“Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide,
and too deep to undo. Forgive what our lips tremble to name,
what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us
a consuming fire of judgment. Set us free from a past that we
cannot change; open to us a future in which we can be changed;
and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and
Image, through Jesus Christ, the light of the world. Amen.”
Who holds the power in this type of confessional prayer?
How might this type of prayer affect the “pray-er” in terms of
self-worth, shame, and/or guilt?
Why does the prayer close with “through Jesus Christ…”?

18. Music echoes the prayer of confession
And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

19. Prayer of Supplication
In the prayer of supplication, believers entreat God on their own
behalf or the behalf of others for needs or desires to be fulfilled.
This, again, reinforces the belief (the core narrative) that God is the
source, agent and promise for all that is or will be good.
Consider: 1. A popular minister’s wife falls ill. Large numbers of the
congregation pray for her life (supplication). She survives and prayers
of thanksgiving are offered.
2. A small child is ill. Many prayers of supplication are offered. The
child dies.
• What effect might these results have on the “pray-ers” in each of
these scenarios?
• How do the keepers of the core narrative deal with the apparent
inconsistency?

20. Explanations of Unanswered Prayer
Offered by the Keepers of the Core
Narrative
Why does one person receive God’s blessing while
another does not?
•Greater good
•Higher wisdom
•Unrevealed plan
•Lessons needed to be learned
•Problem within the person praying
These explanations, in Vosper’s view, are not good
enough.

21. PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
• In this type of prayer, the believer pours out thanks for all of
the blessings of the world to the loving, benevolent, all-
knowing God.
• Focuses on the good things that have happened to individuals
or to the specific community
• How does this form of prayer reinforce the core narrative?

22. A Prayer of Thanksgiving
When turkey’s on the table laid,
And good things I may scan,
I’m thankful that I wasn’t made
A vegetarian.
-Edgar A. Guest

23. A song of thanksgiving
For the beauty of the earth,
For the beauty of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our grateful hymn of praise.
For each perfect gift of thine,
To our race so freely given,
Graces human and divine,
Flowers of earth and buds of heaven,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our grateful hymn of praise.
How might the aspects of the core narrative celebrated in this song (that all
good comes from and is brought about by God in us) affect how we see our role
in the world?

24. RECAP
• So far, Gretta has told us
– Why she wrote the book {to examine prayer critically and discover
how its benefits (if any) can be made available to everyone}
– What the Core Narrative of traditional Xianity is {God as
source, agent, and promise} and what influence its assumptions have
on our world view
– What traditional prayers {of adoration, confession, supplication and
thanksgiving} look like and how they both reflect and sustain the Core
Narrative

25. PART THREE: IN A WORLD OF EXPOSED BELIEFS
• Why do we need to change the language?
Many clergy & theologians hold a very progressive image
of God, yet their language upholds the notion of an all-powerful,
external, benevolent God – a theistic being who is source, agent
and promise. We have refused to let the language mature along
with our understandings.
Prayers, hymns, Bible readings, invocations, absolutions all point
to a real god out there about to do something when that is no
longer what contemporary scholarship is telling us.
For too many, the language of the church is a barrier.

26. WHAT DO WE NEED?
• “We need a language of prayer that honours the reality of our
quest for security, but doesn’t cover it up with theological
constructs that soothe our anxieties but do not call us to the
greatness of our own humanity.” (Gretta)
• How does the traditional language of prayer fail to call us “to
the greatness of our own humanity”?
• How might the core narrative of the Christian religion as
reflected in prayer have been useful to the political leaders of
societies over the centuries? Is there anything similar
happening today?

27. PART FOUR: IN A WORLD BEYOND BELIEFS
What is prayer without a supernatural source, agent and promise?
“Prayer without God is not nothing.”
It can be a turning to our own human source, agent & promise
It’s OK to acknowledge that:
• We are the source. The motivation for action has always lain in our
own broken hearts.
• We are the agents of change in our lives and in the world
• We are the potential for goodness. There never was a promise of
goodness, healing, or peace in a world full of pain and suffering.

28. What would prayer “without God” look like?
• Prayer of Adoration:
- giving homage to the values by which we choose to live
“Our thoughts we now centre on all that is good
on all that we know is worthy
so we may focus attention on the richness of truth
restoring our souls for the journey
To all that is worthy
to all we believe is true
to all we deeply value
we commit ourselves anew”

29. • Prayer of Confession
- measuring our shortcomings & acknowledging the
sometimes selfish choices that have thwarted our efforts, and
the challenges that have kept us from our goals
“We shelter ourselves with images of who we think we are-
intelligent & well-informed
compassionate & well-intentioned-
until those wrenching, wild, chaotic moments
when we learn otherwise,
when life exposes us to glimpses of ourselves-

30. intelligent but ill-informed;
compassionate but causing harm-
And we wish we could flee from the complicities of our lives.
Into the lives of others, we are bound to be woven.
Into the eyes of others, we are compelled to look.
So it is we pray we may be
in the realities of others,
a gentle presence
that when we stand before them
in utter, full disclosure of who we truly are,
we will not shy away from the reflection in their eyes-
not the eyes of our children
not the eyes of our partners,
not the eyes of our companions on the journey
not the eyes of those we may never know.
As travellers who would see with a clear and honest vision,
we pray.
Amen”

31. • Prayer of Supplication
- praying “to God” is replaced by praying “into” the
congregation
- Concerns & celebrations are presented into the
community by members of the congregation
- What is key is the immediate response of the faith
community in providing support, acceptance, shared joy,
etc. The community is the support system.
Eg. When a celebration is presented, the leader or presenter says:
“In this abundant blessing” Members respond: “We share the joy”
When a concern or sadness is presented, the leader says:
“In this our time of need” Members respond: “May love abound”

32. Leaning on the Everlasting Arms
Iris DeMent from True Grit
What a fellowship what a joy divine
Leaning on the everlasting arms
What a blessedness what a peace is mine
Leaning on the everlasting arms
Chorus: Leaning leaning safe and secure from all alarms
Leaning leaning leaning on the everlasting arms
Oh how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way
Leaning on the everlasting arms
Oh how bright the path grows from day to day
Leaning on the everlasting arms
What have I to dread what have I to fear
Leaning on the everlasting arms
I have blessed peace with my friends so near
Leaning on the everlasting arms

33. • Prayer of Thanksgiving
- a sense of gratitude that is not directed toward anything
other than the object/person/experience for which you
are grateful
“On this morning of Thanksgiving,
our hearts leap with joy
at the wonder with which the world unfolds.
We delight in the gifts the Earth provides.
We rejoice that we can live,
move, and work, amongst such beauty

34. We give thanks that,
even in times we know as difficult,
traumatic and life-shattering,
when we pause and remember
the deep connectedness we have with all life,
even in those darkest moments,
our hearts can well up from the depths
with gratitude.
May we be inspired this day with the beauty of the world
In which we live and love
that we, who too often forget to give thanks,
might be stirred to living only in thanksgiving
for all the passion that life shows to us.
Let our lives be turned into gifts-to each other, to ourselves, to the world.
Amen”

35. John Shelby Spong, Retired Episcopal Bishop

37. The Lord’s Prayer - The Non-Theistic Prayer
• Our Father, who art in Heaven • Our thoughts we now focus on all
Hallowed be Thy name that is good, on all that we know
is worthy.
• Thy kingdom come, thy will be • As we come together, we seek to
done on earth as it is in heaven make right our relationship with
ourselves, our community and
our world.
• Our celebrations and our sorrows
• Give us this day our daily bread. we pour into our community, so
that they may be shared and
supported.
• Forgive us our trespasses, as we • As we recall our own
forgive those who trespass shortcomings, may we be
against us. strengthened by the knowledge
that it is the goodness in us that
condemns our actions. May we
also forgive, freeing each other
into hope and new life.

38. The Lord’s Prayer - The Non-Theistic Prayer
• Lead us not into temptation, but • May we ever strive to see beyond
deliver us from evil. our limitations, choose beyond
our immediate needs, and live
into each day, the fullness of its
opportunity.
• For thine is the kingdom, and the • As we leave this place, our hearts
power, and the glory, forever and filled with the gifts of peace and
ever. Amen hope in this hour, may we fill our
hearts to overflowing with an
urgent need to do the work to
which we are called. May we
overflow in our zeal for a realm of
justice and peace, and equity for
all. Amen

39. Part Five: In a World in Need
Prayer, Vosper says, is not the final answer.
What the world needs now is “empact”, the ability to
empathically impact others within and beyond our communities
and the world around us. We need to get in right relationship
with ourselves, our communities, and our planet.
“Let us pray? No, it’s not going to be that easy. Let us get on
with what we need to get on with. And that is going to be hard.”

40. Conclusion
Bottom Line:
Gretta is suggesting that we change the language and intent of prayer, not
eliminate it entirely . We need, in her view, a language of prayer (meditation,
contemplation, reflection) that a) reflects contemporary, liberal Christian
scholarship and that b) calls upon us to acknowledge our responsibility as
human beings to be the source, agent, and potential for goodness in our
world, a world that needs our attention.
“We have no prayer that can keep us safe. We have no prayer that can
intervene in the laws of the universe and keep away illness, evil, calamity. We
have no prayer that can heal a sick child or extend the life of a loved one. We
have no prayer that can change people’s minds and make them understand
us, or turn their hearts and make them love us. We have no prayer that can
move mountains. We have only ourselves. We have only ever had ourselves.
But we have done all these things. And we can do more.
Amen.”

41. The Change – Garth Brooks
Dedicated to those lost in the Oklahoma City bombing