Tacit theologies

I've been thinking about the tacit theologies some of us develop without even meaning to. There is the thinking that informs our prayers, for example. I sometimes catch myself in a Genie Prayer. You know the stories -- a lucky fellow happens upon a magic lantern, gives it a good polish, and finds himself in possession of three wishes at the hands of an irritated genie. The trick, of course, is that he has to get his wish just right. If he asks for a palace without specifying where he wants it, for example, he's liable to find himself underneath its foundation. Sometimes I pray that way, getting very specific for fear that I'll mess up my order, as if the Almighty is a surly French waiter.

The one advantage of the Genie Prayer is that I find out what I really want, despite my self-flattering illusions. I tell myself, for example, that I want a job change because I want work that has meaning, but of course I don't pray simply for work that has meaning, because the Lord-as-genie might put me in the meaningful labor field of Zimbabwe. So I pray very specifically for a very specific job, which is more about my interests and comfort than anything else, but at the same time I pretend that my disaffection with my present work is born of a noble desire to have purpose.

Other times I'll pray a Legal Brief Prayer, which is where I lay out all the wherefores and whys as to the Lord's obligation to give me what I'm after. I'll mentally tick through the various verses that support my request. I'll meditate on how I've been faithful in the small things, of late, or on how I've been adding to the Lord's storehouse. I'm owed, is how I feel in those times. Time to follow through, Lord. I try to remember, when I catch myself doing this, that Satan was the first attorney.

Sometimes I'll fall into the Japanese Tea Ceremony Prayer. It's when I'm feeling especially righteous, and so I strain to get all my thees and thous in the right places. You might notice people break this prayer out in public, as if we're standing with the Lord on a street corner in Yorkshire. I'll get formal and pretend it's reverence, rather than lay my face down to the floor and call Him Abba.

And the worst of it is that I only catch myself doing these things; I never set out to do them on purpose. It makes me wonder how many other tacit theologies I've set up for myself, polluted as I am, as we all are. Once more I run headlong into a dichotomy of Christianity, how some brethren rely on the old rituals of the Apostolic fathers, for fear of blasphemous error, while others turn to nondenominational churches with the same end in mind, a purity of worship. What I'm finding is that neither does much good without the constant striving for a purity of heart.

Keep striving.