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%PRAYER VS COERCION 850209
Genuine prayer involves no coercion, nor wish for
coercion. Genuine prayer is a search for personal and
communal integrity. Coercion generates rebellion and
alienation which lead to disintegration of persons and
communities. People who pray genuinely do not try to
coerce others to pray, for they know it is impossible to
coerce others to pray with integrity.
Genuine prayer is a search for personal and communal
integrity. Coercion can not stop that search. People who
are the victims of coercion can continue to find ways of
transcending the coercion, they can pray. It is
impossible to prevent prayer because it is the most basic
of human activities. To be human is to search for
personal and communal integrity, to pray.
Prayer is manifested in many ways. The
manifestations are not prayer. To present the
manifestations is not to pray. To coerce people to
present the manifestations of prayer is not to lead them
in prayer. One can not pray without personal integrity;
thus manifestations of prayer produced under coercion to
pray pass, that we may be more free to pray genuinely
with honest manifestations. The primary
manifestation of genuine prayer is the integration of
persons and communities. Thus coercive efforts to get
people to pray are not prayer.
No organization of any kind can successfully require
or prohibit true prayer which is the genuine search
for personal and communal integrity. Such efforts
are misguided and futile whether undertaken by
religious leaders, politicians, businessmen, military
leaders, educators, or whatever. Efforts to
legitimize such efforts are also misguided and futile.
People who seek recognition for their manifestations
of prayer need to pray genuinely in search of personal and
communal integrity. They are alienated and in need of
integration into a community with the integrity to pray
for their integration. The same is true of people who
seek to repress the manifestations of genuine prayer.
Coercion is not effective.
(c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in
www.essayz.com Search for Integrity and Honesty
(On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)
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