Before We Can Heal the Culture, We Must Kneel
The Rev. Dr. Ronald Moore
There is no shortage of Christians willing to explain what has gone wrong with Western civilization.
We can point to the collapse of the family, the abandonment of Christian morality, the loss of reverence, the trivialization of human life, the confusion of liberty with license, the disappearance of any common moral vocabulary, and the increasingly determined effort to remove God not merely from public institutions but from public imagination.
Much of that criticism is justified.
Something has gone badly wrong.
But Christians ought to ask an uncomfortable question before we spend another hour describing the darkness:
Have we prayed about it as much as we have complained about it?
Not merely mentioned it in prayer.
Not added “our nation and its leaders” to the list between Aunt Martha’s surgery and Wednesday night’s potluck.
Have we fallen before Almighty God and begged Him for mercy?
Have we fasted?
Have we repented?
Have we gathered God’s people together—not primarily to devise another political strategy, organize another campaign, issue another statement, or condemn another outrage—but simply to seek the face of God?
Perhaps the crisis before us requires something much older than any of those things.
Perhaps it requires the Church to pray.
If My People
Few passages are quoted more frequently in discussions of national renewal than God’s words to Solomon:
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
—2 Chronicles 7:14
We should be careful with this verse.
It was spoken to Israel. It came in God’s response following the dedication of Solomon’s Temple. The “land” was not America, England, France, or Western civilization. It was the covenant land of Israel.
Christians should therefore resist turning the verse into a simplistic promise that if enough American Christians pray, God is contractually obligated to repair the United States.
But having made that necessary qualification, we should not miss the biblical principle staring us in the face.
When God’s people find themselves surrounded by calamity, the first command is not:
Make them repent.
It is:
Humble yourselves.
That is considerably less comfortable.
The passage does not begin with the sins of the pagans. It begins with the people who bear God’s Name.
“My people.”
They are to humble themselves.
They are to pray.
They are to seek His face.
They are to turn from their wicked ways.
Only then does the passage speak of what God will do.
There is something here the Church desperately needs to recover.
We have become extraordinarily good at identifying everybody else’s wicked ways.
Judgment Must Begin at the House of God
St. Peter writes:
“For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.”
—1 Peter 4:17
If Western civilization is sick, the Church cannot speak as though she were merely an innocent physician standing beside the patient’s bed.
Where were we?
Where was the Church while marriage disintegrated?
Where was the Church while generations grew up without meaningful knowledge of Scripture?
Where was the Church while Sunday became merely another shopping day?
Where was the Church while Christians increasingly learned to think of discipleship as an optional accessory to an otherwise ordinary secular life?
Where was the Church when entertainment formed the imagination of our children more thoroughly than Scripture did?
We were here.
And too often we accommodated ourselves to precisely the civilization whose collapse we now lament.
We shortened worship because people were impatient.
We softened preaching because people might be offended.
We replaced repentance with affirmation because repentance was uncomfortable.
We measured success by attendance, budgets, buildings, programs, influence, and cultural respectability.
And then we wondered why the culture ceased taking us seriously.
Perhaps our first prayer for the renewal of civilization should therefore not be:
“O God, change them.”
Perhaps it should be:
“O God, forgive us.”
Call a Solemn Assembly
The prophet Joel describes a people facing calamity. His prescription is remarkable:
“Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:
And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God.”
—Joel 2:12–13
Then comes the corporate summons:
“Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly:
Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children.”
—Joel 2:15–16
And then:
“Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar.”
—Joel 2:17
That is quite different from holding a conference on cultural renewal.
The people assemble before God.
The ministers weep.
The people repent.
And everyone—from the elders to the children—is summoned.
There is something here for us.
All of Us
I am an Anglican priest.
I believe what I believe about the Church, the Sacraments, Holy Orders, liturgy, apostolic succession, and ecclesiastical authority because I believe those things to be true.
My Baptist neighbor believes what he believes because he believes those things to be true.
Neither of us needs to pretend otherwise.
Christian unity does not require theological amnesia.
But surely there are moments when the divisions among Christians need not prevent us from kneeling beside one another.
Anglican.
Baptist.
Methodist.
Presbyterian.
Lutheran.
Roman Catholic.
Orthodox.
Pentecostal.
Independent.
We need not settle every question separating Canterbury, Rome, Constantinople, Geneva, Wittenberg, and Nashville before we can say together:
Lord, have mercy.
Indeed, perhaps one of the great sins requiring repentance is the ease with which Christians sometimes treat one another as enemies while the civilization around us forgets Christ altogether.
I am not proposing institutional union.
I am proposing prayer.
Imagine churches across a town agreeing upon nothing more complicated than this:
On a certain evening, the Christians of this community will pray.
No political speeches.
No campaign signs.
No denominational recruiting.
No attempt to manufacture an emotional revival.
No celebrity preacher.
No elaborate program.
We will gather before Almighty God.
We will confess our sins.
We will read His Word.
We will pray the Psalms.
We will ask forgiveness.
We will pray for our marriages and families.
We will pray for our children.
We will pray for our churches.
We will pray for clergy.
We will pray for teachers and schools.
We will pray for judges and magistrates.
We will pray for the poor.
We will pray for those trapped in addiction.
We will pray for those who have abandoned the Faith.
We will pray for those who hate Christianity.
We will pray for our enemies.
We will pray for the conversion of sinners.
We will pray for the renewal of the Church.
And we will ask God, if it be His gracious will, to grant renewal to our civilization.
Then we will go home.
And we will come back and do it again.
But How Should We Pray?
We should begin with adoration.
Before we discuss the condition of the nation, we should remember the condition of God.
He is still holy.
He is still sovereign.
Christ is still Lord.
The Holy Ghost has not departed from His Church.
The gates of hell have not prevailed.
The Gospel has not lost its power.
Our prayers should therefore begin not in panic but in worship:
“O come, let us worship and fall down: and kneel before the LORD our Maker.”
—Psalm 95:6
Then we should pray with confession.
Not vague confession.
Not “Lord, forgive the sins of our society.”
Our sins.
Our pride.
Our greed.
Our cowardice.
Our lust.
Our indifference.
Our divisions.
Our failure to teach our children.
Our willingness to compromise truth for acceptance.
Our neglect of Scripture.
Our neglect of prayer.
Our lack of charity.
Our comfortable Christianity.
We should pray with repentance, because repentance means more than admitting that something is wrong.
It means turning.
There is little point asking God to renew the Church while intending to continue precisely as before.
We should pray with intercession.
St. Paul commands:
“I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
For kings, and for all that are in authority.”
—1 Timothy 2:1–2
That command does not depend upon whether we like the king.
Or the president.
Or the governor.
Or the Congress.
Or the judge.
Christian prayer is not partisan applause directed heavenward.
We pray for rulers because they exercise authority over human beings made in the image of God. We pray that they may govern justly, restrain evil, protect the innocent, and permit the Church to live “a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.”
We should pray for our enemies.
That one will hurt.
Christ said:
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
—Matthew 5:44
It is difficult to pray seriously for someone’s conversion while simultaneously enjoying hatred of him.
If we believe our civilization has become hostile to Christianity, then the proper Christian response includes praying for precisely those people responsible for that hostility.
Not merely that God will defeat them.
That God will save them.
Saul of Tarsus should permanently prevent Christians from assuming that today’s persecutor cannot become tomorrow’s apostle.
We should pray with persistence.
“Men ought always to pray, and not to faint.”
—Luke 18:1
One prayer service will not do.
One national day of prayer will not do.
One impassioned sermon will not do.
If we truly believe we are facing a spiritual crisis, then our response must become spiritual habit.
Morning Prayer.
Evening Prayer.
Family prayer.
Parish prayer.
Private prayer.
Intercessory prayer.
Fasting.
Days of humiliation and supplication.
And Christians gathering across denominational lines simply to ask God for mercy.
Not once.
Again and again.
And finally, we must pray with submission.
This may be the hardest part.
We should ask God for the renewal of Western civilization.
I certainly do.
I would like to see churches full again. I would like children to know the Scriptures. I would like marriage honored. I would like public life again to possess some consciousness that human authority answers to an Authority above itself.
I would like to see a great Christian awakening.
We should ask for it.
Boldly.
Persistently.
Expectantly.
But Christianity does not exist to save Western civilization.
Western civilization exists under the judgment of Jesus Christ like every civilization that has ever existed.
Our ultimate prayer therefore cannot be:
“Lord, preserve our civilization at all costs.”
It must be:
“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.”
God may grant revival.
He may grant reformation.
He may grant another century of Christian flourishing.
Or He may permit institutions we assumed permanent to pass away.
Our confidence is not that the West will survive.
Our confidence is that Jesus Christ will reign.
Perhaps We Should Try Prayer
Christians have written books.
We have founded organizations.
We have elected politicians.
We have held conferences.
We have produced documentaries.
We have established schools.
We have launched podcasts.
We have issued statements.
Some of these things are good. Some are necessary.
But perhaps the most radical thing Christians could do now would be the oldest thing Christians have ever done.
Kneel.
Not Anglicans alone.
Not Baptists alone.
Not Catholics alone.
Not Orthodox alone.
All who name the Name of Christ.
Let the church bells ring.
Let the doors be opened.
Let the people gather.
Let the Scriptures be read.
Let the Psalms be prayed.
Let ministers kneel before their altars and pastors before their pulpits.
Let fathers pray with their children.
Let mothers pray for their homes.
Let Christians pray for Christians with whom they disagree.
Let us confess before we condemn.
Let us repent before we demand repentance.
Let us ask before we despair.
And let us seek, above everything else, not merely God’s hand to repair the civilization we love, but God’s face.
For perhaps the renewal we so desperately desire will begin where renewal has always begun:
not in Parliament,
not in Congress,
not in the courts,
not in the universities,
not in the newspapers,
but with the people of God on their knees.
Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us.
And then, if it please Thee:
Revive us again.
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