May the 4th might be the most interesting non-holiday holiday on the calendar! It’s the National Day of Prayer, and thanks to a recent survey on the topic, it’s clear that prayer is part of every day of the year for most Americans.
The results are in! City Square Associates conducted a national survey from April 6-17 of American adults ages 18-64 across all demographic categories, and the results are pretty compelling. While society may appear to be growing more secular, the data tell a different story. Close to 80% of Americans say they are spiritual or religious, and 85% engage in some kind of spiritual practice like prayer, meditation, and yoga. More specifically, 61% report praying regularly for an average of 18 minutes daily.
The where, when, and how of our prayer lives is varied. Most pray at the beginning and end of the day but also while driving to work, being out in nature, or participating in communal worship. Over 80% report praying alone, but over 60% report praying with family or faith community members.
The Disconnect
But if prayer is so common, why is religious affiliation declining at such a rapid pace? Doesn’t one relate to the other? Yes. And no.
According to Gallup, roughly 70-75% of Americans reported church membership from 1937, when the question was first asked, until nearly 2000. Since then, the numbers have declined. In 2022, just 47% said they were religiously affiliated. Predictive models used by the Pew Research Center estimate that the “nones” could be the most significant denomination representing 48% of the U.S., with only 39% identifying as Christian. This is merely a project, though; in the past six years, the percentage of “nones” has stayed at 20-21%. Still, those who say they are “spiritual but not religious” are rising.
The data make it clear that prayer is essential for most Americans at the same time that religious affiliation is decreasing. Why? Based on the research and my own experience, I believe the disconnect is a discrepancy between longing and language.
Longing
The fact that 85% of Americans engage in some form of spiritual practice indicates that we believe there is something bigger, something more than what we experience through our senses. And we yearn for it. Something fascinating in the survey data is why people pray and what for. A whopping 70% of respondents said they pray to “connect with God.” This desire to connect on a more profound level beyond ourselves points to a soul-deep hunger for meaning.
Of course, we don’t need a survey to tell us we long for “more.” When we are awe-struck by nature’s beauty or the birth of a child, when we are held in a firm embrace, when we’re sad, when we are forgiven, we have a visceral knowledge that the line between the “more” and “me” has been blurred . . . at least for a while.
After the vague connect-with-God reason for prayer, those that follow tell a different story. All the other responses are transactional. In fact, the next four top reasons for prayer are to feel better in some way. And what we pray for bears out this transactional understanding of prayer. In other words, we want something.
So, connecting with God is most important . . . but we also want the test results to come back negative and our daughter to get the promotion, and the war in Ukraine to end. Hmmm. Anyone else find that interesting?
Language
Why we pray and what we pray for says a lot about our understanding of who or what we pray to. From the data in this survey, it appears that most Americans view God as an “other,” a divine being separate from myself and the rest of the world with the power to control what happens in our lives.c
Granted, that’s exactly how Jesus taught us to pray. “Our Father . . . give us this day our daily bread….” But Jesus lived over 2,000 years ago. Therefore, he would have operated out of the same worldview with the same understanding of science that his contemporaries did. If that were not the case – if we instead believe that Jesus would have known what science only uncovered many centuries later – then we’d be guilty of the heresy known as Docetism. If Jesus was truly human, then he had to be human in every respect. That means that his prayer would have reflected the worldview of his time.
The Problem of Language
As I’ve written frequently, I think a central problem with organized religion is its reliance on the language of antiquity. I treasure my Catholic faith, but I have to admit that the language in our rituals and catechism still speaks of God as a male spirit-being who makes decisions about our lives from inside the gates of heaven. I can only believe in things that align with established science and my own lived experience. Therefore, believing that a supernatural entity directs our movements like pieces on a chess board is a bridge too far for me.
I find it interesting that today is now also the National Day of Reason. It was created in 2003 by the American Humanist Association, which believes that the National Day of Prayer fails to separate church and state sufficiently. This begs the question: Are “reason” and “prayer” mutually exclusive?
They don’t have to be. The reason they may appear to be opposites goes back to the limitations of our language. If what we mean by “God” is some loving yet judgmental puppeteer pulling the strings in each of our lives, then prayer to this kind of God is contrary to reason. But if we allow the definitions of our religious language to evolve in the same way that species and systems have, there would be no disconnect.
Re-Defining Terms
I wrote a series about the need to update our understanding of religious terms: God, prayer, divinity, sin, salvation, and more. If God becomes less of a spirit-being-in-the-sky and more of the “Ground of Being,” as theologian Paul Tillich and others have proposed, then prayer no longer has to be limited to a one-sided conversation in which I ask for what I feel I need. If God is a dynamic, generative energy or power from which we came, which animates our being, and to which we will one day return, then prayer is anything that helps me connect to it. Anything.
Understood this way, Jesus’ directive to “pray always” turns out to be quite possible after all. My own prayer life now involves much more than words spoken in the quiet of church or the darkness of my bedroom. Petting my dog, washing the dishes, taking a minute to breathe without doing anything else, texting a friend to check on her, and any number of other things have now become prayer for me. In fact, writing this piece has been an hours-long prayer of mine today.
Of Course, The Force
Today is also National Star Wars Day. May the 4th be with you! Interestingly, the prayer data demonstrate that 56% of Americans find some alignment with their own sense of spirituality and “The Force,” as depicted in the Star Wars movies.
The Force is a mysterious energy field created by life that binds the galaxy together. Harnessing the power of the Force gives the Jedi, the Sith, and others sensitive to this spiritual energy extraordinary abilities, such as levitating objects, tricking minds, and seeing things before they happen. While the Force can grant users powerful abilities, it also directs their actions. And it has a will of its own, which both scholars and mystics have spent millennia seeking to understand.
Sound familiar?
Just One More
Believe it or not, today is also National Renewal Day, and no, I’m not kidding. It’s no accident that it falls at the beginning of spring because this day is all about fresh starts. It’s a great day to start that kitchen reno project, learn to play pickleball, or take up sewing.
Or . . . it could be a great day to renew our understanding of prayer. The data tell a compelling story. Prayer is essential to us, even when we struggle with organized religion. Perhaps prayer could be an even more important part of our lives if we allowed our understanding of God to evolve in a way that aligns with science and our own life experience.
May the 4th be with you! And may the dance of longing and language you are invited into lead you to a prayer life that inspires and animates, one no lightsaber can harm.
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