Canadians make controversial changes to World Day of Prayer service

Some churches upset at perceived doctrinal shift

KELLY HENSCHEL
CW Staff

A cloud of confusion surrounding the wording of a decades-old prayer service stirred up controversy in some Canadian congregations in early March.

The World Day of Prayer (WDP) is held on the first Friday of Lent–this year March 2. In Canada more than 2,000 groups met for ecumenical prayer services.

Some of the wording included in the 2001 service raised concerns from church leaders, particularly the phrase “Loving God, father and mother of us all, we seek forgiveness and empowerment to change our ways.” Participants were asked to repeat the phrase several times throughout the service.

One Saskatchewan pastor, who led a WDP service and questions the language, wonders if the Canadian committee that adapted the service from one written by the women of Western Samoa, has an “accurate pulse of the women of Canada” on the issue.

“I have 110 people in church on Sunday,” he says. “The majority are women of all ages, and they have no problem [with the male language]. In fact, I know some of them have a problem with ‘mother’ God language.”

Wondering where the wording originated, the Anglican rector contacted the secretary of the Ecumenical Women’s Fellowship of the Churches of Samoa, which took part in writing the service, and faxed a Canadian version of the service to her. In a faxed reply, the woman said the Canadian service “did not reflect common prayers in Samoa,” and that “not only the language but the context of worship had been changed by the Canadian women’s translation.”

Committees strike language

The WDP committee for Winnipeg chose to strike the “mother and father” language from the service altogether. “We crossed it off to make [the service] friendly for all denominations to take part in,” says Winnipeg coordinator Fran Bartlett.

In Ontario, one women’s group decided not to participate in the event. Other women let the Women’s Inter-Church Council of Canada (WICC) which distributes the service nationally. WICC know of their concerns, says Mark Fearnall, who pastors a United Church congregation in Scotland, Ontario. Some of the Ontario groups also changed the wording to reflect the tradition masculine view of God.

There were also concerns expressed that the Lord’s Prayer used in the Samoan draft was replaced in the Canadian version by the Jesus Prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book, which begins with the phrase “Eternal Spirit, Earth Maker, Pain-bearer, life giver, Source of all that is and shall be. Father and Mother of us all, Loving God in whom is heaven….”

Bernice Santor chaired the WDP committee for WICC. She says the prayer is a “poetic reflection on the Lord’s Prayer. Part of our editing is that we try to enhance the service, maybe adding some different things that we think make it more interesting for Canadian women who are used to doing drama and music and different things like that.”

And, adds Gillian Barfoot, communications coordinator for WICC, regional WDP committees are free to adapt the service for their specific area. “We say in the leadership guide that what we have provided is a suggestion for worship and we invite and encourage people to adapt the service to their own situation.”

Theological differences

The wording was meant to reflect the Canadian WDP committee’s goal of being inclusive, says Santor. “Generally we want this service to be inclusive in language,” she says. “We’re trying to recognize that women want this in the service, this inclusivity. That goes for gender as well as image of God. There’s a growing awareness that Scripture [uses] feminine imagery of God.”

And, she adds, the committee felt comfortable using the “father and mother of us all” phrase as the women of Western Samoa included it in their writing, although admittedly not as often as it is repeated in the Canadian adaptation, where it appears as a corporate response after several of the prayers.

“We’re appealing to a wide variety of theologies across Canada with the different groups who participate,” says Santor. “Some of them do not want anything changed from the original, they don’t wish to say God is father and mother. But, there are others who do want to say that.”

In a joint statement, WICC president Joyce Christie and executive director Karen Hincke said, “We are careful to be faithful to what is provided to us from the writing country, and at the same time ensure that the language is accessible and that the service connects ecumenically with our multitude of worship traditions in this country.”

Christie, a retired United Church staff associate in Winnipeg, says she was disappointed that some committees chose to change the wording, although she can understand their concerns.

“It’s sad to see how we still get hung up in words when we’re trying to do something ecumenical,” she says. “I appreciate where people are coming from. I hope we can work on it, and I think we are, to somehow find a middle ground. Those of us who are more liberal need to realize there are people who aren’t, and the people who aren’t [liberal] need to realize there are those who want inclusive language.”

The World Day of Prayer has a long and distinguished history. Throughout the late 1800’s and early 1900’s various Days of Prayer were arranged by women wanting to focus on national and international concerns. In 1922 women in Canada began holding World Day of Prayer services and in 1967 an international WDP committee was formed that now includes representatives from 170 countries and regions.

Each year a different country prepares a WDP worship service based on a theme. This year, the women of Western Samoa based their service on the theme “Informed Prayer, Prayerful Action,” featuring the stories of Esther and the Caananite woman (Matthew 15:21-28).

Planning for the 2001 service began in 1995, involving committee members from Western Samoa and around the world. A long and careful process of writing and editing followed, with the final recommendations submitted to the Samoan writing committee. In September 1999, the worship service was sent to the various countries.

“It’s always been a working process, open to the Spirit, open to inspiration, open to development and understanding,” says Eileen King, executive director for the international WDP office in New York.

Each country, including Canada, adapts the service to fit their cultural context, although King says, “By the time it leaves the international committee, we feel that most of this adaptation has been done. If there’s more adaptation, it would tend to be very limited in a way that would be clear that it is enriching.”

Barfoot says WICC is taking all of the concerns into consideration and will take steps in the future to make it clear how the services are written, edited and distributed. “WICC is planning to make up an information sheet to send to all the World Day of Prayer coordinators across the country to try and clarify some of these things.”