Here’s the headline: “My Neighbor Won’t Stop Praying for Me. What Should I Do?”
Not being an idiot, “The Ethicist” answers as any rational person might: “Nothing!” Who cares what anyone else does in their discourse, or not, with a Supreme Being? The complaint makes as much sense as “My neighbor insists on wearing his lucky hat when his favorite team is playing; what should I do?”
Apparently what bugs this ungrateful wretch is that the old lady who lives next door not only prays for her but keeps talking about it. The inquirer says that she has told the old woman that she doesn’t believe in religion. Why would she think that would make neighbor less likely to pray for her? Obviously she needs saving: as a godless heathen, the object of the prayers is putting her immortal soul at risk. I don’t understand why she isn’t grateful; after all, when the stakes are so high, it only makes sense to hedge your bets.
“I’m trying to ignore this but it’s really bothering me that she can’t respect my wishes,” Name Withheld writes. Yet the religious neighbor has no reason to respect someone else’s wishes regarding her own personal conduct. The only legitimate objection I can see to this prayer ritual is that the neighbor being prayed for takes it as an insult. If that’s her beef, then she should say to the old woman, “That’s nice that you care about me, but please, if you insist on praying for me, keep it to yourself.”
That’s what The Ethicist suggests too, but adds, “Still, instead of requiring that your octogenarian neighbor change her ways, I wonder whether you might change yours — and learn to accept this woman for who she is, hearing her prayers as a sincere expression of her loving feelings toward you.”
Or a sincere expression of moral superiority?
Ethics Alarms 
“Or a sincere expression of moral superiority?”
I think not. I have a friend who tells me Jesus loves me almost every time we get together, as he also acknowledges I don’t believe in God. I just don’t think people like my friend or the octogenarian in the column have a mean or morally superior bone in their body. I think they are sincere. The morally superior won’t give you the time of day and will be happy to have you go to hell. You know, like the way Democrats treat anyone who’d not a Democrat. Now, THAT’S moral superiority! And man, have we seen enough of that?
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Maud.
This is actually a topic I’ve had a lot of cause to think about – unfortunately I won’t get to write up a full response until sometime later tonight.
There are a lot of questions raised here:
Is the neighbor’s prayer meant to seek intercession on the letter writer’s behalf? If so, it is no longer a matter of simple “personal conduct” any more than it would be if someone went and spoke with my bank about my accounts against my will. The letter writer should have the right to declare who can petition on their behalf, and about what they can make those petitions.
Is the neighbor’s prayer meant as a form of self-gratification? If so, it’s functionally indistinct from an act of masturbation – which is not inherently unethical when self-contained, but which definitely becomes so when you start telling the object of your masturbations about the act and they indicate their discomfort.
Is the discussion of the prayer meant to cause a change in behavior?
Does this contravene the writer’s own religious or spiritual beliefs?
Is the praying neighbor claiming credit for events in the writer’s life?
As a Christian, feelings of “moral superiority” would be cause for immediate self-examination; the Bible tells us that “all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) Salvation doesn’t make me better than the unsaved, just better situated to face eternity. I pray for many people, some of who know it and appreciate it and even request it, others who likely have no idea, and some who would probably be offended by it. It doesn’t matter; I’m not doing it for their thanks, but because my faith tells me I should.
Jim, I think that is a very good response.
I am not a Christian because of “moral superiority”, nor does a Christian worldview give me moral superiority. I am a Christian because, quite the opposite, I have come to recognize my condition of gross moral inferiority. I think it was Charles Spurgeon who wrote, “I commit enough offences against God from the time I get out of bed until I have my morning coffee to damn a thousand souls to Hell.” That is me. It is a condition I have zero ability to overcome on my own, and it is a condition for which I will be judged and condemned…without outside intervention.
Trust me, there is no feeling of superiority in that situation. My only “boast” is my trust – with extreme humility and gratitude – in the One that did intervene for me.
I don’t pray for others – whether they want me to or not – because I’m better, but because He that intervened for me tells me to. And out of gratitude to Him, how could I not?
But surely you can see how “I’m praying for you” repeated incessantly can be taken as “You’re a sinful miscreant, but be not afraid, for I am not giving up on you, heroic and devoted savior that I am!”
I had a Mormon freshman in our entry at Harvard, and he was 1) a very nice guy and 2) relentless in telling us that he would not give up trying to covert us to his faith no matter what, He promised that he would have to stay with us in Hell if he failed in his mission. My 6’5″ no-nonsense room mate snapped after one of those sermons, and told him in graphic terms what he would do to him the next time he told us that his prayers and entreaties were our only hope to avoid eternity in Hell. After he crunched the guy with that threat, my room mate told me, “Fuck him! He thinks he’s better than us because of his church? He better start praying for himself, because I’m this close to throwing him out a window.”
The Mormon kid took two years off before returning to Harvard. He was miserable in Cambridge and Boston.
Actually, yes I can see that. And frankly, many Christians (including myself) say that to each other and it’s little more than a platitude to be forgotten instead of a promise to be kept.
Hopefully, the majority of Christians realize that they are not the “heroic and devoted savior.” That might be our biggest downfall…we feel we are the “savers of the lost,” and therefore we need to push, prod, and sometimes browbeat others, because somewhere in our incessant conversation, we’ll say just the right thing that creates a convert. But truth be told, no Christian has ever saved anyone…not me, not my wife, not any pastor, and not Billy Graham. We don’t have that kind of power, so we shouldn’t talk as though we do.
“But surely you can see how “I’m praying for you” repeated incessantly can be taken as “You’re a sinful miscreant, but be not afraid, for I am not giving up on you, heroic and devoted savior that I am!”
Yes, I can actually see that.
When I was a kid, our paternal grandmother was relentless in talking about God, Jesus, prayer and would give lectures about the importance of salvation. We children loved her very much (still do!) but it reached a point where Mom finally told Dad that, as well-meaning as his mother was, the constant lectures were turning us off.
My grandmother is now 94 years old and is the kindest person I have ever known. She and I speak together on the phone regularly and enjoy the time together, whether we talk about God or about something else. I truly do appreciate her love and devotion to me over the years, even at an age when I didn’t appreciate it.
Over the past few years, an aunt and uncle’s religious beliefs have started to become more prevalent in their lives than previously. While there is nothing wrong with this, it is starting to have the same affect on their conversation as on my grandmother’s all those years ago. While my brother is a non-Christian, he knows this comes from good intentions. Still, he confided to me recently that he had to tell our aunt to please stop turning every chat with him into a sermon. He told her it was making him feel backed into a corner like a trapped animal and he didn’t want to lash out at her. He loves her. He just doesn’t want to be lectured all the time.
If this is how it feels to those with some religious background and with beloved relatives, I can only imagine what it’s like for people like the letter writer.
A few years ago, my church sponsored a Trunk-or-Treat event in the parking lot. A memo went around to all the small group leaders who were organizing cars and decorations as to best practices during the event itself. Among them was a note that they should remind all members participating in the event that people from the community would be coming with their kids to enjoy themselves safely, that not all of them would be Christians and that this would not be the time for critiquing costumes or saying things like, “I’ll pray for you!”
One leader apparently hadn’t done a thorough enough job briefing the group. After a teenager in a devil costume got his candy, one member – not even all that old a member – turned to me and mentioned the costume and blurted out after the kid, “I’ll be praying for you!!”
So, yes, I do agree that some traditional practices like this are counterproductive in today’s culture.
That being said, do we know the context in which the elderly neighbor is offering prayer? It is commonplace for Christians to pray when people are suffering illness or having some other problem. I just wondered if this could be the case rather than the neighbor being a broken record at evangelizing?
‘But surely you can see how “I’m praying for you” repeated incessantly can be taken as “You’re a sinful miscreant, but be not afraid, for I am not giving up on you, heroic and devoted savior that I am!”’
Christians are taught to pray for people who afflict them. Has anyone considered that this letter writer is an annoying neighbor and this woman is saying this because of the writer’s behavior and that most people would take the opposite approach and tell them to ‘Go to HELL!”.
Ha! A reasonable alternative!
“But surely you can see how ‘I’m praying for you’ repeated incessantly can be taken as ‘You’re a sinful miscreant, but be not afraid, for I am not giving up on you, heroic and devoted savior that I am!’”
I guess I didn’t address this part of the prayer recipient’s complaint, but “incessant reminders” are not something I practice in regard to my prayer life, nor is it something I have frequently encountered. If someone I was praying for expressed objections to my prayers, I certainly wouldn’t antagonize them by frequently bringing up the subject. I have led a number of people to Christ, but none by bullying or browbeating. As far as the “heroic and devoted savior” reference goes, there is only one Savior, and it ain’t me. I can’t speak to the motivations of others when they pray, but I pray for myself as overcoming the flaws in my own life as often as for anyone else, because I know how extensive is my need. And I will never tell anyone “I’ll pray for you” and not follow through with it. How crass!
The ‘moral superiority’ is on the other side. I view this complaint as slightly more frivolous than the “I’m vegan, but there is a family in my neighborhood who cooks hamburgers outside sometimes even through I have told them to stop. Can I report them to the police?”
If you actually are a believing Christian, this unsaved complainer is going to hell/eternal separation from God (however you decide to interpret the fate of unbelievers) for eternity. If you truly care about them, you can’t just let that go. It is not a hateful act. A true atheist wouldn’t care, why would they? If God doesn’t exist, her prayers are meaningless, but an expression of caring, so what? Most Hindus wouldn’t care as long as you didn’t try to convert them. The only person who would care is an anti-Christian. The only hatred here is coming from the letter-writer.
If a Muslim or a Mormon tells me that they are praying for me, I am not going to get mad or offended. I definitely don’t believe in their religion, but I understand their motivation and intent, which is good. Why would I get mad? I don’t really believe their prayers are valid as they view them. I don’t believe that they are worshiping an actual god, so their prayers don’t do anything unless the God I believe in hears them and honors them. The only reason I would be mad is if I didn’t actually believe that my religion was true and that someone else’s was. If I strongly suspected that Christianity was a false religion, that the god of Islam was the true god, then I might be mad that this Muslim praying for me was making me face the truth that my life was following falsehood for social and societal reasons and I was turning my back on the truth.
A true atheist wouldn’t care, why would they? If God doesn’t exist, her prayers are meaningless, but an expression of caring, so what?
You’re painting with a very broad brush here, and making a lot of assertions about how others ought to feel.
There’s no “one true way” to be an atheist, at least not as the term is used in general conversation. Most folks aren’t really interested in understanding the breakdown between agnosticism, naturalism, maltheism, misotheism, dystheism, antitheism, skepticism, secularism, spiritualism, physicalism, explicit/implicit/strong/weak atheism, and a myriad of other forms that could be defined. Realistically, atheism is intensely personal (as any person’s beliefs are), and the term is generally used when someone wants to say “I do not practice a religion” – but I’ve also known it to be used by a wide number of neo-pagans, Wiccans, and other individuals who might not be strictly atheistic in their outlook, but find it much easier than explaining what they do believe and practice to the uninitiated.
Each individual is going to have a distinct reaction to being prayed for based on what their actual experiences and beliefs are. A misotheist (someone who believes gods are to be rejected/hated) or dystheist (someone who believes gods are not good) may view prayer as trying to invite the attention of a malevolent entity upon them (akin, for instance, to how most Christians would view a neighbor saying they’ll perform a spell, or call upon Satan). One physicalist may view the act as unimportant, because the action is fundamentally without consequence and has no impact on the physical world – while another may view someone praying for them as no different from someone using a fantasy of them for masturbation, and find it uncomfortable to be regularly reminded that is what their neighbor is doing.
As a personal example, when I am grieving, I find being included in other’s prayers objectionable – it implies that they believe my grief is something which needs to pass, and maybe I’ll need supernatural assistance for it to do so. There is an inherent subtext that I must immediately heal, or I need to repress my grief to make them feel like I have. No – my grief is something I need to experience and express, and come to my own terms with; I do not need anyone trying to make it stop because they are uncomfortable around it.
Requesting someone not pray for you is not inherently an antichristian mindset (though it certainly could be born of one, since Christians have a tendency to be busybodies about everyone else’s spiritual well-being). It is no different than requesting that your neighbor not smoke along the fence line between your properties, that they turn off the outdoor lights at midnight, or really do anything else that generally shows a degree of mutual respect and goodwill. Some of us will have different behaviors we find objectionable, and different degrees of distance at which we will find those behaviors problematic. We will not always be in the position to ensure there are 10 acres of land between ourselves to mitigate those behaviors.
But, as Jack and the columnist ultimately concluded, can we force someone not to pray for us? No. Not any more than we can force someone not to smoke on their own porch, or turn off the outdoor lights. Less, in fact, because many of those behaviors have been found generally undesirable, and the rest of society has given us tools to discourage them.
However, if someone continues to pray for us, and make sure we know it after we’ve asked them not to? Well, that person is an asshole. There’s no law against being an asshole, of course. We couldn’t build enough jails if there were. But generally, I don’t think we should be holding that up as a desirable state for most of us.
I’m going to be contrary!
I think the praying neighbor is an asshole.
Not for praying, or having belief, but by giving into the constant need to tell her neighbor about it. It’s exactly like Jack said: “But surely you can see how “I’m praying for you” repeated incessantly can be taken as “You’re a sinful miscreant, but be not afraid, for I am not giving up on you, heroic and devoted savior that I am!””
Especially after being told that she doesn’t appreciate being told that.
I hate writing these words, but as a gay man, I’ve experienced this constantly, and all the flavors of it. Never mind the subliminal subtext, the number of times I’ve straight up been told I’m going to hell in the same utterance as being told I’m in someone’s prayers is not negligible. There are very good reasons certain groups of people have low estimation of the faithful: There are judgy pricks in your midst, and you are generally horrible at calling them out. In fact, in my experience, you tend to run cover for eachother, exactly like what’s happening here.
I think that the faithful will balk at this, and they’re going to focus on the intent. my expectation is that there will be variations on the theme of “Surely, she’s just expressing concern and solidarity!”. Frankly… I don’t know if that has the benefit of being true. I’m sure for some it might be, but I’m equally sure that there are religious Karens out there who are absolutely more concerned about the splinter in their neighbor’s eye than the plank in their own, and lives for the dopamine fix that comes with the sense of moral superiority they feel while letting everyone know about their failings. And the problem for the faithful is that is that the base behavior is almost entirely identical and the deciphering of intent is impossible without telepathy. Can anyone articulate why they might believe that the praying neighbor’s intent was good, outside of a desire that that be true?
And this leads me to the second point: Even if you could prove intent, Intent doesn’t matter. While this behavior of constantly bothering her neighbor about living in some kind of sin might be acceptable to the praying neighbor, while she might (might) want people to do the same for her, while people who believe as she does might be able to nod and understand, what the faithful have to understand is that their proselytizing is almost universally unwelcome and annoying. And that’s really as far as you need to go.
Freedom of Speech doesn’t require an unwilling audience. That’s just harassment. And while not all harassment is actionable, it’s always asshole behavior.
Humble Talent, I want to say thank you for taking the time to write this out, and share your experiences.
The rest of this thread will probably struggle to hear or process what you’re saying, but I feel like it really is vital they do, because more of them need to examine the self-righteousness and persecution complex that cause them to dismiss the actual discomfort and harm they cause with their behaviors.
Just because your faith tells you to do a thing, doesn’t mean that thing won’t become a tool of behaving like an asshole among practitioners of the faith.
I had a think on this overnight, and while I stand by everything I wrote, I think I need to contextualize it.
There’s an element of performative insincerity to the way a lot of the faithful approach their faith. There’s too much in the Bible that just doesn’t make sense in a current context, things that weren’t reformed in the Acts or in Hebrews. People generally can’t even make holy the Sabbath and take a day off, nevermind the things that would take time and effort to do. The honest and informed (an ever shrinking pool) know that they’re approaching their religion a la carte, and focus on their relationship with God, and what makes sense.
Which means that much of the expression of their faith is a choice, and that they choose to do these things, so they can be judged individually on the things they choose to express. If you think that you don’t have to send your wife out to sit on a corner of your roof while she’s menstruating and burn her clothes afterwards, but you have the moral duty to, with all the discernment of someone actively suffering from Tourette’s, see-something-say-something around other people in sin, then you have made a choice, an easy choice, and that says something about you.
In my experience, the Good Ones, the people who I believe are sincere, are usually the quietest. They live their faith, and don’t require the affirmation of others. They pray at meals, even when they’re eating alone, because they believe that they aren’t sitting alone. They quietly make real, obvious sacrifices, without telling people, because they believe those things are the right things to do. I know people that I would bet my life savings have prayed for me, despite never telling me so. If one of them ever approached me and wanted to talk, because they were concerned, I would listen.
But preacher Karen, from next door? Fuck her.
Both are terrific perspectives, HT, and will be up today as COTD.