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A Brief Review of The Greatest Prayer: By John Dominic Crossan Buy now: [ ChristianBook.com ] Reviewed by Bob Cornwall. |
![875670: The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord"s Prayer](http://ag.christianbook.com/g/thumbnail/8/875670t.gif "875670: The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord"s Prayer")
[ A longer version of this review is available on the author’s blog ]
The Lord’s Prayer is one of the best known and most beloved prayers in the World. Christians may disagree about a lot of things, but they all seem to find deep and abiding meaning, strength and spiritual sustenance in this prayer. But, even though we may recite this prayer weekly or even daily, often from memory, do we truly understand what it is we’re saying as we offer this prayer? That is, is there more to this prayer than meets the eye and could this prayer be in its original form a revolutionary manifesto? That is the contention made by John Dominic Crossan, one of the leading and best known Jesus scholars of our day, as he takes up this prayer. In the course of eight chapters, together with a prologue and an epilogue, Crossan invites us to join him in wrestling with the theological, political, social and cultural implications of this prayer, and the result is an extremely helpful book, even if at points it appears as if the prayer itself fades into the background of a broader discussion of the biblical story.
As I offer my review of Crossan’s book, I need to acknowledge that I have just published my own book on the Lord’s Prayer, a book that carries a title that might suggest that I read the prayer in ways similar to Crossan [Ultimate Allegiance: The Subversive Nature of the Lord’s Prayer 
(Energion Publications, 2010)]. I will leave that possibility to the discernment of those who choose to read both books.
(Energion Publications, 2010)]. I will leave that possibility to the discernment of those who choose to read both books.The prologue and the Epilogue offer clues to the trajectory that this book follows. The prologue carries the title, “The Strangest Prayer,” and in this prologue Crossan makes the point that while this prayer is offered up by Christians of every imaginable perspective, the prayer itself doesn’t address many of the issues that different Christian groups hold dear – whether inerrancy of Scripture, substitutionary atonement or even the resurrection, and yet it is prayed people who tend to ignore what it does say. This is not a Christian prayer per se, but is, the author contends “a prayer from the heart of Judaism on the lips of Christianity for the conscience of the world.” It is, in Crossan’s view “a radical manifesto and a hymn of hope for all humanity in language addressed to all the earth” (2). This insistence that the prayer is deeply rooted in Judaism, leads the author to explore in some depth the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible underpinnings of each phrase in the prayer.
The book concludes with an epilogue entitled “The Strangest Book.” The point of this interesting title is that the Christian Bible, in both its testaments holds out visions of God that would seem contradictory and that require Christians to decide between these two visions of God, one being is a description of a violent God and the other a vision of a nonviolent God. Crossan makes the important point that the distinction isn’t to be made between testaments. Both visions are present in both testaments, with, in his mind, the Book of Revelation being the most violent book to be found in any major religious text. The question that he poses for the reader, especially the Christian reader, asks which of these two visions of God we believe Christ incarnates. How we answer this question will influence how we read and interpret the Lord’s Prayer, or as Crossan is fond of referring to it, the Abba Prayer.
For Crossan, the God who is addressed by this prayer is the God not of “violent retributive justice and punitive righteousness,” but the God of “nonviolent distributive justice and restorative righteousness” (p. 188). And if this is true of the God addressed by the prayer, then the question concerns how we understand the one who brings this prayer to us – is this person representative of a non-violent or a violent vision of reality.
Five themes emerge in this prayer, according to the author, which are interwoven throughout the prayer. The first theme is a movement from the patriarchal to the more egalitarian “householder.” On this, I understand the value of this transition, but I’m not sure that abandoning the father image offers the most helpful contrast to the imperial father image. The second theme is the idea that the prayer calls on the ones offering the prayer to serve as God’s stewards of creation – as God’s images/icons. Third, there is the idea of Jesus as son of the Householder, and in this Crossan decides to retain the seemingly patriarchal term for it offers us the idea of Jesus as the heir of God, as first born son – in this I’m of a similar view, that Jesus is the older brother who invites us to share in God’s inheritance. Fourth, there is the call to collaborate with Christ in the movement toward the eschaton or “Great Divine Cleanup of the World.” And finally, there is the recognition that this is both “revolutionary manifesto” and “hymn of hope,” and it is addressed from Christian mouths to the “conscience of the world.”
What Crossan does here, whether or not you agree in total with his perspective, is demonstrate his remarkable talents as a scholar of the New Testament. He reminds us that this prayer didn’t emerge in a vacuum, but arose from the context of political and social upheaval. The people who prayed this prayer faced a system that promised peace, but did so at the point of a sword. The God to whom this prayer is addressed offers something different. Readers, especially those who enjoy Crossan, will find this a compelling read. My only concern is that the book sometimes loses track of the prayer itself, and thus the reader isn’t sure how the prayer as it stands fits into one’s faith today. But, that may be due to the fact that Crossan is himself somewhat estranged from the church. Thus, this book is best read together one that emerges more directly from within the church. But, the key here is that Crossan challenges us to think deeply about what it is that we’re saying in this prayer and recognize that we may be asking for more than we’re able, or willing, to embrace – especially the revolutionary and the subversive nature of this prayer. The God we are addressing here is the God of distributive justice, not the God of retributive justice. As he notes in the closing line of the book, what he has learned from studying in depth this prayer is this:
“Justice is love, love is justice. That is all we know on earth, and all we need to know.” (p. 190).
C. Christopher Smith is the founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books. He is also author of a number of books, including most recently How the Body of Christ Talks: Recovering the Practice of Conversation in the Church (Brazos Press, 2019). Connect with him online at: C-Christopher-Smith.com
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Dominic Crossan is sometimes vilified as an outsider to classic evangelical theology, but his passion and zeal for scripture as the power that set’s slaves free, is given proper wider application in this book. It’s a sad inditement of the myopic tendencies of the people who inhabit the truncated ghetto’s that substitute as our modern churches ( often evangelical), who through error and neglect have suppress the profound muscular intellects that once inhabited and dominate both their pews and pulpits alike only one hundred years ago. Dominic shows us how apply and give the gospel it’s logical and proper consequence or the moment of prayer from what is not seen to what is seen; thus justifying both the one who prays and those for whom the one is praying for. The movement is one from what cannot be “seen,” to what can be seen. This is actually the true meaning of the good news or the “gospel.” What Jesus could do in prayer is receive consistant “yes,” from the Father in Heaven in answers to his prayers. Jesus was trying to teach and prove this to his followers when he advised them and us to go to a private place were “no one can see you,” this is so that your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly for the one you are praying for. In his day people just like today, prayed big showy prayers in public to be seen by their peers as being “holy.” Jesus instructed us that if you are praying only to be seen of men you already have your reward: “to be seen of men.”