Two Cultural Addictions: Tobacco and Prayer c 2000

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Two Cultural Addictions: Tobacco and Prayer © 2000
By Dwight A. Moody, Dean of the Chapel
Georgetown College, Georgetown, KY

It is not easy being a minister in a tobacco state. A month after I became the pastor of a west Kentucky church, a well meaning member sidled up to me and said, "Be careful what you say about tobacco; we have some prominent tobacco farmers in our church."

Such warnings give pause; they slow down a preacher`s headlong pursuit of the prophet`s mantle.

The truth of the matter is this: churches in Kentucky are addicted to tobacco, tobacco money, that is. I grew up in such a church. Tithes and offerings from the sale of tobacco funded the budget that included my father`s salary. While youth leaders lectured us about smoking, and lighting up was certainly taboo in our youth group, the congregation as a whole went right on preaching and singing, building and borrowing based on the substantial flow of money from the sale of tobacco.

It wasn`t just the growers. It was landowners who rented ground, warehousers who hosted sales, investors who bought stock, and merchants who stocked shelves. It was night clerks at convenient stores eking out a living selling packs and cartons to one and all. Banks loaning money, governments collecting taxes, hospitals treating tobacco addicted patients and billing insurance companies and Medicare: it touched every arena of life.

The entire economy, the whole of our culture is addicted, in this sense, to tobacco.

The public sign of sickness is, of course, smoking. And smoking, as we know, is pervasive; it is an epidemic. Every year, in Kentucky and Indiana, 52,000 children and teenagers begin smoking. Every year, 18,000 residents of Kentucky and Indiana die from tobacco related causes. Public health officials contend it is one of the chief preventable causes of illness and death in America.

What can we do?

Our strategy has been shame. Years ago, it was shaming the individual, pointing a finger and speaking of the immorality of the smokers life. "Your body is the temple of God; do not desecrate it with the deadly poison."

These days, it is shaming the companies who market the stuff, holding press conferences or launching law suits to say, "You are deceiving the children and filling the earth with death."

There is nothing wrong with such shame; and speaking to these two groups (individual smokers and tobacco companies) is entirely appropriate. But they represent only a small percentage of the American public that is caught up in this web of addiction.

One reason this two-pronged campaign of shame has failed is because it leaves out so much of this cultural web. In the middle are all those who profit from the sale of tobacco, from churches and their consecrated and disciplined members, to governments and their noble and necessary projects for the public good.

A second reason the campaign of shame has failed is that it features the pure, the righteous, the morally indignant pointing fingers at the unclean, the sinner, the moral reprobate. Little in our experience, and nothing in our spirit, leads us to believe such tactics will succeed in effecting the conversion for which we pray.

Remember the old song, "not the preacher, not the deacon, but it`s me O Lord, standing in the need of prayer"?

Conversion begins in the soul of the addict, at the point of desperation, when all else fails. Isn`t this the miracle method of that great book of the century, Alcoholics Anonymous? Isn`t this number one on that twelve step path to recovery, and wholeness, and salvation? "My name is Joe and I am an alcoholic."

The institutions, corporations, and organizations of our good land need a new confession: "My name is First Baptist church, and I am addicted to tobacco. My name is Kroger, and I am addicted to tobacco. My name is Memorial County hospital, and I am addicted to tobacco. My name is the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and I am addicted to tobacco."

It is not a strategy of shame, but of rejecting the centuries of denial, of refusing to blame others for our own responsibility, of refusing to name as scapegoats those who are most vulnerable, most visible, or most able to cough up big money. We are all in this together, and until we sing some version of that old spiritual, there will be no answer to our prayers for a drug free society.

One Hell of a Prayer

All the talk about prayer, high school football, and the Supreme Court reminds me of my own episode with such things thirty-two years ago. The year was 1968 and I was an 18 year-old senior at Hazelwood High School in suburban St. Louis. It was, they told us, the largest high school in the state.

Because it was known about school that I aspired to the ministry, somebody asked me to deliver the benediction at our high school graduation. I was honored and told my friends.

One such friend was Steve Sherman, a drummer in the band, which is how I knew him. He asked me, "Are you going to pray `in Jesus name`?" Being Jewish, he was interested in such things. Naturally, I said, "Yes." At that time in my life I did not know there was any other way to pray. He told his mother who, in turn, spoke to a teacher, also of the Jewish faith, who talked to somebody, who, of course, complained to the principal. He discussed the matter with the superintendent of schools. At least, that is the way I think it all happened.

I do not remember being aware of any "controversy" until I was summoned to the office of the principal, a Mr. Fuqua. He was not a stranger to me, but reporting to such an office always provokes anxiety. As it turned out, it was a very low-key affair. He explained the situation, a delicate one, he said. Some had requested that I prepare a manuscript of the prayer and present it to the principal for approval.

However, as providence would have it, Mr. Fuqua was Baptist layman, and, would you believe it, so was the superintendent, an unexpected situation in such a place. "Dwight," he said to me, "I know we Baptists are not accustomed to writing prayers, so I am telling you this situation, and asking you to be sensitive to everybody. I know you will do the right thing."

There was never any doubt in my mind what "the right thing" was; 18 year-old preacher boys have a firm grip on what is right and what is wrong. I had never written a prayer, and, as far as I knew, had never heard a written prayer. Extemporaneous prayer is the pattern in the free church tradition, and so is praying in the name of Jesus.

Since then, I have learned the value of written prayers. I have composed many for my own use. I have been blessed by reading, hearing, and praying those prepared by others. Much about this has been good for my Baptist-shaped soul.

But as for praying `in Jesus` name`? I have not come to think it better to give up the specific for the general. There is pressure these days toward generic praying, using general terms and broad petitions, without anything said that ties it to a particular tradition. It is supposed to help all listeners feel included.

But I wonder. I still prefer the specific to the general. When in public, I say, pass the prayer around. Let the Baptist pray his way, and the Catholic hers; allow Jews to offer Jewish prayers and encourage Muslims to recite Islamic prayers. Give me a Jewish prayer any day rather than something generic. I learn from the Catholic and the Muslim as they lead in prayer. But if everyone goes for the lowest common denominator, so that all prayers sound alike, what difference does it make who prays, and to whom, and for what?

So it was that day when we gathered in Keil Auditorium, the large civic arena at the center of the city. There must have been five thousand people present. I do not remember a thing about the event; not where I sat, or who spoke, or where we went to celebrate after the ceremony. Only this: as we turned in our caps and gowns, one fellow graduate, an athlete who might have passed as the anti-type of this thin, bespectacled preacher boy, gave me a big slap on the back and said, "Thanks, Moody; that was one hell of a prayer!"

Never again has one of my prayers, written or otherwise, provoked such a memorable response!