Who Wrote The Serenity Prayer?

RELIGION IN THE NEWS

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.This week’s item is from The New York Times, July 11, 2008, with the headline:“Serenity Prayers Stirs Up Doubt, Who Wrote It?”The following are excerpts:Generations of recovering alcoholics, soldiers, weary parents, exploited workers, and just about anybody feeling beaten down by life, have found solace in a short prayer that begins:“God grand me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”Now the serenity prayer is about to endure a controversy over its authorship that is likely to be anything but serene.For more than 70 years the composer of the prayer was thought to be the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, one of Christianity’s towering figures.Niebuhr who died in 1971, said he was quite sure he had written it, and his wife, Ursula, also a prominent theologian, dated its composition to the early 1940’s.His daughter Elizabeth Sifton, wrote a book about the prayer in 2003, in which she described her father first using it in 1943, in an ordinary Sunday service at a church in the bucolic Massachusetts town of Heath, where the Niebuhr family spent summers.Now, a law librarian at Yale, using new data basis of archival documents has found newspaper clippings and the book from as far back as 1936 that quote close versions of the prayer.Some refer to the prayer as if it were a Proverb, while others appear to claim it as their own poetry.None attribute the prayer to a particular source and they never mention Reinhold Niebuhr.

Tom:

Dave, yeah, it’s a bit of controversy here but I think there’s more controversy to this prayer than just who is the author.It’s certainly the prayer the article mentions of Alcoholics Anonymous, every meeting starts off with that prayer.Celebrate Recovery, which is Rick Warren’s program at Saddleback for 12-steps. It’s a 12-Steps program, and I participated in the training of that, and the small group I was in, they started the small group off with the serenity prayer.

Dave:

This was at Rick Warren’s church, under his sponsorship?

Tom:

Right, and Celebrate Recovery is huge, I mean, it’s all over, and Rick even worked out a deal with Prison Fellowship, they are now using Celebrate Recovery.The Bible that they use is the Life Recovery Bible, which is a commentary by psychologists, those who have been involved in AA, and 12-Steps.And there are 30 devotionals here, sections that have the serenity prayer as sort of a masthead to each section.So, this is big.Now the questions is, is this prayer biblical?“God grand me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”It goes on, “Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardships as the pathway to peace, taking as he did this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that he will make all things right if I surrender to his will, that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with him forever in the next.Amen.”

Dave:

Tom, there are some things about that prayer you can’t criticize, but it’s a do it yourself kit.That means, this to do this, and to do that, and to do that.Well granted, and they are asking God for the power to do this.But still, it’s not Christ in me.“It’s no more I but Christ…” and we just quoted Galatians:2:20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
See All....That’s not what this is about.God, I want to overcome this habit, now grant me—and so forth, and the wisdom to know the difference, et cetera.I’m sure most people would think wow! that’s a very wise prayer.And whoever came up with this probably thought so as well.But that’snot the gospel, and that’s not the crucified life—“I’m crucified with Christ, non the less I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.”That’s not Christ living in me.God grant me to do this and to do that and to do that.

Tom:

Dave, this relates to what we talked about earlier in our first segment.This is, asyou said, this is self helps, this is a deism kind of thing.We’re going to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, we’re going to, again, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”This seems to be the way that is right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

Dave:

“Accept the things I cannot change” that sounds mighty good, but what about God changing things?It’s all me, I, my, me, and if I can’t do it, God, well then help me to accept it.No, that’snot what the crucified life is about.“It is no more I but Christ who lives in me…”—there’s nothing about that in this prayer.Now this prayer is not for Christians, it’s for those who are wanting to pick themselves up by their bootstraps.

Tom:

Yeah, this is a works condition and situation.Dave, it’s also interesting that this is what AA is about, Alcoholics Anonymous, this is what 12-Steps, this is why they use it over and over and over again because it reflects the 12-steps approach, which is not only not biblical—well, we’ve talked about Bill Wilson who really developed the 12 steps, not biblical by any means, and according to the AA documents,he got this idea from spirit entities.He was very much into spiritism and communing with spirit entities.

Dave:

Yeah, you’re not making that up.This is not from some critic, this is from the documents, AA documents themselves, who give you the history and acknowledge where this came from. Tom, we’ve been accused of accusing people, of criticizing people, so we’ve been criticized for criticizing.You know, it’s not that we haven’t tried, we’ve brought this to the attention of Rick Warren for example.I sent him all this documentation, where Bill Wilson got this from, all the relationship and Rick, here it is.This is what you’re doing and this is what you’re saying:Somehow, it comes from the Beatitudes. It isn’t true and you are leading people astray, and you say it’s not AA based, and it is AA based.Tom, you went through Celebrate Recovery.

Tom:

Right, I was trained through the program.