The State prayers and the secular polity

From an article by Canadian political theorist Ben Woodfinden:

The Crown is a valuable symbol and it's an institution that demands a lot from its representatives. But the virtues the Crown demands of its representatives aren't just ones that are good for the health and legitimacy of the Crown itself, they are virtues that benefit society as a whole.

The stoicism and dignity with which the Queen carries out her duties is precisely what has made her so widely respected and admired. Perhaps one reason she is so admired is that the Queen feels like an increasingly rare figure. 

We live in an age when authenticity, self-expression, and emotivism are celebrated often at the expense of any other virtue. The idea that we would allow ourselves to be moulded by an institution that might constrain this is alien to many of us.

Yet for our institutions, and society to flourish, we all at times need to practice these older habits and virtues. The Crown is no exception. 

This account provides an excellent introduction to the state prayers in the various iterations of the classical Prayer Book tradition.  In praying for the magistrate, we are praying for the virtues necessary for the flourishing of the polity.  Take, for example, the Prayer for the Queen's Majesty at Mattins and Evensong:

so replenish her with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that she may alway incline to thy will, and walk in thy way.

In the Litany we petition:

That it may please thee to rule her heart in thy faith, fear, and love ... and ever seek thy honour and glory.

Here is the source of true and authentic flourishing in the polity: an orientation to the Source of life, truth, goodness, justice, and love.  In praying for the monarch to be so oriented in heart and mind, we are praying that the polity would also be oriented towards wisdom, truth, goodness, justice, and love.

The Prayer Book tradition's state prayers for jurisdictions with an elected head of state demonstrate a similar understanding.  The Prayer for the President and all in authority, for use in the Church of Ireland in the Republic of Ireland, petitions:

Grant to the President of this State and to all in authority, wisdom and strength to know and to do thy will. Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness.

In PECUSA 1928, two prayers are provided for the President at Morning and Evening Prayer. The first is same text as that offered for the monarch in 1662.  This in itself is a rather significant statement of political theology.  The second adheres to the same principle:

Grant to THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and to all in Authority, wisdom and strength to know and to do thy will. Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness.

Ireland 1926 and PECUSA 1928 also adopt the 1662 Prayer for the High Court of Parliament, applying it to the Parliaments in Ireland and the United States Congress:

that all things may be so ordered and settled by their endeavours, upon the best and surest foundations, that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may be establish among us for all generations. 

Underpinning such petitions is a two-fold vision.  Firstly, society and polity require institutions which embody the good and wise life, institutions in which the duties, obligations, and self-restraint necessary in order to love our neighbour (see the Catechism on "my duty towards my neighbour") are placed at the heart of civic life.  Secondly, the state prayers ground the flourishing of our common life in the One who is "the author of peace and lover of concord".  The wisdom, goodness, truth, justice, and love necessary for the flourishing of the polity are the gifts of, and proceed from, God.  On these every polity is dependent for its well-being.  The polity's desire for, deliberations on, and debates pertaining to the good life and the just ordering of its affairs are inherently philosophical, ethical, and indeed theological exercises.  

To use a distinction employed by Rowan Williams, we may indeed welcome the 'procedural secularism' of the contemporary secular state, defined by a pluralism which "must make room for explicit reference to the roots of moral judgements, including their roots in religious belief".  This contrasts with 'programmatic secularism', which has an ideological commitment to excluding from the public realm moral reflection rooted in religious thought and, indeed, any teleological understandings of person or society. 'Programmatic secularism' cuts the polity off from rich and formative traditions of philosophical and ethical reflection on the nature of wisdom, goodness, truth, justice, and love, resulting in stunted deliberation and debate in which only atrophied concepts are available to shape and guide the common life of the polity.

The state prayers of the Prayer Book tradition are not now to be read - or dismissed - as prayers for a confessional constitutional order.  Rather, they offer a vision which is relevant to and can resonate with contemporary 'procedural secularism', praying that those institutions at the heart of a polity will be open to, guided by, and oriented towards the wisdom, goodness, truth, justice, and love which flow from and are grounded in God.  To read them in this way also ensures that they have meaning within diverse, pluralist societies, recognising how other faiths and philosophical traditions can contribute to the discernment of wisdom, goodness, truth, justice, and love.  (And this coheres with Hooker: "The bounds of wisdom are large, and within them much is contained ... wisdom hath diversely imparted her treasures unto the world", LEP II.1.4.)

The state prayers, then, hold within them a vision of the flourishing of polity and common life, petitioning that the institutions at the heart of the polity are rooted not in mere pragmatism and partisanship, but in an openness to those virtues necessary for a right and just ordering of our common life.  In other words, at a time when the liberal, civic constitutional order in a secular age has appeared to have lost its grounding in a moral order - indeed, often rejecting any meaningful sense of the good - the state prayers have a particular relevance, setting before us the virtues which can enable the flourishing of the wise and good community within that order.