Saying grace ungracefully

page 2 of this week's 'Oxford Times' : "Argument at Trinity College over scholars being made to say grace"

"Over the past few weeks, a number of scholars and exhibitioners at Trinity College have refused to recite the meal-time prayer. A response by the chaplain, demanding that the prizewinners say grace, has opened up a rift between the students and the college's governing body. In an email sent to students by the Revd Emma Percy, she wrote : "The personal beliefs of the individual are incidental; the role requires them to speak the words that the college community wish to be said on their behalf." The chaplain also argued that reciting the prayer was not a religious ritual but a tradition that scholars and exhibitioners were obliged to take part in. She added: "There seems to be some confusion about the difference between personal and public prayer, the individual and the role. . . The scholar/exhibitioner is asked to recite the grace; it is a personal matter whether they also pray it," she added.

. . a [subsequent] motion to the Junior Common Room stated that ". . the obligation to say the words of the grace amounts to forced participation in a religious ceremony. . . a scholarship or an exhibition is an award for academic achievement, and should not involve any religious obligation." At the JCR meeting, a motion was passed by 27 votes to 17 to write to the governing body requesting a change in college rules, removing the obligation for scholars and exhibitioners to recite grace. [end of quotations].

I imagine that what is being asked of the students concerned is not to offer a prayer of their own, but to recite the traditional college grace, which is probably in Latin and goes back to mediaeval times. It is normal practice in most Oxford colleges and probably only relates to formal college dinners once a week, although in some colleges every evening hall dinner is formal. Meals at such dinners are not served canteen fashion. Everyone gathers for dinner, and when all are in place, silence is called and the meal starts together - a civilised practice, I think, which befits a college community, not a collection of individuals. The grace signifies the start of the meal.

This little story highlights the confusions we have arrived at over the secular and the religious. I'm with the chaplain on this one. A prayer is a poem until its hearer (or reciter) prays it. That corresponds with Reformed theology in which the communion bread only becomes the 'communion of the Body of Christ' when it is received in faith. The Latin grace provides an opportunity for those members of college who wish to inwardly give thanks in whatever way they choose (a Muslim could be giving thanks in one way, a humanist in another - why should we assume only religious people are thankful for a meal, and the work that it represents?). Its being in Latin (probably) allows such scope. The only grounds for refusing to give the college members such an opportunity is on the grounds that it is harmful to encourage them to consider being thankful.

What the protesting students are doing is claiming that religion is an individualistic, privatised matter to be banished from the secular sphere. ('Secular' misunderstood as 'we don't do God here' - see earlier post). That said, if I were the chaplain faced with someone claiming s/he can't recite a prayer without also praying it I would be inclined not to force it. The important thing is that college pauses to give thanks. I might note that Aristotle said that the mark of an educated person is that they are able to hold thoughts in their head and take them seriously without agreeing with them - it leaves me wondering whether the students have really thought it through. There are many humanists and atheists who nonetheless enjoy singing the (religious) works of Bach without, presumably, feeling that their rights are being trampled on.