Some good news from the Church of England, that you might have missed. Eighty per cent of the population correctly identified the phrase “Give us this day our daily bread” as being from The Lord’s Prayer.
Polling for the Church of England by Savanta found that among seven famous phrases it had the highest recognition rate. It beat “To be or not to be” from Hamlet. The opening to Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. “Never in the field of human conflict, was so much owed by so many to so few” – Churchill’s verdict on the Battle of Britain. “You’ll never walk alone” which was a hit for Gerry and the Pacemakers. “May the force be with you” from Star Wars and “Happy and glorious/Long to reign over us,” from the National Anthem.
Monarchists might be mildly encouraged that the phrase from the National Anthem, correctly identified by 63% of respondents, beat Gerry and Pacemakers, who scored 58%.
The survey then proceeded to ask specifically about The Lord’s Prayer. Overall, 89% of those surveyed said they had previously heard of it. It found that 26% pray using The Lord’s Prayer (whether reciting it or silently) “daily or almost daily”. Of course, although the Anglicans stumped up to pay for the polling, that’s also encouraging for the Roman Catholics, the Baptists, the Methodists and orthodox and the other Christian denominations for which those words are a central part of their faith. A 2024 YouGov poll for the Bible Society found 12% of the population attend church at least monthly. Up from eight per cent in 2018 but still a small minority. The lack of churchgoers is often cited as evidence that we have become a secular nation. It would seem, though, that quite a chunk of the population that can’t face going to Church, for whatever reason, is still sneakily praying on the quiet.
Anyway, according to the Savanta survey, all respondents – whether Christians or not – were read each line of The Lord’s Prayer and asked if they understood it. There are plenty of aspects of Christian theology which are hard to follow – this is continually acknowledged from the pews as the “peace of God which passeth all understanding”. But The Lord’s Prayer was considered to be clear enough. “Hallowed be thy name,” was the trickiest bit. But even that was judged “easy to understand” by 65% and “challenging to understand” by just 13%. “And lead us not into temptation” and “But deliver us from evil” were considered easy to understand by 80%, with just 8% finding those phrases “challenging to understand”.
Another question found that “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us” came top with 43% when respondents were asked which lines were particularly meaningful to them.
So, these are all findings that should give Anglicans a much-needed confidence boost. But I wonder if all the high-ups are rejoicing. In fairness, the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, did say of The Lord’s Prayer that “though ancient, its words continue to resonate with people of all faiths and none”.
Yet I have some suspicions of the motives of those who commissioned the polling. What were they hoping to find? They are not usually keen to stress how “ancient” language “resonates”. More often, they are looking to banish it for the sake of “modernisation” and to allow for the Church’s faith to avoid being “rigid” but instead “updated” to suit passing fashions.
The Lord’s Prayer was first published in English in William’s New Testament translation in 1526 from the Greek. The version we are all so familiar with comes from the 1662 version of Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer. While modern church services have usually ditched the BCP for an insipid new version, they found The Lord’s Prayer too tough a nut to crack. A couple of tiresome tweaks were brought in, which parishioners routinely ignore – “on earth” rather than “in earth” and “those that trespass” rather than “them that trespass”. Amidst the sanitised mush of the rest of a Holy Communion service, its powerful lines have largely survived.
Imagine if the Anglican bureaucrats had got the polling they were secretly hoping for? That The Lord’s Prayer was just obscure mumbo jumbo that if the punters recognised at all felt it left them befuddled? The arrogant clerics would have seized on the findings to offer an “improved” version. That what Jesus Christ said might have been all very well at the time, but we need to move on, put a contemporary interpretation on it. Praying for an end to climate change, equal distribution of wealth and equality and inclusion. A church service would become just another quango training session.
It’s not just The Lord’s Prayer, of course. There is a greater likelihood of hearing the words of The Prayer Book by going to see the latest Hollywood blockbuster than by going to Church.
Suppose you’re a film director (of any religious belief or none) and you’re including a wedding scene. Or a funeral. Which version would you prefer to have the service begin with? Just compare the power of the language from the BCP against, say, Common Worship. It is not even close. Cranmer turns out to have become one of the greatest screenwriters in the business. How perverse that the Church of England has largely ditched this extraordinary inheritance. But how satisfying that their cunning wheeze to complete their awful mission by ditching the Lord’s Prayer has backfired so emphatically.
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There’s a huge difference between recognising the Lord’s Prayer and living your life in a Christian manner.
Do people recognise and live by advertising slogans? Do they ‘Just do it’? Do they consider themselves worthy ‘Because you’re worth it’? Can you fly because ‘It gives you wings’? Clearly not. And I expect that for many bright young things a Crucifix necklace is just a fashion item.
It’s only a crucifix if it has a 3-D representation of Jesus Christ’s body on it – and therefore a religious symbol. A cross isn’t a Christian religious symbol. Catholics and Orthodox are very touchy on this subject.
Cross-wearers rather does illustrate your point. Clueless of meaning.
The Crucifix is a Blasphemous Object, for the following reasons:
1) It breaks The Second Commandment: Thou shalt not make unto thee ANY GRAVEN IMAGES.
2) Most Christians, not Maryolaters, CELEBRATE THE EMPTY CROSS, believing that Jesus has risen, just as he said.
3) The cross symbol itself was stolen from the REED CROSS that John the Baptist made from reeds to help him survive all the years of his orphan life in the wilderness, after the Impostor Goddess had his mother Elizabeth killed when he was seven years old. Jesus was nailed to stake, not a cross, and he did not die, but was taken down alive and healed by the Evil Joseph of Arimathea, who later murdered Mary Magdalene, as described in the Book of Judges “The Levite’s Concubine”.
Same survey by end of the century won’t tell the same story
“Eighty per cent of the church population correctly identified the phrase…”
😉
Yes, I was shocked to discover that an ordained evangelical minister did not know “The Lord’s Prayer” by heart, as we had all been taught from childhood, but had to read it out of a sermon book every time he led the Sunday congregation in saying it. I was even more shocked to discover that this same happily married minister with children had been quietly seducing any old lady in the church who responded to his advances, whether they were married or not. He lived by the false creed “Once Saved, Always Saved”, which means they can sin as much as they want, after declaring their belief in Jesus.
Hell awaits them.
The author wrote, “The Lord’s Prayer was first published in English in William’s New Testament translation in 1526 from the Greek.”
“William’s”??? What!!!???
It was WILLIAM TYNDALE who first translated the New Testament from the Greek in 1526, and was BURNT ALIVE AT THE STAKE for it by Catholics ten years later.
“Tyndale’s translations and polemical books were condemned and banned in England by Catholic authorities: in particular ALMOST ALL COPIES of his first 1526 New Testament, which authorities regarded as particularly flawed, were BOUGHT and BURNED by Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall who had sponsored and helped Erasmus with the translation of his 1518 Latin/Greek New Testament that Luther had used.”
Tyndale wrote in the 1526 translation:
“Oure Father, which arte in heven, Halowed be thy name.
Let thy kingdom come. Thy wyll be fulfilled, as well in earth, as hit ys in heven.
Geve us this daye oure dayly breade. And forgeve us oure treasspasses, even as we forgeve them which treasspass us.
Leede us not in to temptacion, but delyvre us ffrom yvell.
Amen.”
From this facsimile of one of only two complete copies from Peter Schoeffer’s 1526 printing, held in the collection of the British Library:
And while we’re on the subject, it’s “those who”, not “those that”. (Who is this Harry Phibbs?)
The argument I’ve most frequently heard for changing the language of the liturgy is not that people don’t understand it, rather that they feel somehow marginalised by the old vocabulary.
I always find it ironic that the words of one of my favourite hymns have been simplified and modernised from “consubstantial, coeternal” to “one in love, and one in splendour”. As if that’s going to make a verse that’s all about the undivided and equal nature of the Holy Trinity easier for the average pew-dweller to understand!
Remember this?
Pope Francis made this big change to Lord’s Prayer | Fox News
“… “lead us not into temptation” to “do not let us fall into temptation,” “A father doesn’t do that, a father helps you to get up immediately.”
Torturing semantics – do not let us fall – implies he might or will if we don’t ask him not to.
I do so agree about the impertinence of changing the words of hymns, and would add the beautiful “conjubilant with song” which has also been altered. Although a Catholic, I do sometimes attend our local C of E, where the modern Lord’s Prayer is used in their service booklet. However I stick to the old version (as well as “and with thy spirit”) out loud.
”It was WILLIAM TYNDALE who first translated the New Testament from the Greek in 1526, and was BURNT ALIVE AT THE STAKE for it by Catholics ten years later.”
Could this be the first example of “misinformation” and “cancelling”.
He probably thought there were only two sexes, too.
Yes, not only the Catholics, but the “Committee” of Protestant “experts” who amongst them wrote the King James version, mostly copied from Tyndale, did their utmost to avoid mentioning him or giving him credit for anything at all. They want William Tyndale to disappear down the memory hole of Christianity, as he very nearly has.
“You’ll never walk alone” was a hit for Rogers & Hammerstein in 1945 from their musical Carousel.
I learnt in Latin which is what we Left-footers used in (lost) days gone by…
Pater Noster
Pater noster, qui es in caelis,
sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Adveniat regnum tuum.
Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie,
et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem,
sed libera nos a malo.
Amen.
Sounds much better.
And we were “on” Earth … and Our Father “who” art in Heaven not the Proddidog version … “which” art in Heaven.
And the Papists’ Lord’s Prayer excluded the Doxology which was in the Proddidog version – “For Thine is the Kingdom, power and glory…”
Small differences but important to tell the tribes apart.
However in the RC modernisers quest to discover the Book of Common Prayer and in the spirit of ecumenicalism after Vat II, the Lord’s Prayer included the Doxology and in English now, of course. The Latin Rite of Mass was binned in favour of the vernacular, and the Mass went all happy-clappy – and many RC’s went, and joined the High Anglican ranks which was more Classic Coca-Cola, than the New Coke Catholic version. Yuk.
The New Testament was not written in Latin. It was written in Greek and Hebrew.
The Apostles didn’t speak Latin, and neither did Jesus, or his twin brother John the Baptist, or their mother Elizabeth.
There’s nothing “holy” about the Latin language. And nothing “holy” about Maryolatry, or crawling on your knees before statues of a human woman.