Power of prayer

In common with most Humanists, I almost entirely agree with the letter from the Unitarian student pastor.

I’m also in agreement with Frank Grenfell’s suggestion that during the two-minutes’ silence many people’s “thoughts of those who have given their lives have nothing at all to do with any faith they may, or may not, have embraced”.
Oxford’s current service is not a long one, but it is almost entirely devoted to prayer: words like God/Lord/thou/thee/thy/thyself occur over 40 times in the Christian parts of the service and another 10 times within the words spoken, in prayer, by the representatives of our Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh friends and neighbours.
Indeed, to us Humanists, ‘the powers that be’ within our city seem to have replaced their decades-long neglect of all but the Christians among us with merely ignoring all but those who believe in ‘the power of prayer’. Surely, in the interests of the large number of local people who feel uncomfortably excluded from the annual Remembrance Service (due to its almost 100 per cent devotion to prayer), it’s time to allow our feelings and emotions to be given at least some airing during future years’ services of remembrance.
John White, Chairman, Oxford Humanists, Chalgrove