Prayer Is

Topic: Prayer, Meditation, & Contemplation

Prayer is a refusal to live as an outsider to my God and my own soul.

Eugene H. Peterson

Eugene Peterson, the late revered teacher and interpreter of the Bible, held a profound understanding of the purpose of prayer. “Prayers are tools not for doing or getting, but for being and becoming,” he once reflected. His pastoral ministry spanned nearly three decades, a setting where one might discover worn volumes by writers such as Wallace Stegner or Denise Levertov subtly mingled with sacred texts.

Peterson's quiet discontent with the limited manner his congregants engaged with the Bible led to a significant undertaking. Disrupting the passive reading habits, he dove into the extraordinary task of rendering the entire Bible into a more accessible language. His translation, which resonated deeply with millions worldwide, became an instrumental force in shaping the perspectives of pastors, teachers, and readers across generations.

The subtlety of Peterson's faith was grounded in a heartfelt fondness for metaphor and a steadfast commitment to the poetry inherent in the Bible. To him, these were not mere literary devices, but the essence that invigorated the Scriptures, enabling them to resonate in a world that often seemed disconnected. This ethos was carried forward in his vast literary contributions, including over 30 books such as Answering God and The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language. Even after his passing, Peterson's voice continued to echo in works like This Hallelujah Banquet: How the End of What We Were Reveals Who We Can Be, a Lenten sermon series published posthumously in 2021.

Eugene Peterson passed away in 2018, leaving behind an enduring legacy. His son, Eric, himself a pastor near Spokane, Washington, tenderly remembered his father, “He remained gentle and humble right up until the end of his long life and was simply the holiest man I’ve ever known. In death no less than life, he is a person of grace and truth.” In the stillness left by Peterson's passing, these words serve as a poignant testament to the enduring impact of his life, both in his personal sphere and in the broader world of biblical interpretation.

(1932–2018) Christianity
Tell It Slant

Peterson, Eugene H. Tell It Slant: a Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012, p. 136 [Eugene H. Peterson, Tell It Slant].

Eugene H. Peterson

Theme: Prayer

Pastor Eugene H. Peterson

The all-embracing openness that characterizes Peterson’s thinking is evident in the many sources he cites as influences—Rabbi Abraham Heschel and Protestant theologian Karl Barth, sixteenth-century Carmelites St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, Cardinal John Henry Newman, Scottish minister Alexander Whyte, Baron Friedrich von Hugel. Peterson is widely and deeply read, a Christian humanist who came into the ministry during a time of great ecumenical and interfaith cross-fertilization and receptivity to learning from all kinds of faith streams and currents.

—David E. Anderson [Senior editor of Religion News Service].

Additional Eugene H. Peterson Quotes

“Prayers are tools not for doing or getting, but for being and becoming.”

–Pastor Eugene H. Peterson [The Pastor: A Memoir].

“I love being an American, I love this place in which I have been placed—its language, its history, its energy. But I don’t love ‘the American way,’ its culture and values. I don’t love the rampant consumerism that treats God as a product to be marketed….The cultural conditions in which I am immersed require, at least for me, a kind of fierce vigilance to guard my vocation from these cultural pollutants so dangerously toxic to persons who want to follow Jesus in the way that he is Jesus.”

–Eugene H. Peterson [The Pastor: A Memoir].

“Congregation is a company of people who are defined by their creation in the image of God, living souls, whether they know it or not. They are not problems to be fixed, but mysteries to be honored and revered. Who else in the community other than the pastor has the assigned task of greeting men and women and welcoming them into a congregation in which they are known not by what is wrong with them, but by who they are, just as they are?”

—Eugene H. Peterson [The Pastor: A Memoir] p. 137.

“Reading the Bible can get you into a lot of trouble. Few things are more important in the Christian community than reading the Scriptures rightly. The holy Scriptures carry immense authority. Read wrongly, they can ignite war, legitimize abuse, sanction hate, cultivate arrogance. Not only can, but have … So caveat lector – let the reader beware. Read; but read rightly. The adverb rightly in this context does not only mean accurately; it means right-heartedly as well as right-mindedly, what the biblical writers referred to as uprightly.”

—Eugene Peterson [Introduction to The Act of Bible Reading, edited by Elmer Dyck (Downers Grove: IVP, 1996)] p. 8.

“I think there’s a whole part of the Christian church which operates out of fear. It’s a negative kind of gospel, which I think is quite contrary to the Gospel that Jesus brought to us. I’m not happy with that. As with Trump, I think we can survive that too. Overall, I’m optimistic. That’s the short answer.”

—Eugene H. Peterson [Interview with Jonathan Merritt, Religion News Service, July 11, 2017].

Prayer Is

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