New Questions about Authorship of the Serenity Prayer

Reprinted by permission of The Christian Post

By Elena Garcia
Christian Post Reporter
Sun, Jul. 13 2008 02:57 PM EDT

The origins of the famed Serenity Prayer that has become a staple in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and office décor is being challenged.

It was long believed that U.S. Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr authored the prayer, which reads: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference." His family has dated the prayer back to 1943.

But Fred R. Shapiro, a librarian at Yale Law School, said he has found earlier usage of the prayer and suggested that the prayer could have been written by someone other than Niebuhr.

The earliest citation of the prayer Shapiro uncovered came from a 1936 newspaper clipping in which a YWCA women's organization in Syracuse quoted the prayer. Another pre-1943 usage of the prayer came from a public school counselor in Oklahoma City.

He said he found these references by using a historical database to do research for a new book he is editing called Yale Book of Quotations.

Shapiro writes about his doubts to the prayer's origin in the July/Aug 2008 issue of "Yale Alumni Magazine."

In the article, Shapiro brings attention to a quote in which Niebuhr admits the possibility of an earlier existence of the prayer.

"Of course, it may have been spooking around for years, even centuries, but I don't think so. I honestly do believe that I wrote it myself," Neibuhr said in the 1950 "Grapevine" magazine, published by Alcoholics Anonymous.

Shapiro offers two interpretations of his findings: (1) Niebuhr wrote the Serenity Prayer in the early or mid-1930s but his name from the prayer was dropped as it "quickly disseminated" in various circles or (2) Niebuhr "unconsciously adapted the Serenity Prayer in the early 1940s from already-circulating formulations of unknown origin."

He eventually goes with the latter interpretation.

“Reinhold Niebuhr was a very honest person and he was modest,” Shapiro said, according to Reuters. “He didn't appear to claim anything that wasn't truthful, so I believe that he probably unconsciously picked the Serenity Prayer, he heard it, or read it somewhere and forgot that he had seen it or read it somewhere.”

But in a rebuttal article also featured in "Yale Alumni Magazine," Niebuhr's daughter, Elisabeth Sifton, defended her father's work.

"To me, his new discoveries simply suggest that in the years before World War II, Reinhold Niebuhr's voice reached many more American churches and organizations than we previously realized," she wrote.

Sifton, who wrote The Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in Times of Peace and War in 2005, discussed her father's influence, noting that throughout the 1920s and 1930s he was preaching and praying at churches, college chapels and in the YMCA/YWCA network.

She also took issue with Shapiro's description of the prayer as "not intellectually sophisticated."

The prayer "strikingly diverges from the usual pieties, the prevailing self-congratulatory cheeriness, of twentieth-century American Protestantism," argued Sifton in the article. "But any theologian could instruct Mr. Shapiro, as my book evidently failed to, on the prayer's theological profundity."

She said that Shapiro's method of searching through databases is also not the best way to trace the prayer, since "prayers are presented orally, circulate orally, and become famous orally long before they are put on paper.”

“He offers only a flimsy chain of misconstrued circumstantial evidence to support his hunch that the prayer's author is likely not Niebuhr," contended Sifton.

Niebuhr was a professor of Applied Christianity at Union Theological Seminary in New York City for most of his professional career until his retirement. He was an important intellectual figure and theologian for his work in applied Christian ethics to contemporary political and social problems. He advocated a line of though called "Christian Realism" and spoke against Nazism, U.S. neutrality in World War II, and Soviet communism.

One version of the full Serenity Prayer, as attributed to Niebuhr, is as follows:

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen."

Copyright 2008 The Christian Post. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Video: Rush Limbaugh on Tony Snow

From Fox News Sunday today...

Calif. Homeschool Ban Case May Be Over

WorldNetDaily reports the case which threatened homeschooling in California earlier this year because parents supposedly weren't "legally qualified" to teach their children has essentially been rendered moot.

A judge has ended juvenile court jurisdiction over two children involved in the case, which basically ended the court's authority over the matter. But it isn't completely over. Some wrangling still has to be done to completely put things to bed and but homeschooling in California back on solid ground.

"Mr. L.'s appellate attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund will be making the appellate court aware of this new development immediately. They will move to dismiss the petition pending in the court of appeal on the ground that the petition is now moot," the organization said in a statement. "In other words, the children are no longer under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. Therefore, any decision by the appellate court based on the two-year-old petition could not be enforced against the L. children."

The threat to homeschooling in California may have receded for today, but it's sure to be back, unless we make some fundamental changes in attitude in our society.

Th worldview that spawned such a decision in the first place doesn't recognize the God-given responsibility and authority of parents to raise their children. That worldview worships the almighty state, and sees no end to either the curiosity, interest or reach of the state.

Such reverence for the power of the state (and such contempt for the traditional worldview that created a free and great nation) will not stop until all is under its sway. It will be back...unless we change that worldview.

How do we do that? Holders of the Christian worldview that founded our nation must start to speak up. We must speak up not only in protest, but every day. We must speak up and educate the public and even our leaders on our lost legacy, and why it is superior. We must advocate and educate our community, our friends and neighbors.

Most of all, we must educate our children. Nature abhors a vacuum. If we fail to educate our children about our heritage and about our values, they will grow up to assimilate this worship of the government-god.

Not a Cent for Tribute

American Minute from William J. Federer

After George Washington retired from being President, he became Commander-in-Chief of the Army for a second time. It was 1798, the year before he died, that he received an urgent plea from President John Adams.

France, in the midst of revolution, was demanding extortion payments not to harass American ships. The cry went out "Millions for defense, but not a cent for tribute."

George Washington replied to President John Adams, JULY 13, 1798: "Satisfied...that you have...exhausted, to the last drop, the cup of reconciliation, we can, with pure hearts, appeal to Heaven for the justice of our cause; and may confidently trust the final result to that kind Providence who has, heretofore, and so often, signally favored the people of these United States."

George Washington continued: "Feeling how incumbent it is upon every person...to contribute at all times to his country's welfare, and especially in a moment like the present, when everything we hold dear and sacred is so seriously threatened, I have finally determined to accept the commission of Commander in Chief of the Armies of the United States."

Then, on March 6, 1799, President John Adams declared a National Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer to the Most High God."

William J. Federer is a nationally recognized author, speaker, and president of Amerisearch, Inc, which is dedicated to researching our American heritage. The American Minute radio feature looks back at events in American history on the dates they occurred, is broadcast daily across the country and read by thousand on the internet.

Study: Lesbian Suicide Risk 50 Times Greater

In our "enlightened" age, we'd like to think we can do anything we want, not only without moral consequence but without health consequence as well.

We may be able to escape moral condemnation and accountability for a short while, but they will eventually catch up to us...just as health consequences will.

Even when there is no direct consequence from immoral choices, like accidents or disease, there is still a price to be paid. That price often comes in the form of mental and emotional stress.

Unless our conscience is totally seared, there remains something in us that tells us we're going the wrong way. Just as the pain we feel at an injury is there to alert us to a problem so we can fix the injury, so mental and emotional stress serve the same function as physical pain: to alert us to a problem so we can fix it.

What happens if we ignore that mental and emotional alert system? The "injury" gets worse, and the alert system screams louder.

An article from LifeSiteNews.com examines a study done by a homosexual group called Stonewall. They found what other studies have found: homosexual behavior is fraught with health risks.

The habit of "self-harming" is 50 times more likely to occur in lesbians than in the general population of women, a Scottish study has shown. 20 per cent of lesbian and bisexual women, of a total of 500 women surveyed in Scotland had deliberately harmed themselves in the last year, compared to 0.4 per cent of the general population.

The study, Prescription for Change, was conducted by the homosexual lobby organisation Stonewall. It also showed that five per cent of lesbian and bisexual women have attempted suicide in the last year.

Homosexual activists commonly interpret such statistics as support for the doctrine that it is the lack of "acceptance" from the non-homosexual world that causes the problems. Calum Irving, director of Stonewall Scotland, said, "For lesbian and bisexual women the experiences of prejudice, misunderstanding and at times hostility can damage long-term health and wellbeing."

But other research has shown that approaching homosexuality as a serious mental disorder also explains the severe depression, elevated levels of drug and alcohol abuse and self-destructive behaviour that are common among homosexuals.

Even though homosexuality was removed as a disorder from diagnostic manuals in the early 1970s, many in the psychiatric community maintain that homosexuality causes misery and that homosexual activity is a dangerous and emotionally degrading experience.

Christians aren't trying to spoil homosexuals' fun by encouraging people not to do it, just as God wasn't trying to spoil their fun when He said it was wrong.

It's a violation of God's design for human sexuality, first and foremost. But it is also a practice which brings the health risks of disease, physical injury, anxiety, depression, substance abuse and sometimes suicide or suicide attempts.

Quitting smoking or drinking can be tough, but it's necessary for good health. Leaving homosexual behavior behind can be difficult for those caught up in that sin, too. But God tells us (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) that it's possible.

God's family is full of people who once lived a life of sin, sin of varying types. All it takes to join that family of free people is to admit we were wrong, surrender our will to God's, and embrace the way of the Cross.