The Hidden Ear of God: A Comparative Anthropology of Prayer in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism

The Hidden Ear of God is a Christian exploration of prayer through its verbal icons and iconic words. It brings together theology and social anthropology, which have been enemies far too long. By studying “prayer in its own right,” the author seeks to understand how prayer is transfigured in authentic dialogues between God and man, where the initiative is divine. After exploring the Hebrew psalter and the five daily Muslim prayers (salat), Indian devotional prayers (bhakti) are presented in the words of their poets. A brief chapter on Buddhism examines the relationship between Buddhist chant and prayer in Christianity. In a final chapter, conclusions are offered concerning the advantages of studying non-Christian prayer by stepping off from Christian revelation.

“The Hidden Ear of God constitutes an astonishing achievement, leading to hard-won insights into the variety of prayer, as well as the characteristic genius of the religions discussed.”—FR. ANDREW LOUTH

“The range and depth of erudition Stephen Headley displays in engaging each prayer and faith tradition are breathtaking. In an age in which anthropologists and other scholars of religion have begun to put aside the shibboleths of modernist social science, this is a welcome work of astonishing originality and spiritual beauty.”—ROBERT W. HEFNER

“By combining anthropology in both the doctrinal and ethnographic senses, Stephen Headley offers us nothing less than a new sort of non-secular universalism for which it is Christian specificity itself that opens to the universal in a different way. What a sensitive, subtle, and remarkable achievement.”—JOHN MILBANK