"There is no greater distance than that between a man in prayer and God"
About this Quote
Prayer is supposed to be the shortcut: the hotline, the collapsing of distance between the human and the divine. Illich flips that expectation into an indictment. The “greater distance” isn’t geographic or metaphysical; it’s psychological and institutional. In the very act meant to bridge the gap, the believer discovers the full, humiliating asymmetry of the relationship: a finite person addressing an infinite other, armed mostly with language, habit, and hope.
Illich, the Catholic-trained sociologist who spent a career dismantling modern “service” institutions, is allergic to systems that promise access while quietly deepening dependence. Read that way, prayer becomes a social technology as much as a spiritual practice. It can discipline the self into submission, making God feel like a distant administrator rather than a living presence. The kneeling body rehearses the hierarchy; the repeated formulas can turn longing into procedure. Even sincerity can become a trap: the more earnestly one prays, the more one measures one’s own inadequacy against an ideal of divine attention.
The line also carries a darker irony about mediation. If God is rendered remote, someone else can rush in to manage the relationship: clergy, doctrine, the correct ritual, the proper words. Illich’s subtext is that modern religion, like modern schooling or medicine, can professionalize what should be intimate, converting encounter into compliance. The distance he names isn’t just between man and God; it’s the space where institutions learn to thrive.
Illich, the Catholic-trained sociologist who spent a career dismantling modern “service” institutions, is allergic to systems that promise access while quietly deepening dependence. Read that way, prayer becomes a social technology as much as a spiritual practice. It can discipline the self into submission, making God feel like a distant administrator rather than a living presence. The kneeling body rehearses the hierarchy; the repeated formulas can turn longing into procedure. Even sincerity can become a trap: the more earnestly one prays, the more one measures one’s own inadequacy against an ideal of divine attention.
The line also carries a darker irony about mediation. If God is rendered remote, someone else can rush in to manage the relationship: clergy, doctrine, the correct ritual, the proper words. Illich’s subtext is that modern religion, like modern schooling or medicine, can professionalize what should be intimate, converting encounter into compliance. The distance he names isn’t just between man and God; it’s the space where institutions learn to thrive.
Quote Details
| Topic | Prayer |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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