Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, December 8, 1994                   TAG: 9412300061
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: S-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BOOK OPENS PRAYER TREASURE

Bowers, a retired Lutheran pastor, had a rare English translation of some of the prayers of the Danish theologian/philosopher Soren Kierkegaard.

Bowers even had access to the translator, his wife, Lois Snyder Bowers.

Now, a half century after Lois Bowers began her translation of the work while she was a senior at Gettysburg (Pa.) College, the collection is being published, with commentary and additional prayers in Kierkegaard's style by George Bowers.

Lois Bowers began her translation of a French translation of Kierkegaard's "Prayers and Fragments of Prayers" in 1939-1940. Her husband, then a seminary student, began a lifetime of using the prayers for his own study and guidance but "did not feel mature enough spiritually or intellectually to edit the script for publication."

While he was a full-time minister George Bowers published several other theological works, but still felt inadequate to edit the work of so distinguished a philosopher.

Now, though, "after many years of further study of Kierkegaard's writings and growing maturity in my own faith," George Bowers has completed the book "Soren Kierkegaard: The Mystique of Prayer and Pray-er." (CSS Publishing Co., Lima, Ohio, $11.95.)

According to the depository of Kierkegaard's works in Copenhagen, this is the first English publication of Kierkegaard's prayers.

Kierkegaard, who died in 1855 at age 42, is widely considered by both liberal and conservative Christian scholars to have been one of the great religious writers of the 19th century.

He is known as the father of Christian existentialism: "Eternal verities are not true unless they are true for me."

Authentic religious experience had to be first-hand, Kierkegaard argued, and was frequently accompanied-or inspired-by doubts and anxiety about "truth."

Kierkegaard also was a vehement critic of the Danish state church, which was Lutheran. He accused its state-supported ministers of abandoning the difficult faith espoused by Jesus Christ in favor of a comfortable, "spiritually bankrupt" existence that served neither God nor human beings.

Bowers, long active in ecumenical religious affairs in the Roanoke Valley, sympathizes not only with Kierkegaard's prayer life but to some extent also with his criticism of the Lutheran church.

The Lutheran church can be "too stiff-necked and exclusive," Bowers said, explaining one reason he chose not to try to publish his work through a denominational publishing house.

One reason he chose the CSS Publishing Co., Bowers said, was its effort "to reach out to all denominations."

The Bowerses began their work on the prayers at about the same time that Kierkegaard's works were first being widely translated into English. For some reason, though, the prayers continued to be available only in French and German translations.

George Bowers concluded his wife's English version "was a treasure too precious to keep just to myself," so he began the task of editing the translation and set about compiling some prayers in the existentialist style-with commentary from Kierkegaard's works to accompany them.

Though the book will be of obvious interest to religious professionals and some scholars, the Bowerses hope it also will be helpful for lay people.

Prayer often is a neglected part of even religious peoples' spiritual lives, George Bowers said in a recent interview.

"We're so proud of our achievements as human beings, we think we don't need to depend on God so much any more."

Humans have made terrific technological and sociological advancement, Bowers acknowledges, but "there are a lot of problems we are not solving. The only answer to some of them is in prayer."

The book technically will not be available until spring, but a "special pre-publication release" version has been printed. The Bowerses recently held a book-signing and lecture on the book's subject at a Roanoke retirement community.