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And in the name of Devotion they were doing these big set-piece prayers in which they were bringing in stories from Scripture and admonishing people—that's not prayer. But, when we kneel down and go through a list, and we begin with prayers for leaders of our country and for the nations of the world and then we come down to prayers for other churches and for bishops and priests, and then we come down to those who are in need and those who are sick and we think or we speak their names—to me this is prayer. This is prayer in which one throws oneself before God without a heroic pose.

All the world's a stage — Keillor, Lily Tomlin, Streep, and Lohan

Robert Browning said he'd always had a lover's quarrel with the church. Would you say that was true of you?

Keillor: No, I wouldn't be as grand as that. I grew up with tremendous preaching. There were itinerant preachers who I heard in my childhood who just transported me—and also sometimes terrified me. And when you grow up with tremendous preaching and you sit in a room on a hot summer day with a bunch of people and you're sort of transfixed by somebody who's teaching, it's hard to find a place where you feel at home.

Along with that great preaching came a sort of intolerance that I found unbearable when I was a kid: These were separatist people, an isolated group. So you gave up one in order to get your freedom, but then having gotten your freedom you missed what you have given up and you never found it any other church.

And so then you had to give up the idea of finding preaching, you just had to accept that you would never find that again—maybe you're too old for it (although I don't think so)—but you would settle for what you could find. 

I am very, very intolerant of preaching. 

Being a performer, is your bias against any kind of performance in preaching?

Keillor: So much of it is so self-conscious and so pretentious and so literary. But every so often…

I was in Louisville in a Baptist church, and I'm not entirely comfortable among Baptists, but here was a preacher who simply stood up in the pulpit and told us the story of Job. Job and his tribulations and his three friends, this is a great story, a story you could hear over and over again and if it was told simply, by somebody who's not grandstanding, who just tells you the story, you'd be fascinated by that every time you heard it. You could hear the story of the Prodigal Son every year and you'd never get tired of it. But, when you hear somebody kind of winding up an essay—I'm an essay writer—not interested!

Now you're also a film actor. Was it daunting performing on camera?

Keillor: It was different but it was so interesting to see other people working who are so capable at what they do, you kind of lost your self-consciousness. I was simply trying to be appropriate. That was my mantra: DON'T ACT. Don't be caught trying to act.

I can play a radio announcer.

Photos © Copyright Picturehouse

© Carolyn Arends 2006, subject to licensing agreement with Christianity Today International. All rights reserved. Click for reprint information.

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