National Day of Prayer

In my America, gov’t would not proclaim National Day of Prayer

In my own private America, in the way I was raised to think about this country and about religion, there’s something deeply distasteful about politicizing prayer, about judging people and politicians based on their eagerness to pray in public. That’s unAmerican, so to speak. In the private America of many religious conservatives, it’s not.

So when Barack Obama decided to mark yesterday as the National Day of Prayer, as other presidents have before him, with a proclamation but no public ceremony at the White House, some conservatives decided to make an issue of it, suggesting that Obama was being disrespectful and downgrading the importance of prayer.

“We are disappointed in the lack of participation by the Obama administration,” said Shirley Dobson, chairwoman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force. “At this time in our country’s history, we would hope our president would recognize more fully the importance of prayer.” Dobson is the wife of James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family.

An anonymous White House officials defended Obama’s action, saying that “President Obama is a committed Christian and believes that we should be engaging Americans of faith in efforts to renew our country. He is following the tradition of Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and others by signing a proclamation honoring the National Day of Prayer, while continuing to work with communities of faith to improve our country.”

In my Private America, even that goes too far. The president should not have to defend his faith to anybody, nor should anyone else. There’s also Scripture in Matthew that advocates private rather than public prayer, because those who pray in public are generally hypocrites trying to advertise their piety for secular gain.

The wisest discussion I’ve seen of the issue comes from Steven Waldman at Beliefnet, who writes that he has mixed feelings about a National Prayer Day:

“But having spent a couple of years now looking at the Founding Fathers and religion, my views have shifted. I now fear that while public prayer is supposed to ennoble politicians, it may just politicize, and therefore taint, prayer. Instead of uplifting politics, it downgrades religion.

The Founders were divided on this. Washington and Adams both issued prayer proclamations that went considerably farther than what Reagan (and Harry Truman) had done.

But Jefferson and Madison stopped the practice. Jefferson seemed worried about prayer proclamations violating the First Amendment. Madison did, too, but added another argument: it wasn’t good for religion. By offering prayer in a political context (including asking for prayers related to specific policy goals) Madison said prayer proclamations had politicized a solemn act “to the scandal of religion as well as the increase of party animosities.”

In describing why he resisted prayer proclamations, Madison said, “They seem to imply and certainly nourish the erroneous idea of a national religion,” he wrote. If Americans want to band together to pray, he said, they should do so but to bring about such prayer or gathering through the political process was “doubly wrong.” Madison reported that he had received many private letters urging him to follow the pattern of Adams and Washington, prompting him to fear that Americans “have lost sight of the quality of all religious sects in the eye of the Constitution.”

In other words, the private America of Madison and Jefferson conflicted with that of Washington and Adams.

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