I have been thinking a lot about prayer, and since the teaching Dolores, my wife did on "Truth or Dare", and the fact that May 3, 2018 is National Prayer Day in America I thought I'd share some things I learned about the National Day of Prayer. So read on and rise up.
1. A Day of Prayer & Fasting dates back to the American Colonial Period.
Although the early presidents started a tradition of issuing prayer proclamations, it fell by the wayside from 1815 to 1862.
In March 1863, Lincoln revived the idea, calling for a National Fast Day on April 30, 1863. Lincoln wrote:
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
2. Billy Graham Inspired the Creation of the National Day of Prayer Law.
The Rev. Billy Graham played an important role in making the National Day of Prayer a national observance recognized by Congress. According to the Graham website, when he led a worshiping service outside the U.S. Capitol, Graham famously said it would be great to see political leaders kneeling in prayer together.
"What a thrilling, glorious thing it would be to see the leaders of our country today kneeling before Almighty God in prayer. What a thrill would sweep this country," Graham said. "What renewed hope and courage would grip the Americans at this hour of peril."
The members of Congress then drafted a bill to make the National Day of Prayer official. Truman signed the bill in April 1952, just two months after Graham was in Washington.
Initially, the bill allowed presidents to choose the day they wanted to mark as National Day of Prayer. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed an amended version to make it fixed to the first Thursday of May.
3. There's a Competing National Day of Reason Started by Secular Groups in 2003, opposed to the National Day of Prayer.
In 2003, the American Humanist Association and the Washington Area Secular Humanists created the National Day of Reason, which is on the same day as the National Day of Prayer. The American Humanist Association has called on supporters to ask their local governments to declare Days of Reason. On April 26, 2014, a supporter succeeded in getting the Cedar Rapids, Iowa government to issue a Day of Reason proclamation.
In 2015, then-U.S. Rep. Mike Honda introduced a resolution to recognize a "National Day of Reason," but the bill didn't get past an introduction. Honda tried again in 2016, but still wasn't successful.
"I introduced this resolution declaring May 5th, 2016 a National Day of Reason because the application of reason has proven to improve the conditions in which people live, offer hope for human survival on Earth, and cultivated intelligent, moral, and ethical behaviors and interactions among people," Honda said in a 2016 statement. "I encourage everyone to take this occasion to reflect upon the way that philosophical principles developed during the Age of Reason influenced our Founding Fathers as they formed our country and how the employment of reason, critical thought, the scientific method, and free inquiry can help resolve human problems and improve the welfare of humankind."
4. A Court Challenge to the National Day of Prayer Failed in 2011.
In addition to the humanists and secular groups that came up with their own "National Day of Reason," there have been challenges to the constitutionality of the National Day of Prayer. In 2008, the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) sued the federal government, claiming that the holiday broke the separation of church and state.
The case stayed alive until 2011, and stopped short of the Supreme Court. It ended in April 2011, when the three judges on the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that they couldn't sue the government. The FFRF argued that the presidential prayer proclamations caused them harm. The judges didn't buy it.
"A feeling of alienation cannot suffice as injury," the court ruled. As CBS News noted at the time, the judges wrote that the proclamation is a suggestion, not a demand. Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook noted that the president often does things that people do not agree with, either on political or religious grounds. "The address is chiseled in stone at the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall," the opinion read. "An argument that the prominence of these words injures every citizen, and that the Judicial Branch could order them to be blotted out, would be dismissed as preposterous."
5. There's a National Day of Prayer Task Force That Oversees Evangelical Christian Observances.
NationalDayOfPrayer.org isn't actually a government website. It's the official site of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, which is headquartered in Colorado Springs. The group is responsible for organizing Evangelical Christian events on the National Day of Prayer.
Founded in 1983, the group has been the target of criticism, from those who feel that they have excluded other faiths from the National Day of Prayer. The Jewish group Jews On First.org and the Interfaith Alliance even called for an Inclusive Day of Prayer.
Each year, the task force sets a theme for the National Day of Prayer. The Gazette reports that that would be us. Prayer brings UNITY.
In 2018, our theme will be Pray for America - UNITY, based upon Ephesians 4:3 which challenges us to mobilize unified public prayer for America, "Making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace."
1 Timothy 2: 1I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; 2For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 3For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
As citizens and residents of the United States and as believers in Christ Jesus, we not only have a spiritual responsibility to pray but a civic duty as well to heed our President's call to stand in the gap for our nation. Who but God's people have the ability to enter into the very throne room of Heaven with prayers and petitions! That would be us, rise up, and pray!
Note: All scripture is from the King James Version unless otherwise noted. NIV indicates The New International Version, NKJV indicates the New King James Version, ASV means the American Standard Version, BBE means the Bible in Basic English, DBY means the Darby translation, NAU means the American Standard Version, 1995 Edition, and NAB means the New American Bible translation. For more information, go to the Works Cited page.