The National Day of Prayer

May 5, 2005

Last week, in his prime-time televised press conference, President Bush took a firm stand regarding matters of faith: “I view religion as a personal matter.” This week, Bush took the opposite stand, insisting that religion is a governmental matter.

Some may not be aware of it, but today is the official, 53rd annual National Day of Prayer. It may not be one of the major gift-giving holidays on the calendar, but it’s an official “holiday” nevertheless.

In the early 1950s, when lawmakers were adding “under God” to the Pledge and changing all American money to include the phrase “In God We Trust,” Congress created an official annual Prayer Day for the nation. Congress, under pressure from the religious right, changed the law in 1988 to set the National Day of Prayer as the first Thursday in May, which brings us to today.

Now you may be wondering why a secular government that honors the separation of church and state needs an official day in which citizens are encouraged to worship. As luck would have it, I’m wondering the same thing. I’m one of those silly small-government people who believe Americans are more than capable of deciding on their own whether to pray and we don’t need Congress and the White House setting aside a special day to promote praying. But that’s just me; the president disagrees.

To be fair, it’s not just Bush. Every president since Eisenhower has issued proclamations recognizing the National Day of Prayer — or, NDP as the insiders call it — during their respective presidencies. Nevertheless, the president issued a proclamation this week, saying that Americans “humbly acknowledge our reliance on the Almighty, express our gratitude for His blessings, and seek His guidance in our daily lives.”

Since his predecessors issued relatively similar proclamations, the president probably shouldn’t be singled out for criticism for this week’s decree. Bush has, however, earned criticism by virtue of how many times he’s used his office to tell the rest of to pray.

I can appreciate the fact that Bush is a religious person who values the importance of prayer in his life. It’s harder to understand, however, why Bush finds it necessary to keep telling the rest of us to worship on such a regular basis.

At this point in his presidency, Bush has marked 20 days as official days of prayer in the United States. He’s been in office about 51 months, which translates to an official prayer declaration from the White House once every 2.6 months throughout Bush’s presidency to date. No president in U.S. history has ever issued so many official prayer edicts in such a short period of time.

Keep in mind, in the “good old days,” this didn’t happen. Presidents such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison opposed official government prayer days.

For the truly devout, every day is a day of prayer and government proclamations are irrelevant and unnecessary. It’s a shame Bush doesn’t understand that.

I tend to come down on the keep-em-separated side of the church-state debate, but I can’t get worked up about the National Day of Prayer. Going back to the Lemon Test:
1) Does it endorse any particular faith?
2) Does it entangle the government in religion?

On #1, I’d say the answer is No– if the day were on Sunday, Saturday, or Friday, it would imply an endorsement.

On #2, I’d say the answer is No– it doesn’t specify a prayer or a god to pray to.

There are church-state issues to be quite concerned about ( comes to mind, but I see the National Day of Prayer in the same category as Hot Dog Appreciation Month. If you like hot dogs, it gives you something to talk about with your hot dog-eating friends; if you don’t like hot dogs, nobody’s making you eat any.

  • Ugh. Tried to get fancy with the HTML, but it didn’t work so good.

    What was supposed to be in parentheses was a link to the Supreme Court opinion in the Pledge case and a reference to Justice Thomas’s opinion, where he says he wants to strip the idea of church-state separation from the Establishment Clause, (“Quite simply, the Establishment Clause is best understood as a federalism provision– it protects state establishments from federal interference but does not protect any individual right.”)

    Anyway, here’s the link: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/03pdf/02-1624.pdf
    Justice Thomas’s opinion starts on page 47.

  • I have to respectfully disagree with Scott.

    I don’t believe the President signs an official Hot Dog Appreciation Month proclomation. (Of course I could be wrong about this) The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, as interpreted by the courts, prohibits the government from endorsing a religion. That would seem to prohibit this annual proclomation from the President which states there is a God and we should all take some time to pray to Him. The Constitution does not seem to prohibit the government from endorsing “meat”-filled sausage-like products.

  • Matt’s absolutely correct when he says that the Establishment Clause, as interpreted by the courts, prohibits the government from endorsing a religion. However, the courts do make a provision for “civil religion,” a bland, broad acknowledgement of the prominence of religion in American society.

    Both consensus and Supreme Court opinion is that “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance falls into the civil religion category. I don’t concur– I say that the pledge is so integral to society that every American should be able to say it and not have to cringe at the phrase they don’t subscribe to. “In God We Trust” falls into the same category. Why should an atheist have theism foisted on her every time she pulls change out of her pocket?

    A National Day of Prayer is much less invasive than either the Pledge or a motto on a coin. You have to work even to be aware of it.

    Because this is a government of the people, and the people are “a very religious people,” as William O. Douglas put it, we’ll never have a government scrubbed free of any sign of religion. Where I think we need to draw the line is anywhere someone is led to think, “It’s my country too– why am I being subjected to this?” The National Day of Prayer seems to me to be on the safe side of that line.

  • I, for one, find myself engaged ever more frequently in silent prayer that the insanity which seems to have taken control of our government will somehow be lifted. I guess that’s not what Bush has in mind, is it?

  • Scott & carwinrpc,
    Before Bush and his band of merry men seized Washington I was pretty comfortable with my spiritual based faith, after watching this group of zealots it’s really made it hard to believe.

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