In the weeks leading up to National Day of Prayer 2010, the news has reported several controversies surrounding prayer -- including the "disinvitation" of Franklin Graham from one prayer event. The stories peddle a common tale: a new sort of religious pluralism has somehow undermined the American practice of harmonious prayer beseeching the Supreme Being to bless the state. However, no storyline could be further from historical reality. Americans have never been unified in prayer. When it comes to prayer, Americans love to fight -- and our prayers have driven us apart. Arguing over prayer is an American tradition.
In the 1600s, Puritans rejected the formalized prayer of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and founded their own churches as a way of protesting state-supported prayer. For their trouble, the Anglicans put them in jail. When they got out, they left England and settled in the New World. But the Anglicans were already there with their own colonies and outlawed Puritan prayers again. So the Puritans outlawed Anglican prayer in their own colonies. Quakers, disgusted with the Puritan-Anglican quarrel, rejected verbal prayers altogether, choosing to pray silently instead.
In the 1740s, during the Great Awakening, the new evangelical preachers practiced extemporaneous prayer. They rejected all written prayers in favor of being "moved by the Spirit" and making up public prayers on the spot. Many in traditional churches -- Presbyterians, Anglicans, Lutherans, and Congregationalists -- found extemporaneous prayer to be theologically shallow and "unlearned" and forbade its exercise in their churches. These groups didn't imprison each other over prayer. Instead, they consigned each other to hell and set up rival denominations to insure their own salvation. American churches split over prayer, leaving some to free-form prayer and others to written and ritualized prayers.
After the Revolutionary War, a puzzling question arose: Whose prayer would undergird the new nation? How might prayer be practiced in the commons? What words should bless state functions?
The political leaders (perhaps recognizing that prayer was above their pay grade) came up with a unique and practical answer: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." In other words, "We won't touch that prayer-thing with a twenty-foot pole. You are on your own, people."
Of course, the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the Constitution didn't solve anything. Congress, despite trying to avoid the issue, had chaplains -- most typically of the formal type -- who prayed for their work. And Americans -- even in the early period when most of them were Protestants -- kept arguing over whose prayer was theologically accurate and most spiritually effective. Entire denominations were formed on the basis of devotional style. And as Americans argued and denominations split over prayer, religious leaders and politicians continued to proclaim days of prayer for national unity.
Some of the organizers of today's National Day of Prayer appeal to Abraham Lincoln as the example a political leader setting aside a day for prayer and repentance. Indeed, in 1863, Lincoln appointed a national day of prayer saying it would result in unity. The proclamation read:
All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.
Weeks later, the North and South bloodied and butchered each other in a place called Gettysburg. Two years after his prayer proclamation, Lincoln remarked on prayer's inadequacy to bring the nation together. In his Second Inaugural Address, he wrote, "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. ... The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."
The sentiment of a National Day of Prayer for communal forgiveness and social unity is nice, even noble. It is also politically expedient. Honestly, what politician can vote against prayer and hope to get re-elected? But whose prayer? Which theology? What form of devotion? National prayer without a state church is utterly unrealistic and consistently raises knotty theological and political questions, as our forebears discovered. American prayer has more often divided us rather than uniting us. If today's news headlines are any indication, that is still the case. Maybe the Quakers had it right all along: Next year we should try a "National Day of Silence" instead.
Follow Diana Butler Bass on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dianabutlerbass
Clay Farris Naff: Rather Than a National Day of Prayer, How About a Humility Day?
Lincoln's Proclamation called for Americans "to humble ourselves, confess our national sins, pray for forgiveness."
Obama's Proclamation states, “Let us ask for wisdom, compassion, and discernment of justice as we address the great challenges of our time."
Prayer is best understood as being in the moment, sharing love and opening to transcendence and not petitioning a big daddy in the sky to be our errand boy and fulfill our desires.
"Prayer is also the struggle for human justice. It is the fight to remove killing stereotypes, to hurl back ignorance of prejudice, and to protect the holiness of creation. Prayer is the corporate, political act that serves to equalize opportunity so that privileged and underprivileged might have the same chance."-Bishop Spong, "WHY CHRISTIANITY MUST CHANGE OR DIE" page 147.”
I add that prayer without action is hypocrisy.
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
The winning side always writes history in their favor.
Did you see this one?... http://1857massacre.com/
My opinion, Just an example. Like one makes more money, only fair one pays more taxes. Does not mean they pay more, they simply make more. 10% across earnings all pay 10% no matter how much or how little one makes. Fair balanced, common sense? God said those who have been given much shall have much to answer for. For God is saying all have been given to, so no one can ever boast.
Suddenly your religious belief is not so benign. Prop 8 in California, which denied a civil right to those who desire same sex marriage shows the danger of your way of thinking.
Your example of a 10% flat tax shows how the religious use flawed ideology to justify flawed public policy. (Taking 10% from someone making minimum wage is clearly not same impact as taking 10% from Bill Gates. The poor lose a place to live. Bill Gates loses his 8th summer home. Nothing fair or balanced here at all).
Others prefer to evaluate various positions on public policy without the distortion of religious belief, an would prefer others do the same.
Yeah, your idea is better.
Jesus
Would you be opposed to keeping the National Day of Prayer if it allowed other faiths to participate? Muslims, Satanists, Pagans? Would a non-theist be afforded the opportunity to join?
The problem that I have with the government sanctioned day of prayer - as it stands now, before the higher courts rule on its abolishment - is that it looks no different to me than a thinly veiled dominance display by Christians.
The government shouldn't be allowed to go on record and say that one particular God is more worthy of appeasement than another. The individuals that grant that government authority are welcome to make that claim, however.
As for me I'll say, "Thanks but no thanks. Keep your loving god away from me".
I am a Christian; I pray and I take my religion seriously. I am an American and I take politics seriously. But I was them kept separate. Read Jefferson on the subject. I believe he was a Founding Father.
For purposes of dominance.
James Madison
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect. '
James Madison
Then why does the official application for participation by the main coordinator for the event nationaldayofprayer.orgg) require the following oath:
"I believe that the Holy Bible is the inerrant Word of The Living God. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only One by which I can obtain salvation and have an ongoing relationship with God. I believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, his sinless life, his miracles, the atoning work of his shed blood, his resurrection and ascension, his intercession and his coming return to power and glory. I believe that those who follow Jesus are family and there should be unity among all who claim his name."
You may not personally agree with this, but this is the company you keep if you support this event. This is clearly not an event designed to do anything other than force one religion down the throats of all of us.