National Day of Prayer

Posted by Brian Tubbs May 2, 2007

This Thursday, May 3, Americans are encouraged to lift up their nation in prayer. (Speaking for myself, I would encourage readers here who are not US citizens to take Thursday as a special day to lift up their respective nations in prayer as well).

Congress made the National Day of Prayer official in 1952, but there was historical precedent for it. The Continental Congress issued several national calls for prayer and fasting during the American Revolution. The United States continued this tradition after its independence and through the presidencies of George Washington and John Adams. Thomas Jefferson was reluctant to, in his mind, mix church and state - and so calls for prayer became more sporadic after the Jefferson presidency.

Though not as consistent after President Jefferson, the US government did periodically issue calls for prayer, including and especially during times of crisis such as the Civil War and the two world wars of the 20th century. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example, asked for Americans to pray over the famous Normandy D-Day landings in June of 1944.

Critics of the National Day of Prayer maintain that the US government should not mix faith and the public square. They often cite President Jefferson, although Jefferson seemed rather eclectic in his actual views. While he shied from official calls for prayer, he had no problem supporting religious worship services held in the US Capitol (which he attended), taxpayer-funded chaplains in Congress and missionaries to the Indians, and signing presidential proclamations "In the Year of our Lord Christ."

The National Day of Prayer is an annual, tangible reminder that the United States is NOT a purely secularist or atheist nation. The Founding Fathers, including Mr. Jefferson, made it clear that the United States respected the existence of a Creator God and held that all our fundamental, "inalienable" rights come from said God. "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?" asked Jefferson in his famous Notes on Virginia.

For more information, click here for the official website of the National Day of Prayer Task Force.

To read the official presidential proclamation for the 2007 National Day of Prayer, click here.