{"id":8,"date":"2010-05-06T09:46:59","date_gmt":"2010-05-06T09:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/05\/happy-national-day-of-prayeror-is-it-national-day-of-fighting-over-prayer.html"},"modified":"2010-05-06T09:46:59","modified_gmt":"2010-05-06T09:46:59","slug":"happy-national-day-of-prayeror-is-it-national-day-of-fighting-over-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/05\/happy-national-day-of-prayeror-is-it-national-day-of-fighting-over-prayer.html","title":{"rendered":"Happy National Day of Prayer…Or Is It National Day of Fighting Over Prayer?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
May 6 is the National Day of Prayer.  This year, the news has been full of stories about people being excluded from prayer.  Those excluded include Americans from non-Christian religions, atheists, as well as the Rev. Franklin Graham, a fundamentalist missionary who has consistently criticized Islam.  Although the media acts as if quarreling over prayer is a contemporary problem, history shows us otherwise.  In American religious history, prayer has often divided us even when we hoped it might unite us.  I don’t think that means we shouldn’t pray, but I do think we need to carefully and graciously figure out how prayer can be practiced in a pluralistic country.  As a Christian, I think understanding America’s past is important as we try to solve these issues for the future.  Over at Huffington Post, I offer a quick tour of the history of American prayer as a theological corrective to National Day of Prayer activities.  You can read it here as well:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
* * * * *<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Leading up to this year’s National Day of
\nPrayer, the news reports peddled controversies about prayer–including Franklin
\nGraham being “disinvited” from one prayer event.  <\/span>The stories tell a common tale: a new sort of religious pluralism
\nhas somehow undermined the American practice of harmonious prayer beseeching
\nthe Supreme Being to bless the state. 
\n<\/span>However, no storyline could be further from historical reality.  <\/span>Americans have never been unified in
\nprayer.  <\/span>When it comes to prayer,
\nAmericans love to fight–and our prayers have driven us apart.  <\/span>Arguing over prayer is American
\ntradition.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 1600s, Puritans rejected the formalized
\nprayer of the Anglican Book of Common
\nPrayer<\/i> and founded their own churches as a way of protesting state
\nsupported prayer.  <\/span>For their
\ntrouble, the Anglicans put them in jail. 
\n<\/span>When they got out, they left England and settled in the New World.  <\/span>But the Anglicans were already there
\nwith their own colonies and outlawed Puritan prayers again. So, the Puritans
\noutlawed Anglican prayer in their own colonies. Quakers, disgusted by the
\nPuritan-Anglican quarrel, rejected verbal prayers altogether choosing to pray
\nsilently instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

 In the 1740s, during the Great Awakening, the
\nnew evangelical preachers practiced extemporaneous prayer.  <\/span>They rejected all written prayers in
\nfavor of being “moved by the Spirit” and making up public prayers on the
\nspot.  <\/span>Many in traditional
\nchurches–Presbyterians, Anglicans, Lutherans, and Congregationalists–found
\nextemporaneous prayer to be theologically shallow and “unlearned” and forbade
\nits exercise in their churches.  <\/span>These
\ngroups didn’t imprison each other over prayer.  <\/span>Instead, they consigned each other to hell and set up rival
\ndenominations to insure their own salvation.  <\/span>American churches split over prayer, leaving some to free
\nform prayer and others to written and ritualized prayers. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

After the Revolutionary War, a puzzling question
\narose:  <\/span>Whose prayer would
\nundergird the new nation?  <\/span>How
\nmight prayer be practiced in the commons? 
\n<\/span>What words should bless state functions?<\/span><\/p>\n

 The political leaders (perhaps recognizing that
\nprayer was above their pay grade) came up with a unique and practical
\nanswer:  <\/span>“Congress shall make no
\nlaw respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
\nthereof…” In other words, “We won’t touch that prayer-thing with a twenty
\nfoot pole.  <\/span>You are on your own,
\npeople.” <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 Of course, the Establishment and Free Exercise
\nclauses of the Constitution didn’t solve anything.  <\/span>Congress, despite trying to avoid the issue, had chaplains
\nwho prayed for their work–most typically of the formal type.  <\/span>And Americans–even in the early period
\nwhen most of them were Protestants–kept arguing over whose prayer was
\ntheologically accurate and most spiritually effective.  <\/span>Entire denominations were formed on the
\nbasis of devotional style.  <\/span>And, as
\nAmericans argued and denominations split over prayer, religious leaders and
\npoliticians continued to proclaim days of prayer for national unity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the organizers of today’s National Day
\nof Prayer appeal to Abraham Lincoln as the example a political leader setting
\naside a day for prayer and repentance. 
\n<\/span>Indeed, in 1863, Lincoln appointed a national day of prayer saying it
\nwould result in unity. The proclamation read, <\/span><\/p>\n

“All
\nthis being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope
\nauthorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be
\nheard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our
\nnational sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to
\nits former happy condition of unity and peace.”<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 Weeks later, the North
\nand South bloodied and butchered each other in a place called Gettysburg.  <\/span>Two years after his prayer
\nproclamation, Lincoln remarked on prayer’s inadequacy to bring the nation together.  <\/span>In his Second Inaugural Address, he
\nwrote: “Both read the same Bible and pray
\nto the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. . . The prayers of
\nboth could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The
\nAlmighty has His own purposes.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The sentiment of a National Day of
\nPrayer for communal forgiveness and social unity is nice, if not noble.  <\/span>It is also politically expedient.  <\/span>Honestly, what politician can vote
\nagainst prayer and hope to get re-elected?  <\/span>But whose prayer? 
\n<\/span>Which theology?  <\/span>What form
\nof devotion?  <\/span>National prayer
\nwithout a state church is utterly unrealistic and consistently raises knotty
\ntheological and political questions, as our forebears discovered.  <\/span>American prayer has more often divided
\nus rather than uniting us.  <\/span>If
\ntoday’s news headlines are any indication, that is still the case.  <\/span>Maybe the Quakers had it right all
\nalong:  <\/span>Next year we should try a
\n“National Day of Silence” instead.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 6 is the National Day of Prayer.  This year, the news has been full of stories about people being excluded from prayer.  Those excluded include Americans from non-Christian religions, atheists, as well as the Rev. Franklin Graham, a fundamentalist missionary who has consistently criticized Islam.  Although the media acts as if quarreling over prayer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity"],"yoast_head":"\nHappy National Day of Prayer...Or Is It National Day of Fighting Over Prayer? - Christianity for the Rest of Us<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/05\/happy-national-day-of-prayeror-is-it-national-day-of-fighting-over-prayer.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Happy National Day of Prayer...Or Is It National Day of Fighting Over Prayer? - Christianity for the Rest of Us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"May 6 is the National Day of Prayer.  This year, the news has been full of stories about people being excluded from prayer.  Those excluded include Americans from non-Christian religions, atheists, as well as the Rev. 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She holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of seven books including A People\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s History of Christianity: the Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009) Her best-selling Christianity for the Rest of Us (2006) was named as one of the best religion books of the year by Publishers Weekly and Christian Century, won the Book of the Year Award from the Academy of Parish Clergy, and was featured in a cover story in USA TODAY. Diana regularly consults with religious organizations, leads conferences for religious leaders, and teaches and preaches in a variety of venues. She regularly comments on religion, politics, and culture in the media including USA TODAY, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, CNN, FOX, PBS, and NPR. From 1995-2000, she wrote a weekly column on American religion for the New York Times Syndicate. She has written widely in the religious press, including Sojourners, Christian Century, Clergy Journal, and Congregations. From 2002 to 2006, she was the Project Director of a national Lilly Endowment funded study of mainline Protestant vitality\u00e2\u20ac\u201da project featured in Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Diana also serves on the board of directors of the Beatitudes Society. Diana has taught at Westmont College, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Macalester College, Rhodes College, and the Virginia Theological Seminary. She has taught church history, American religious history, history of Christian thought, religion and politics, and congregational studies. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia. She is a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in downtown Washington, D.C.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/author\/dbbass"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}