Toward the end of March, with our nation at war, the Rev. Ignacio
Castuera, pastor of St. John's United Methodist Church in Watts,
stood in the pulpit and told his congregation, "The most important
and first thing we can do as a religious people is to go to our knees
and pray."
Thursday was a day that calls us, as a nation, to prayer. It was
our annual National Day of Prayer.
The tradition of setting aside a day for prayer is older than our
nation. In 1775, it was the Continental Congress that issued a
proclamation to designate "a time for prayer in forming a new
nation."
In the early 1800s, President James Madison proclaimed a day of
prayer then later decided that such a proclamation implied and fed
the idea of a national religion.
Thomas Jefferson also opposed the practice.
"Fasting and prayer are religious exercises; the enjoining them an
act of discipline," he wrote. "Every religious society has a right to
determine for itself the time for these exercises, and the objects
proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and right
can never be safer than in their hands, where the Constitution has
deposited it."
But Abraham Lincoln signed a Congressional resolution that called
for a day of fasting and prayer.
I've talked to people who agree with Madison and Jefferson. I know
one woman who gets worked up about the National Day of Prayer every
year. She tells me it violates her freedom not to practice religion.
If she could, she says, she would abolish the day, which she
thinks is unconstitutional.
I tell her no one is forcing her, or anyone else to pray. She
tells me it's a slippery slope. I tell her it must be a long one.
The first day of May was designated as the National Day of Prayer
in 1988. But it was a unanimous act of Congress signed into law by
President Harry S. Truman in 1952 that first established the
observance.
Thursday was the 52nd annual National Day of Prayer. As far as I
know, no one has ever been arrested, fined, beaten or sued for not
taking part in it.
Last year, my prayer-phobic friend insisted the day was a
Republican contrivance. So, I dug up some quotes from Bill Clinton
for her.
Bill Clinton said, "I encourage the citizens of this great nation
to gather, each in his or her own manner, to recognize our blessings,
acknowledge our wrongs, to remember the needy, to seek guidance for
our challenging future and to give thanks for the abundance we have
enjoyed throughout our history.
"Though our citizens come from every nation on earth and observe
