TOP STORY: RELIGION IN AMERICA: To music and sermons, Capitol Hill marks National Day of Prayer

c. 1996 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS)-More than 700 people, some in business suits and dresses, others in jeans and T-shirts, and many bearing well-worn Bibles, Thursday (May 2) filled an ornate caucus room in a House of Representatives office building on Capitol Hill to mark the 45th National Day of Prayer. Blending piety and […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)-More than 700 people, some in business suits and dresses, others in jeans and T-shirts, and many bearing well-worn Bibles, Thursday (May 2) filled an ornate caucus room in a House of Representatives office building on Capitol Hill to mark the 45th National Day of Prayer.

Blending piety and patriotism, mixing songs and silence, the interfaith assembly prayed that God would help them, in the words of Seattle-based Rabbi Daniel Lapin,”turn back what has been a relentless assault on religious values in this country over the past 30 years.” By turn, the gathering heard speakers thank God for the material and spiritual blessings of America but also warn that the nation faced divine judgment.


Prayer and fast days have a long history in the United States, stretching back to the era of Puritan settlers in New England. The National Day of Prayer was established by Congress in 1952, and in 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed legislation establishing the first Thursday of May as the official day.

The nearly four-hour Capitol ceremony was the key national centerpiece in what organizers said would be events from Maine to Hawaii, including a”Prayer in the Air”observance in California by private pilot groups.”All across the nation, we have people gathered to honor God,”said Shirley Dobson, the chairwoman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force. She stressed that events were non-partisan.

Dobson is the wife of James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, a conservative Colorado-based ministry that has been a vocal advocate against legal abortion, gay rights and pornography.

The Washington observance began on Wednesday evening with an hour-long”Prayer for the President”service in Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House.

At that service, the Rev. E.V. Hill of Los Angeles said President Clinton deserved the prayers of the crowd of 300 because”when the election is over, the president is president of all the people.” On Thursday, singer Pat Boone told the Capitol Hill audience that”for some, it was a novel experience”to pray for the president.”Even some of his strongest critics were praying for him.” To loud applause, Boone also said that Clinton met with evangelist Billy Graham on Wednesday and that the two”were on their knees together, perhaps while we were praying”at Lafayette Square.

In a separate ceremony Thursday, Graham was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Although organizers underscored the non-partisan nature of the observance, a political edge crept into the remarks of Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship International and the main speaker at the Capitol event.”We’ve marginalized Christianity in this country,”said Colson, who is also a columnist for Religion News Service. As an example, he cited the”pillorying”of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for saying in a recent speech that he believed in miracles. Colson also cited a ruling by a federal judge that a citizen initiative seeking prayer in the public schools of the District of Columbia was unconstitutional.


Colson also criticized President Clinton’s veto of legislation that would have banned a late-term abortion procedure, saying”as a nation we refuse to stop what Congress called partial-birth abortions but what the Vatican more accurately called infanticide.””No nation can honor God that kills its own children,”he said.

Roman Catholic Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore, who along with Lapin, opened the ceremonies, also touched on the abortion issue, praying that women carrying”little ones in the space below their heart … will choose life for their unborn children”and that the nation reject”infanticide.” The prayer-day observance was not without critics.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, a United Church of Christ minister who is also executive director of the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said America does not need a”government-endorsed”day of prayer.

Lynn said the National Day of Prayer has become”an excuse to promote bad history and push the worst kind of watered-down `God and country’ pablum.” Between the speakers and the songs-from Boone, the United States Army Chorus, and the Christian Performing Arts Fellowships-members of the audience joined in”prayer circles”of two to six people to softly pray for members of Congress, the executive branch, the judiciary, the military, those in the entertainment industry and other professions.

Many raised their arms heavenward as they prayed; others held a hand of those standing next to them.

Among those in the audience was Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kans.”In the last 30 years, the social indicators-crimes, drug use, things like that, have all gone in the wrong direction,”he said when asked why he came.”We’ve lost the integrity of the system. We’ve got to get back to that.” For Anne LaGare of Woodbridge, Va., the answer was simple:”God wanted me to stand here.”


MJP END ANDERSON

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