c. 2004 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Religious and political leaders marked the annual National Day of Prayer on Thursday (May 6) with programs on Capitol Hill, at the White House and across the nation in settings such as government buildings, parks and shopping malls.

President Bush observed the day at an East Room ceremony, describing prayer as a tradition for presidents and ordinary Americans.

“We recognize that all that we have and all that we are come as gifts and it is natural to be grateful to the giver,” the president told an interfaith audience of about 150.

The president had earlier issued an official proclamation and U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry Black wrote a “prayer for the nation” for the 53rd annual observance.

The program at the Cannon House Office Building featured keynote speaker Lt. Col. Oliver North as well as Attorney General John Ashcroft and evangelical leaders such as Shirley and James Dobson.

“We are gathered with over 50,000 prayer gatherings across the nation,” said Shirley Dobson, chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force and wife of the founder of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family ministry.

“The turnout this year is huge. The problems that we are facing in our country are simply too big for us and we need to call on divine providence to intervene.”

Companion and alternative events, featuring people of a variety of faiths and of no faith were planned across the country.

At the Capitol Hill event, which included Catholic and Jewish speakers, much of the crowd of more than 300 represented evangelical Christians.

North, fresh from coverage of the Iraq war as a correspondent for Fox News Channel, spoke highly of the efforts of the U.S. military there but also mentioned what he viewed as a different kind of battle.

“There’s a spiritual war being waged here at home,” he said. “The words `under God’ in (the) Pledge of Allegiance … are now being challenged. The traditional concept of marriage, biblically based, is now being assaulted.”

Reflecting on the day’s theme of “Let Freedom Ring,” Ashcroft spoke about his _ and Bush’s _ belief that God created the freedoms Americans enjoy.

“For those of us who are Christians,” he said, the Scriptures give “the understanding that the business of Christ was the business of freedom.” He drew applause when he cited the New Testament verse that says “If the son, therefore, shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.”

Across the street from the Capitol, dozens of people gathered outside the hollow shell of a bus that had been bombed in Jerusalem earlier this year.

Relatives of the victims spoke at an interfaith rally sponsored by Christians for Israel among others and timed to the national prayer day.

“The greatest thing we’ve seen is the coming together of Jews and Christians,” Carrie Devorah, whose brother died on Bus 19 in January. “Faith is a part of America.”

Bush, in a proclamation released days before Thursday’s annual observance, prayed for the U.S. military and for “safety and freedom” for the people in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

“Prayer is an opportunity to praise God for his mighty works, his gift of freedom, his mercy, and his boundless love,” the proclamation read. “Through prayer, we recognize the limits of earthly power and acknowledge the sovereignty of God.”

His comments from the East Room were scheduled to be included Thursday evening in the “Nationally Broadcast Concert of Prayer,” which annually features Christian leaders and musicians praying for three hours over the Internet and Christian radio and television stations.

Christian leaders welcomed the inclusion of Bush in the program and viewed it as an expression of his faith rather than a political move.

“I think this is just him doing something he would naturally do otherwise,” said Frank Wright, president of the National Religious Broadcasters.

Black, who prayed with the audiences at the Cannon Building and the White House, included the government, the media and families in his prayer.

“We place our trust in you, O Lord, believing that your hand will sustain America,” the chaplain prayed. “Let no shadows obscure the pathways which we should tread.”

Across the country, the annual observance occurred atop Pikes Peak, inside “prayer tents” on the roads leading into Deming, N.M., and in a Greensboro, N.C., shopping mall, said Mark Fried, media and marketing coordinator for the National Day of Prayer Task Force, based in Colorado Springs, Colo.

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Linda Stone, North Carolina state coordinator for the National Day of Prayer Task Force, said the number of events in her state had doubled _ from 42 to 80 _ this year and the celebration at the mall occurred for the third year in a row.

“It’s just a real neat place and a lot of people are there that maybe wouldn’t even ever go in a church,” she said, of the mall event that was to feature flags from the nation’s 50 states.

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The Cannon Building ceremony and others linked with the National Day of Prayer Task Force have been criticized in some circles for their evangelical Christian focus.

Several organizations, including affiliates of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and mainstream Baptists, decided to sponsor an interfaith event in response this year. Jews, pagans, Unitarians, Buddhists and others were invited to speak during the “Interfaith Day of Prayer and Reflection” on the steps of the Oklahoma Capitol in Oklahoma City.

“We felt like it ought to be broad if it’s for the entire nation,” said the Rev. Bruce Prescott, the executive director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists and the president of the Oklahoma chapter of Americans United.

“I don’t think that any one group should be representing all Americans.”

The American Humanist Organization, marked the day as a “National Day of Reason” in Las Vegas and other cities.

Fried of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, said groups have a First Amendment right to mark the day any way they wish.

“All they’re doing is taking advantage of the same constitutional rights that we are,” he said.

(RNS Correspondent Mandy Morgan contributed to this report.)

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