National Day of Prayer

On Thursday night, I spoke at the National Day of Prayer service in Alfordsville. I was really thrilled to be asked to participate, because as the name implies, events were happening all over the country and the day has a rich history.

In 1952, a joint resolution by Congress, signed by President Truman, declared an annual, national day of prayer. In 1988, the law was amended and signed by President Reagan, permanently setting the day as the first Thursday of every May.

As I prepared for Thursday night, it struck me that Jefferson, Washington, Madison and all the founding fathers agreed – it wasn’t even an issue of debate- that religion, virtue and morality needed to be part of the foundation of a strong republic.

John Adams said, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”

James Madison said, “We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

Even Thomas Jefferson, who is perhaps quoted the most by those who believe in the separation of church and state because of the misinterpretation of a letter he wrote, worshipped in Charlottesville along with all the denominations in the city at the county courthouse. Doesn’t seem like he much cared for creating non-religious society!

Madison and Washington also based their beliefs on a Roman consulate named Cicero who wrote about a theory called “God’s Natural Law”. The idea is that society had to be built on belief in a creator God. Natural law had to be part of the human law. If you tried to set up a society that violated God’s laws, it wouldn’t survive.

It was also interesting for me to find, while researching, that the Constitution was adopted in 1787. Also in that year, Congress approved the Northwest Ordinance. In the Northwest Ordinance, it says that the schools had the obligation to teach religion, morality and virtue as part of the public curriculum. So the same legislature that approved our constitution also wanted to make sure that religion was not only allowed in education, but mandated.

Our founders were very specific on insisting the federal government have no power or control over religious freedom or religious institutions, but they were also very specific about the importance of teaching morality and basic religious principles that were consistent in all the Christian denominations in the schools.

The idea that the separation of church and state meant the government should be atheist or completely non-religious was completely foreign to any public thought for the first 160 years of our nation. Improper reference by the Supreme Court to European Law in the 50's was the start of our current misdirection.

It is important for our country to recommit to promoting public virtue and get back to the constitutional principles our country was founded on. There are some great books available on the subject. It is up to us to teach our future generations about our nation’s history and what has made the United States the greatest country in the world.