National Day of Prayer, Redux

I addressed this issue in my post on May 2, but I have since come across some other perspectives that I felt important to mention.

Steven Waldman, founder of the BeliefNet site and author of Founding Faith, which looks like a book I will end up buying and reading, commented on how he feels some of the "founding fathers" would view the National Day of Prayer. His comments can be found here: http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/05/-richard-land-recalls-the.html. Waldman also calls attention to the blog written by Richard Land, staunch Southern Baptist, on the topic. Land's comments can be found here: http://blog.beliefnet.com/castingstones/2008/05/a-national-day-of-prayer.html?bt=polmashup.

Just in case you choose not to read all of what Waldman wrote, here is an excerpt.

The Founders were divided on this [that is, a governmental proclamation calling for a national day of prayer]. Washington and Adams both issued prayer proclamations that went considerably farther than what Reagan (and Harry Truman) had done.

But Jefferson and Madison stopped the practice. Jefferson seemed worried about prayer proclamations violating the First Amendment. Madison did, too, but added another argument: it wasn't good for religion. By offering prayer in a political context (including asking for prayers related to specific policy goals) Madison said prayer proclamations had politicized a solemn act "to the scandal of religion as well as the increase of party animosities."

In describing why he resisted prayer proclamations, Madison said, "They seem to imply and certainly nourish the erroneous idea of a national religion," he wrote. If Americans want to band together to pray, he said, they should do so but to bring about such prayer or gathering through the political process was "doubly wrong." Madison reported that he had received many private letters urging him to follow the pattern of Adams and Washington, prompting him to fear that Americans "have lost sight of the quality of all religious sects in the eye of the Constitution.”

In the current world of sound bites, swift-boating, and political pundits, I very much doubt that Mr. Madison could be successful in politics. The only thing people would hear about his views would be the loud clamor of the charges that Madison opposes prayer. I fear that no one would actually read what he wrote and think about why he wrote it.

It seems that religion is another one of those topics that our nation does not really want to think about and discuss. Wouldn't it be miraculous if we could have a discussion across our nation of how religion informs the political process, of how politics affects religious beliefs, of how different people with different religious understandings view issues, and of how people from different families of world religions can be part of one community?