Prayer in American Public Life

An Encyclopedia

BY JOHN R. VILE

Prayer in American Public Life:

An Encyclopediafirst edition

BY JOHN R. VILE

the fIRST AMENDMENT PRESS™

Prayer in American Public Life: An EncyclopediaFirst Editionby John R. Vile

Published by First Amendment PressMiddle Tennessee State UniversityMurfreesboro, TN 37132

©2022 John R. Vile

Cover design © 2022 by Leslie HainesCover image "America on its Knees" by Conrad Hiltoncourtesy of Indiana State Museum.All rights reserved.

Published 2022Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-7375681-2-4

Dedicated to those who have prayed for me and to those for whom I pray. May all our

prayers in accord with God’s will be answered.

Topical Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroduction Timeline

AAbington School District v. Schempp (1963)Adams, JohnAdams, John QuincyAfrican-American SpiritualsAhlquist v. City of Cranston ex rel. Strom (2012) Airport ChapelsAligning Effect of Prayer ReferencesAmerica On Its Knees“America the Beautiful”American Patriot’s PrayerAnglo-American Legal ProceduresAnswered Prayer NarrativesAnti-CommunismAtlantic Charter Prayers

BBaha’i Prayer for AmericaBarker v. Conway (2019) Bible Reading and MeditationBillard v. Board of Education (1904) Board of Education of the Westside Community School v. Mergens (1990)Book of Common PrayerBorowicz, Stephanie, Prayer in Pennsylvania

Legislature Bush, George H.W., Inaugural Prayer

CCabinet MeetingsCartoons and JokesChapels at Secular Colleges and Universities Chavez, CesarChristening, Launching, and Commissioning ShipsChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) Temple DedicationsColonial Interactions with Native AmericansColumbus, Christopher and Other Early European Explorers of the AmericasCongress, ChaplainsCongress, First Prayer in Congress, Prayer RoomCongressional Prayer CaucusConroy, Patrick J. and Paul Ryan

DDalai LamaDavis, JeffersonDeaths of U.S. PresidentsDolan, Timothy M.

EEcumenical PrayersEisenhower, Dwight D., Prayer at InaugurationEmerson, Ralph Waldo

Contents

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Enemies, Prayer forEngel v. Vitale (1962)

FFamily That Prays Together Stays TogetherFilms and MoviesFosdick, Harry EmersonFoxhole PrayersFranklin, BenjaminFreedom from Religion Foundation v. Obama (2011)

G“God Bless America” God Bless America as Benediction

“God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hand”God Save the United States and This Honorable CourtGovernment Petitions as PrayersGrace Before MealsGraham, Billy

HHaystack Prayer MeetingHealingHero’s Valor PrayerHindu Legislative PrayersHymns, Songs, and Poems

I“In Jesus’s Name”

JJabez, Prayer ofJain, First to Pray in CongressJefferson, Thomas

Jew, First Rabbi to Pray in CongressJewish Prayers for American Government

KKennedy, Robert F.Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2019) King, Martin Luther Jr.Kneel-insKucinich, DennisKumbaya Kurtz v. Baker (1987)

LLawrence, George, Speech in 1813Lee, Robert E., Prayer and Communion at St. Paul’sLee v. Wiseman (1992)“Lift Every Voice and Sing”Lincoln, Abraham Proclamation of ThanksgivingLincoln, Abraham Second Inaugural AddressLiturgical Versus Spontaneous PrayerLord’s Prayer

MMadison, JamesMarsh v. Chambers (1983) Marshall, PeterMasonsMass Media and Other TechnologiesMcKinley, William McGuffey ReadersMemorial DayMilitary ChaplainsMilitary LanguageMissouri Public Prayer AmendmentMurray v. Buchanan (1983)

Muslim, First Imam to Pray in Congress“My Country ‘Tis of Thee” (“America”)

NNational Cathedral as a House of PrayerNational Day of PrayerNational Prayer BreakfastNative American Legislative PrayersNavy HymnNewdow v. Eagen (2004)New England PrimerNew York Muslim Community CenterNixon/Kissinger Prayer

OOn a Wing and a Prayer

PParodies Patriot PrayerPatton, George S., Prayer for RainPenn, WilliamPentagon Prayer RoomPerformative PrayersPetitionary PrayerPluralismPray for America BiblePray for Peace Postage CancellationPray to God but Keep Your Powder DryPrayer Caps and CoveringsPrayer ClothsPray the VotePrayer and Bible Reading in Public SchoolsPrayer at Cabinet MeetingsPrayer Rooms in Public BuildingsPrayer for America

Prayer Meeting RevivalPrayer Pilgrimage for FreedomPrayers for Public LeadersPray-InsPraying IndiansPresidential Inaugural PrayersPresidential Inaugural Prayers of 1937Presidential Prayer Team (PPT)Presidential Proclamations of Prayer and ThanksgivingPrisoners’ RightsProposed Constitutional Amendments for Prayer in SchoolsProsperity GospelProvidentialismPuritans

QQAnon Shaman Prayer in Senate Chamber

RRauschenbusch, WalterRight to Pray Guidelines (Trump)Roadside ChapelsRoberts, OralRoman CatholicsRoosevelt, Franklin D., D-Day PrayerRosaryRowan County v. Lund (2017)

SSaint ChristopherSaint Francis of AssisiSaint JudeSaint Patrick’s PrayerSanta Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000)

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Scopes TrialSeagulls, Crickets, and Mormon HistorySee You at the Pole (SYATP) EventsSerenity PrayerSherwood, Diane, Prayer After Terrorist AttacksSikh, First to Pray in CongressSinner’s PrayerSmith, Bailey (Prayer of Jews)Smoot, ReedSportsState Legislative PrayersStewart, Maria W.Stockton, Thomas Hewlings Swearing-in Ceremonies for Supreme Court Justices

TTaking a KneeTelevisionThoughts and PrayersTown of Greece v. Galloway (2014)Truman, Harry STrump, Donald, and Nancy PelosiTrump, Donald, Guidelines on Prayer and Public SchoolsTubman, HarrietTwain, Mark, “The War Prayer”

UU.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787U.S. Space ProgramU.S. State Prayers

VVigils

WWallace v. Jaffree (1985) War BondsWashington, George, Circular Letter to the States Washington, George, Correspondence with Moses SeixasWashington, George, First Inaugural AddressWashington, George, National Days of Thanksgiv-ingWashington, George, Prayer at Valley ForgeWeatherWedgwood Slave MedallionWhitfield, James M., PoetryWiccan Public PrayersWilson, WoodrowWorkplace Accommodations for PrayerWorld Prayer CenterWright, Joe, Prayer in Kansas Legislature

YYoga

ZZorach v. Clauson (1952)

GlossaryBibliographyAbout the Author

Topical Table of Contents

Accoutrements of Prayer Prayer Caps and Coverings Prayer Cloths Rosary

African-American Prayers African-American Spirituals Kumbaya Lawrence, George, Speech in 1813 Lift Every Voice and Sing Performative Prayers Vigils

Aphorisms and Expressions Family That Prays Together Stays Together On a Wing and a Prayer Pray to God but Keep Your Powder Dry Thoughts and Prayers

Books and Other Publications Answered Prayer Narratives Bible Reading and Meditation Book of Common Prayer Cartoons and Jokes McGuffey Readers New England Primer Pray for America Bible Twain, Mark, “The War Prayer” Whitfield, James M., Poetry

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Early America Colonial Interactions with Native Americans Columbus, Christopher, and Other Early European Explorers of the Americas Penn, William Praying Indians

Electronic Media Films and Movies Mass Media and Other Technologies Television

Miscellaneous Aligning Effect of Prayer References Anglo-American Legal Procedures Anti-Communism Congress, Chaplains Congressional Prayer Caucus Government Petitions as Prayers Haystack Prayer Meetings In Jesus’s Name Kneel-Ins Masons Military Language Missouri Public Prayer Amendment Parodies Patriot Prayer Pluralism Pray for Peace Postage Cancellation Prayer for America Prayer Meeting Revival Pray-Ins Providentialism QAnon Shaman Prayer in Senate Chamber St. Jude Sports

Taking a Knee U.S. State Prayers War Bonds Wedgwood Slave Medallions Workplace Accommodations for Prayer Musical Expressions of Prayer “America the Beautiful” “God Bless America” “God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hand” Hymns, Songs, and Poems “Lift Every Voice and Sing” “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” (“America”) Navy Hymn

Mythical or Exaggerated Prayers Lee, Robert E., Prayer and Communion at St. Paul’s St. Christopher Seagulls, Crickets, and Mormon History Washington’s Prayer at Valley Forge Wilson, Woodrow

Occasions and Places for Prayer Atlantic Charter Prayers Cabinet Meetings Christening, Launching, and Commissioning Ships National Prayer Breakfast Prayer Meetings Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom Prayer Rooms in Public Buildings Prayer Vigils Prayer at Cabinet Meetings Scopes Trial See You at the Pole (SYATP) Events Swearing-in Ceremonies for Supreme Court Justices U.S. Space Program

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Places Associated with Prayer Atlantic Charter Prayers Airport Chapels Chapels at Secular Colleges and Universities Congress, Prayer Room National Cathedral as a House of Prayer New York Muslim Community Center Pentagon Prayer Room Prayer Gardens Prayer Towers Prisoners’ Rights Roadside Chapels World Prayer Center

Presidential Prayers and Proclamations Adams, John Adams, John Quincy Bush, George H.W., Inaugural Prayer Davis, Jefferson Deaths of U.S. Presidents Eisenhower, Dwight D., Prayer at Inauguration Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Obama (2011) Jefferson, Thomas Lincoln, Abraham, Proclamation of Thanksgiving Lincoln, Abraham, Second Inaugural Address Madison, James Nixon/Kissinger Prayer Patrick, Patrick J., and Paul Ryan Presidential Inaugural Prayers Presidential Inaugural Prayers of 1937 Presidential Proclamations of Prayer and Thanksgiving Right to Pray Guidelines (Trump) Roosevelt, Franklin D., D-Day Prayer Truman, Harry S Trump, Donald, and Nancy Pelosi Washington, George, “First Inaugural Address” Washington, George, National Days of Thanksgiving

Washington’s Correspondence with Moses Seixas Washington’s Circular Letter to the States Washington’s Prayer at Valley Forge Wilson, Woodrow

Non-Presidential Public Figures Chavez, Cesar Dalai Lama Dolan, Timothy M. Emerson, Ralph Waldo Fosdick, Harry Emerson Franklin, Benjamin Graham, Billy Kennedy, Robert F. King, Martin Luther Jr. Kucinich, Dennis Lee, Robert E., Prayer and Communion at St. Paul’s Marshall, Peter Patton, George S., Prayer for Rain Rauschenbusch, Walter Roberts, Oral Sherwood, Diane, Prayer after Terrorist Attacks Smith, Bailey (Prayer of Jews) Smoot, Reed Stewart, Maria W. Stockton, Thomas Hewlings Tubman, Harriet Wright, Joe, Prayer in Kansas Legislature

Public Prayer and Religious Activities in Public Schools Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) Ahlquist v. City of Cranston ex rel. Strom (2012) Billard v. Board of Education (1904) Board of Education of the Westside Community Schools v. Mergens (1990) Engel v. Vitale (1962) Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2019) Lee v. Weisman (1992)

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Prayer and Bible Reading in Public Schools Proposed Constitutional Amendments for Prayer in Schools Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000) Trump, Donald, Guidelines on Prayer and Public Schools Wallace v. Jaffree (1985) Zorach v. Clauson (1952)

Public Prayer in Non-School Settings Barker v. Conway (2019) Borowicz, Stephanie, Prayer in Pennsylvania Legislature Congress, First Prayer in Ecumenical Prayers God Bless America as Benediction God Save the United States and This Honorable Court Hindu Legislative Prayers Jain, First to Pray in Congress Jew, First Rabbi to Pray in Congress Jewish Prayers for American Government Kurtz v. Baker (1987) Marsh v. Chambers (1983) Murray v. Buchanan (1983) Muslim, First Imam to Pray in Congress Native American Legislative Prayers Newdow v. Eagen (2004) Rowan County v. Lund (2018) Sikh, First to Pray in Congress State Legislative Prayers Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014) U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787 Wiccan Public Prayers

Religious Groups and Their Prayers Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) Temple Dedications Prosperity Gospel Puritans Roman Catholics

Special Occasions Grace Before Meals Memorial Day National Day of Prayer National Nominating Conventions Pray the Vote

Specific Prayers America On Its Knees American Patriot’s Prayer Baha’i Prayer for America Hero’s Valor Prayer Jabez, Prayer of Lord’s Prayer St. Francis of Assisi St. Patrick’s Prayer

Types and Subjects of Prayer Enemies, Prayers for Healing Liturgical vs. Spontaneous Prayers Petitionary Prayer Prayers for Public Leaders Serenity Prayer Sinner’s Prayer Weather Yoga

War Prayers Enemies, Prayers for Foxhole Prayers Military Chaplains Pray to God but Keep Your Powder Dry Roosevelt, Franklin D., D-Day Prayer

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Preface

A lthough most of the last several books that I have written have been reference books in A to Z formats, this is only my third such book that related to the intersection of religion and public affairs. The first was an encyclopedia that I helped to edit and to

which I made substantial contributions, The Encyclopedia of the First Amendment. It deals primarily with Supreme Court decisions on all First Amendment issues, including the estab-lishment and free-exercise clauses relating to religion, and is available online as The First Amendment Encyclopedia, which my colleagues and I at Middle Tennessee State University continue to update.

The second and more directly relevant is a book I published in 2020, The Bible in American Law and Politics: A Reference Guide. This book helped me to understand that a purely legal approach to issues of church and state too often overlooks fundamental connections between the two. Many of America’s most important documents, events, and speeches have relied upon references to biblical texts, and as long as American leaders exercise freedom of speech, the only circumstance likely to keep them from referring to such Scriptures would be such an erosion of biblical knowledge among U.S. citizens that such references no longer resonate with them.

So it is with prayer. As far as I can ascertain, however much prayers might differ from one religion or one denomination to another, prayer is a universal expression of man’s desire for communication with the spiritual realm. As long as human beings recognize that they have souls, they will pray, and as long as they love their countries, they will pray for issues that their nations confront. Although they can be easily conflated and confused, God and country are both perceived as higher loyalties and often inspire similar devotion.

Just as hypocrisy is said to be the tribute that vice pays to virtue, so too, there is reason to be skeptical whenever individuals use the Bible or prayer chiefly to advance their own candidacies, their own political agendas, or those of their tribe or nation. Both the Hebrew prophets and Jesus pointed to empty invocations to God that garnered public acclaim but that were not buttressed with godly behavior. Unfortunately, it often takes God-like wisdom to discern when leaders are evoking holy texts or devotional practices because they are central aspects of their own being and when they are cynically using such evocations for their own political benefit.

As in my book on the Bible, I recognize that individuals who are interested in developing their own prayer life, like those who desire to increase their knowledge and understanding of biblical texts, would do far better to consult Scriptures and aids to Scriptures than to consult the books I have written. This book, like my volume on the Bible, is designed chiefly for those who want to explore the intersection between prayer and public life. When I first thought of this topic, I almost immediately thought of the Supreme Court decision in Engel v. Vitale (1962) outlawing government-prescribed public prayer in public school classrooms as a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment and related cases, but I quickly

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realized that these decisions only scratched the surface between the intersection of church and state in America.

As close to 200 alphabetically arranged entries in this volume show, public figures have sought to lead, join, encourage, and rally fellow citizens in prayer, often in hopes of calling down God’s blessings. At other times, prayer movements have been generated at the grass roots. Some-times individuals like Abraham Lincoln have understood that God’s purposes transcend their own wishes and that He could not fully answer the prayers from both sides of the trenches in either actual combat or modern cultural wars.

I do not profess to have any more insight into public prayers than others, but in writing this book, I have come to understand that prayer has had a far more pervasive political impact than I anticipated and than most Supreme Court decisions on related subjects might indicate. Just as it has been said that as long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools, so too I think that as long as human beings exist East of Eden and on earth rather than in heaven, they will pray.

I have written this book during the outbreak of the coronavirus. During this time, I have realized how much I thrive on personal contacts with students and faculty members. As I have communicated through the telephone, e-mail, and Zoom, I have often thought about how, in their own ways, these communications resemble prayer. This pandemic has reminded me how amid all our scientific advances, we are still often confronted with circumstances that are beyond our immediate personal control and in which prayer becomes far more than a political posture or tool and directs us back to the Creator and Sustainer of the universe whom people of faith refer to as our Father and God.

Each time I write a book, I feel as though I am skipping a smooth rock across a calm pond in hopes that the ripples will communicate, like prayer, with individuals whom I may never see face-to-face but with whom I share similar interests. I send this book out with a special prayer that it might provide thesis and dissertation topics for students who are fascinated by the relationships between religion and politics but who find insufficient scholarly resources on the subject. As I did my research, I often discovered that existing sources were wide but often not particularly deep, and I hope that some individuals who consult this book might look deeper into issues about which I have only been able to scratch the surface.

John R. VileMiddle Tennessee State University

Acknowledgments

I am extremely grateful to have a supportive family including a wife who remains relatively unperturbed even when two or three new books arrive at our house on a single day. I am also thankful for a supportive staff and a university where it remains a pleasure to work. I am especially appreciative of those in my office, including Sandra Campbell, who supplied copies of McGuffey Readers and helped me with Microsoft Word, to Susan Lyons, who helped me look up images, and to Marsha Powers and Cynthia Phiffer, who acted as sounding boards and provided suggestions.

Drs. Mark Byrnes, Rebekka King, Tom Hubert, Jim Keim, Michael Linton, and Philip Phillips have all either discussed this book with me and/or provided books and references. The resources of the Walker Library at Middle Tennessee State University, and especially the online data bases and the services of the Inter-library loan department, have once again proved indispensable. Dr. MaryAnn Synder -Koöber, who teaches American studies at the Julius- Maximilians-Universitat in Wurzberg, Germany, responded very helpfully to a query I posed to her. As with my previous books, writing has made me extremely grateful to be part of a scholarly community whose members have shared their findings through books, articles, and websites.

I owe special thanks to Ken Paulson, who first accepted this project, to Brian J. Buchanan, who served as an excellent copy editor, to Leslie Haines, who designed this book, and toTrish Luna, who coordinated the entire production process.

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Introduction

Although I have spent most of my academic life teaching and writing about the creation, the amending, and the interpretation of the United States Constitution and its amendments, in recent years I have become further interested in other related documents and in symbols that bind Americans together.

I demonstrated this interest with the publication of four volumes respectively compiling and annotating documents from the American founding era, the early republic, the Jacksonian and antebellum era, and the Civil War and Reconstruction. I subsequently authored reference volumes on the U.S. flag, the Declaration of Independence, the Liberty Bell, and the National Anthem before deciding that it was time to write about a subject that I have been contemplating, and have occasionally written about, throughout my academic life, namely, the role of religious beliefs and practices in U.S. history.

In 2020, I accordingly published The Bible in American Law and Politics: A Reference Guide. After writing some 300 entries and more than 300,000 words, I happily discovered that the project had helped renew my passion for related scholarship, and I concluded that I might find continuing satisfaction in researching and writing about similar subjects. This book on prayer in America grew from this realization.

My relevant life experiencesA Latin dictum, lex orandi lex credenda, indicates that “the pattern (or rule) of prayer is the pattern of

belief ” (Crosby 2013, 93). My parents, Ralph and Joanna Griffith Vile, who started their early married life as foreign missionaries, were exemplars of prayer. We prayed before every meal, even when in public places. In addition to serving in a variety of church positions, my father regularly led our family in daily devotions that closed with prayer. We prayed at bedtime. We regularly attended weekly Wednesday-night prayer meetings.

We not only expressed joy, thanksgiving, and repentance through songs, but some of our hymns were devoted to teaching us about prayer. As a child, I learned through song that blessings would come down as prayers went up; that God answered prayer at morning, noon, and night; and that one prayed not only for blessings but also to keep one’s heart in tune. I learned that it was not just my brothers or my sister, but I who was in need of prayer. Although I recall few times when I actually spent a complete hour in prayer, I knew through songs that prayers of this length were a sign of true devotion to God, who apparently particu-larly liked to be approached in a garden, albeit in a well-cultivated rose garden rather than in the weed- and crabgrass-infested patches of soil and rock where we were more likely to ask for divine assistance as we attempted to grow vegetables. Much as in the bluegrass song by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, a good part of our lives revolved around “Preachin’, Prayin’, [and] Singin.’”

I attribute much of my own success to my parents’ prayers on my behalf, and I pray daily for my own family with the knowledge that the prayers of others are also in play. After once telling a Sunday-school class how my parents had prayed from my youth that I would find a good wife and how I believed that God had answered these prayers when I married Linda, one of the members, who undoubtedly recognized that I had “married up,” asked, “What did her parents pray for?”

Although our family’s prayers often touched on similar themes, like early American Puritans we judged spontaneous and heartfelt prayers to be superior to liturgical prayers, for which, however, I have gained an appreciation in writing this book. We learned the Lord’s Prayer, but I can rarely remember us saying it collectively in church services. Although I certainly heard my fair share of long prayers in church, I learned

to be skeptical of the piety of those who delivered overly long prayers in public, and was warned in Mat-thew 6:7 about prayers that offered “vain petitions” as Jesus said typified Gentiles. As Protestants, we did not believe in the efficacy of prayers for the dead and we were skeptical about Roman Catholic theology, but amid all the trauma of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, I can still remember how at the evening meal on the day that he was assassinated, dad seemed to find what I found to be an endearing albeit somewhat perplexing workaround by praying that, if it could be in God’s will, that the president had accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior before he died.

As a son, brother, scholar, Sunday-school teacher, deacon, pastor, husband, parent, and grandparent, I can say that prayer has been an important part of my own life, although researching this book has helped me realize that I offer far more petitionary prayers than I do prayers of confession and praise, and that my prayers are too often directed to my constant wants rather than my need for daily (gluten-free) bread. Too often, I fear that I chiefly ask God’s will to be done less in submission to his will than in attempts to hedge my bets when I doubt whether God will answer with the miracles for which I hope. On such occasions, my spirit often joins the father with a son possessed by an evil spirit whom Mark 9:24 reports as telling Jesus, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” I remain convinced that God hears and answers prayers much as would a loving earthly father, but that, quite apart from any blessings one might receive through prayer, it is important to communicate with God as friend to friend.

Prayer and faith have played an important part in my own writing of this book. In contrast to my experi-ence with writing about the Bible, where I was almost overwhelmed by resources and could barely squeeze my findings into a single volume, it took months of writing and research before I was confident enough that I had enough materials that I could approach a publisher with a detailed book proposal. For months I felt like the widow described in chapter 17 of I Kings, who, after sharing what she anticipated would be her and her son’s last meal with the prophet Elijah, was told that she would continue to find enough meal in her empty barrel and enough oil in her jar until the famine ended. As I understand the story, God neither filled the barrel with flour nor the jar with oil, but, much as God had provided manna for the children of Israel in the wilderness, taught the widow continuing dependence on Him for her “daily bread” as she reached down into the bottom of the barrel and poured from a near-empty jar each day. I have spent weeks when I arrived at the office each morning relatively unsure what topics I would write about that day, only to find that there were sufficient resources at the bottom of the prayer-book barrel for my needs. Lest the idea of scraping from the bottom of the barrel might bring into question the importance of latter essays, I should perhaps vary the analogy and report that I found, like the manager of the wedding at Cana in Galilee that Jesus attended when he performed his first miracle, that the new wine was often sweeter than the old!

I share a certain skepticism about public prayers that call more attention to the person who prays than to the contents of the prayer itself, and when public prayers have generated skepticism, I have sought to report this. I am especially wary of prayers of thanksgiving for military victories that involve the death of enemies and of prayers that exalt one race, one nation, one political party, or even one individual as having gained greater favor with God than others. One of the reasons that I am so drawn to Abraham Lincoln’s musings on prayer is that he recognized that the ways of God are often inscrutable and that his purposes often transcend both sides of political conflicts.

Although I have long admired the story in I Kings 18 of how the prayer of Elijah that called down consuming fire from heaven on a sacrifice that the gods of the priests of Baal had been unable even to singe, I have connected even more closely to the story in the following chapter. It records that after show-

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ing Elijah a strong wind, an earthquake, and a fire, God revealed himself in a still, small voice. Perhaps this is what the poet Stephen Crane had in mind in The Black Rider and Other Lines (1905), when he wrote:

The livid lightnings flashed in the clouds;The leaden thunders crashed.A worshipper raised his arm.

“Hearken! Hearken! The voice of God!”“Not so,” said a man.

“The voice of God whispers in the heartSo softly

That the soul pauses,Making no noise,

And strives for these melodies,Distant, sighing, like faintest breath,

And all the being is still to hear.”

Current resourcesI am fortunate to be living at a time when scholarly resources are so widely available and to be teach-

ing at an institution that has so many online sources. In my early years of teaching, I often had to drive almost three hours to photocopy articles from a major library and bring them back to my campus. I now find numerous materials available through electronic indexes that I can access from my campus desktop computer, and I have been blessed to have a provost who recognized that I needed to be at my office com-puter even during the coronavirus epidemic when he had sent most “nonessential” workers, including those who would normally provide access to library book holdings, home. I am also extremely grateful that research and writing are both activities that can be carried out while respecting social distancing!

I began this project thinking that what I was exploring was largely virgin territory before discovering a good month into my research that James P. Moore Jr., who teaches at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, had authored a book titled The History of Prayer in America: One Nation Under God (2005); indeed, I subsequently discovered that public television had produced a DVD on prayer that was inspired by, and covers many of the same themes as, Moore’s book. I have found Moore’s work to be an invaluable resource for writing this book. I think, but am not certain, that I would have found most of the topics related to prayer that Moore discusses there, but I am also convinced that it would have taken much longer. Moreover, it has been good to be able to compare my own interpretations of prayer events with those of Moore.

I should, however, indicate that my own book focuses more narrowly on prayer in American public life than on general developments in American religious history. Whereas Moore often thus includes explana-tions of poems, popular songs, novels, works of art and other artistic creations that may reflect religious sensibilities, I have focused only on works that can specifically be identified as prayers or as containing prayers. Thus, although I love songs like “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “Jesus Loves Me,” “How Firm a Foundation,” “The Old Rugged Cross” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and other expressions of faith that Moore covers, I do not think that they constitute prayers (other than the way in which all human utterances may be so interpreted) and have thus omitted them from my own book.

In a similar fashion, I found that although William J. Federer’s book, America’s God and County Encyclo-pedia of Quotations (1996) was useful in pointing to individuals and events worthy of investigation, he includes numerous quotations that did not specifically relate to prayer or that lacked adequate context. As someone who puts a high value on prayer, I recognize both that not all prayers express equally noble sentiments and that public prayers cannot always be taken at face value. I do not think it wise to follow former President Donald Trump in questioning the sincerity of rivals who said they had been praying for him, but I think it is appropriate to consider that those who pray in public, or invite others to do so, may be doing so with mixed or even unspiritual motives, and thus their prayers must be weighed accordingly. American Puritans sometimes combined pious prayers with unspeakable violence against Native Ameri-cans. Presidents appear to have chosen individuals to pray at their inaugurations more in order to return political favors or widen their political base than to honor God, and only God can know whether those who attend National Prayer Breakfasts and similar events are there primarily to honor God or to achieve recognition from their colleagues and constituents.

Prayer in American historyThere is no single trajectory of prayer in America, and the subject is difficult to discuss apart from other

religious developments. Long before the arrival of European settlers, Native Americans had their own ways of communicating with the spiritual world. For their part, European settlers did not initially know whether to understand the native residents as members of the lost tribes of Israel to whom they should preach the Gospel or as Canaanites or Amalekites, whom they, like their Old Testament counterparts, thought they had a warrant to destroy. Unfortunately, the latter interpretation became increasingly promi-nent as settlers, willing to enclose lands and claim it, rather than roaming the land primarily as hunters and gatherers, believed both that their king and their God had given them the mandate to push westward.

When Columbus first landed in the Caribbean, he planted a cross and a flag indicating that the lands he had “discovered” were now under the authority of European kings. Within three decades of his first voyage, European kingdoms would be roiled by the Protestant Reformation, which resulted in the division of the once Holy Catholic Church into Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations. While explorers from Spain and Portugal would largely claim Central and South America and the French would for a time claim modern-day Canada for their king, most of the individuals who settled in the other 13 American colonies were Protestants. Although Puritans who settled in Massachusetts and Connecticut upheld strict Calvinistic views, which they sought to impose on all who lived there, Roger Williams established a haven for dissenters in Rhode Island, while William Penn and Cecil Calvert established greater toleration in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. Adherents to the Church of England tended to predominate in the Southern states, a number of which had relatively mild church establishments. In contrast to the fervent spontaneous and devotional prayers of New England, other colonists followed the Book of Common Prayer, which contained prayers for the monarch.

Puritans like Jonathan Edwards shared with the Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus a belief that the European discovery of America might mark an axial event that might lead to Christ’s millennial reign on earth. The First Great Awakening that swept through many of the colonies in the 1730s and 1740s heightened such expectations while calling existing clerical leadership into question, and, like the revivals that would later follow, strengthened democratic ideals. When the former colonies announced their independence from Britain in 1776, they proclaimed that all men were created equal and were equally

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entitled to liberties, which did not, however, extend to African-Americans, most of whom remained enslaved until the adoption of the 13th Amendment in the wake of the Civil War in 1865.

There is a long-simmering debate about whether America’s Founders were chiefly Christians or Deists. Certainly, some leading figures like Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine were more readily identified with the latter than the former, but even American Deists expressed the view that America had a special destiny and that God has bestowed His favor upon it. Common ties of patrio-tism were often stronger than doctrinal differences between orthodox Christians and Deists. Moreover, many American Founders shared the view that it was not the role of government to choose among religious beliefs.

As Americans of diverse religious persuasions successfully carried out their movement for indepen-dence, many of them saw the hand of God working in response to their prayers and viewed themselves, like the Puritans who preceded them, as having a special providential destiny. Although the U.S. Constitu-tion, which largely went into effect in 1789, did not establish a national church, and indeed was soon amended to prevent this, civic ceremonies often included references to God. George Washington’s inaugu-ration included a prayer, and he and a number of other earlier presidents, sometimes at the request of Congress and sometimes on their own, declared national days of thanksgiving, penitence, and prayer.

As white Americans associated blackness with the biblical mark of Cain, many African-Americans in turn converted to Christianity and developed faith and prayer practices of their own, often beautifully portrayed in spirituals evoking God’s deliverance of His people from slavery in Egypt. In time, the prayers expressed in these songs received support among abolitionists, many of whom were sustained by their own prayers. Religious sentiments would fuel such movements as women’s suffrage, national prohibition of alcoholic beverages, the fight against white slavery (prostitution), increased civil rights, and the like.

Although America lacked an established religion, most of its leaders were Protestants, and most institutions reflected predominately Protestant ideals. This was particularly evident in the 19th Century with the increasing development of public schools, where it long remained common to read from the King James Version of the Bible and to open the day with prayer. Roman Catholics, who had been taught that Scripture required guidance from the church as to its meaning and had their own translation of the Bible, generally had little recourse other than to acquiesce to Protestant norms or to withdraw their students from public schools and establish religious counterparts, albeit rarely with state support. An increasing number of immigrants from predominately Roman Catholic nations like Ireland and Italy brought increasing conflict to American cities and often accented the Protestant/Catholic divide.

Even before the Civil War, most American denominations had split into northern and southern wings divided by their responses to slavery. Both sides believed they were fighting for God and country, and their prayers reflected this. Antebellum Southerners, who later became the backbone of American evangelical identity, often mocked what they believed to be the heretical puritanism that fueled the anti-slavery movement, while many Northerners believed that the Golden Rule and other teachings of Jesus pointed to the sinfulness of slavery. The Southern states explicitly recognized God within their constitution and adopted “Deo vincide” (With God as our defender) as their national motto, while Northern states began printing “In God We Trust” on their currency. President Lincoln recognized that although both sides prayed to a common God and read the same Bible, God could not equally honor their prayer requests. However God might have intervened in the hearts of humans and behind the scenes, the contest was eventually decided by force of arms.

Not long after the war, the British biologist Charles Darwin challenged traditional understandings of what it meant to say that God had created human beings, while biblical higher criticism, much of which originated in Germany, increasingly called the origination and uniqueness of Holy Writ and its accounts of miracles into question. By the end of the century, leading American thinkers were advocating Social Darwinism, the nation accepted foreign colonies as its reward (sometimes characterized as a burden) for winning the Spanish-American War, and Americans were increasingly attracted to the social gospel, which sought to apply Christian principles to political issues. Although some post-millennialists were increasingly optimistic that American ideals might be preparing the way for God’s kingdom on earth, World War I and the accompanying worldwide influenza shattered many of these hopes. Despite his own theologically driven idealistic goals, President Woodrow Wilson was unable to persuade America to join the League of Nations, and the punitive actions against Germany at the end of the war sowed seeds for the world war that followed after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.

With the continuing rise of modern science, scholars and theologians increasingly began to call into question whether prayers could affect the natural laws that governed the universe. Just as denominations had in a previous era split over the issue of slavery, so now many split into fundamentalist and modernist camps, epitomized in the famous Scopes Trial that took place over the teaching of evolution in Tennessee in 1925. In 1929, Americans faced the Great Depression, which further eroded earlier faith in continuing progress while serving as a seedbed for greater government interventions in the economy.

Americans who had largely ignored the rise of Hitler in Germany were galvanized by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 that led to a belated entry into World War II, and the victory, along with America’s acquisition of atomic weapons, left the nation as the world’s chief superpower. It soon faced a communist threat from the Soviet Union and then from China, which it sought to counter through a policy of containment. The 1950s marked not only the rise of evangelist Billy Graham and the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower but also the adoption of the first National Prayer Breakfast, the addition of the words “under God” to the pledge to the U.S. flag, the use of a stamp cancellation with the words “Pray for Peace,” and the formal adoption of “In God We Trust” as the national motto.

The year 1960 marked an important milestone with the election of John F. Kennedy, the first (and, until 2021, the only) Roman Catholic to occupy this office. His presidency ended with a tragic assassination, albeit not for religious reasons, and by the end of the decade, the nation was frayed by protests over its lengthening participation in the Vietnam War, which had been justified by the policy of containment and the fear of nations falling under communist domain like dominos. Just as the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) had challenged the nation by calling for the elimination of racial discrimination, Supreme Court decisions outlawing devotional Bible reading and prayer in public schools in Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington v. Schempp (1963), while consistent with the establishment clause of the First Amendment, led to charges – that remain part of America’s current dialogue – that the Court was kicking God out of schools, perhaps at a time when He was needed more than ever.

In the early 1970s the nation was roiled by the Watergate controversy that led to the first resignation of a sitting U.S. president. Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976 was hailed as signaling “the year of the Evangeli-cal,” but it was his successor, Ronald Reagan, who succeeded in uniting members of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority with Catholics, Mormons, and other religious conservatives. They became increasingly critical of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) loosening most state restrictions on abortion, and what

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they believed to be the rising secularization of American life. Reagan continued to emphasize themes of God and country, as the words “God bless America,” which are now commonplace, became his signature signoff.

Controversy between those who emphasize America’s secular constitutional foundations and those who highlight the role that people of faith, particularly Christians, have played in U.S. history, continue to divide the nation. Just as some individuals continue to regard faith in general and prayer in particular as superstition, people of faith have continued to be divided by such issues as abortion, gun control, immigra-tion, the role of the national government, and American participation in foreign wars. As the aftermath of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police revealed in 2020, race remains a primary cross-cutting issue that often divides individuals with similar faiths from one another.

At a time when many individuals continue to pray in private for their families and their countries, many prayers become politicized as they are offered before legislative and other public bodies. Presidents have sometimes sought to appeal to multiple religious constituencies by inviting clerics from different faiths to participate in their inaugurations. Similarly, Congress has invited an increasingly diverse number of individuals to begin its daily proceedings with prayer, which sometimes produces angst among those who consider America to be a Christian nation. Whereas scholars had once divided Americans into Protestants, Catholics, and Jews (Herberg 1960), especially since the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 it has been common to include an imam in public commemorations of the event and in other public ceremonies as a way of acknowledging that the terrorists did not represent most members of the religion they espoused. Atheists and agnostics have arguably also become more vocal in reminding fellow citizens that there are also Americans who do not identify with any religious faiths.

Public dimensions of prayerI believe prayer to be a fairly universal human response to the mysteries of existence and an expression

of the human desire to connect to the divine. Especially when it comes to prayers uttered by Christians, I find the Westminster Shorter Catechism’s answer to Question 98, “What is prayer?” to be useful as long as one recognizes that not all prayers will contain all the elements it identifies. The answer it provides is that “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.”

Studies indicate that prayer continues to play a relatively important part in American life (Diamant 2019), and, indeed, it is even reported that avowed atheists sometimes pray (Clanton 2014, 108), appar-ently even when they are not in foxholes. I have long considered my own writing to be a form of prayer, and I believe works of art and music to be similarly feeble attempts to express prayerful sentiments of joy, grief, rage, thanksgiving, and the desire for divine companionship. The doctrine of common grace suggests that God leaves traces of Himself not only in Holy Writ but also elsewhere, and there have been many times as I have researched both the Bible and prayer that I felt that largely secular sources such as J-STOR, Westlaw, and other scholarly resources often served as such a means of common grace in exploring both topics.

The obvious difficulty in my studies of the Bible and prayer is that they seek to discuss the public aspect of subjects that are generally considered to be private matters because of the provision in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting Congress from adopting any law respecting the estab-lishment of religion. Has not the U.S. Supreme Court declared that both devotional prayer and Bible reading are inappropriate for public gatherings? As a matter of fact, the answer is somewhat nuanced in

that the central decisions in Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington v. Schempp (1963) apply specifically to devotional exercises in public schools. However, in Marsh v. Chambers (1983), the Supreme Court exempt-ed the practice of state legislative prayers, and other decisions, most notably Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014), affirm that the First Amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion permits public figures to refer to the Bible and even to engage in prayer in numerous situations.

As the decision in Marsh suggests, most state legislatures and both houses of Congress routinely either employ chaplains or select lay individuals to begin sessions in prayer. Presidents take their oaths by placing a hand on the Bible and often add “so help me God” to the explicit oath within the U.S. Constitution. A chaplain prayed at George Washington’s first inauguration, and presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt have routinely invited clerics to deliver prayers at their inaugurations. A number of presidents have includ-ed prayers within their inaugural addresses. Via radio, President Franklin Roosevelt led the nation in prayer as American GIs landed on Normandy Beach on D-Day.

In addition to special days of prayer and thanksgiving, which presidents declared early in U.S. history and fairly regularly since Lincoln, each year the president, at congressional direction, declares a National Day of Prayer and asks people to pray on Memorial Day. The president and other dignitaries meet annually at a National Prayer Breakfast, Congress has established a prayer room, members of Congress engage in Bible study and prayer and have even formed a congressional prayer caucus, and there are similar associa-tions in many American state legislatures. The Supreme Court begins each session with the invocation, “God save the United States and this honorable court.”

Although the United States does not have an established church, there is a magnificent church building in the nation’s capital that that is designated as the National Cathedral and as a national house of prayer. In addition to commemorating important leaders and moments in U.S. history, and serving as the final resting place of President Woodrow Wilson, it is used for important state funerals and as a gathering place during times of national tragedy and rejoicing.

As this book demonstrates, prayers are otherwise evident in American public life. Americans pass roadside chapels as they drive down highways and find prayer chapels in airports, prisons, and hospitals. As they celebrate national holidays, they sing songs like “America the Beautiful,” “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” “God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hand,” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” As they watch major league sports, they often see players huddle in prayer before games. They hear references to “Hail Mary” passes and “immaculate interceptions,” and are probably familiar with the mural dubbed “Touchdown Jesus” at Notre Dame University.

Although their conclusions differ largely on the basis of which individuals they study, there is a virtual scholarly cottage industry of scholars who discuss the religious beliefs and practices of America’s Founding Fathers. Abraham Lincoln infused his speeches with references to religious themes. Leaders of the aboli-tionist, women’s suffrage, alcoholic prohibition, workers’ rights, and civil rights movements have found inspiration in and have promoted unity through prayer meetings, marches, pray-ins, and vigils. Soldiers and their leaders have marched into war with prayer on their lips and in their hearts just as citizens on the home front have prayed for their safety, for rain for their crops, for deliverance from disease and pestilence, and—increasingly, it seems—for financial prosperity.

Prayer is a vital part of most weddings, christenings and child dedications, and funerals, and a comfort to those who are awaiting the birth of children, those who are sick, those who have lost loved ones, those who face financial difficulties, and those who know no other way to aid family members who have made

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poor choices or fallen on hard times. Although I believe in the efficacy (indeed the necessity) of such prayers, I have confined myself in this book to public prayers or prayers by public figures.

Organization of this bookI have organized this book, like most of my other recent reference volumes, as a compilation of individu-

al entries, which I have arranged alphabetically. Most focus on a single public prayer, speech, individual, or court decision, although a number of the essays, like “Congress, Chaplains,” “Hymns, Songs, and Poems,” “Prayer and Bible Reading in Public Schools,” “Films and Movies,” “State Legislative Prayers,” and “Presi-dential Inaugural Prayers” seek to aggregate materials from, or to substitute for, multiple essays.

Because most Americans have identified themselves as Christians throughout most of the nation’s history and because American civil religion has generally reflected a generic Protestantism, most of the entries in this volume deal with distinctively Christian prayers, often ending in the name of Jesus. One way that I have attempted to provide some balance at a time of increasing religious pluralism is by noting occasions where multiple members of other faiths have been invited to pray in public settings, such as Congress or state legislatures. Where possible I have provided either the texts of such prayers or a summary of them. Those interested will thus be able to find at least some prayers by Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Native Americans, Buddhists, Baha’is, and others. I have also referred to a number of Catholic saints like Sts. Chris-topher, Mary, and Jude through whom Roman Catholics sometimes direct their prayers. The entry on congres-sional chaplains further details the number of members from each denomination who have served throughout U.S. history and the dates that members of these denominations were first appointed to such posts.

As a student of American constitutional law, I know there are literally hundreds of cases, many described in the online First Amendment Encyclopedia to which I continue to contribute, that I could have included. Again, however, I have limited the cases covered to those dealing specifically with prayer in public schools and other public places. Similarly, although I know that there have been disputes about prayers and prayer sites in other nations (most notably Israel), this book limits itself to issues that have arisen within America.

Audience for this bookI am a political scientist by training. Most of my books have focused on law, history, and political theory,

and I believe that this book will appeal to scholars from each of these fields. It should also be a useful resource to those who are interested in American studies, popular culture, religion, and theology, and should interest and be of use to clerics who are looking for illustrations for sermons and homilies or who need context in understanding stories of American civil religion.

One of my frustrations as a scholar who identifies as a Christian is that of knowing that although there have been numerous examples of individuals who believed in God and relied on prayer in U.S. history, too often Christian apologists, who may start with the very best of intentions, hand-pick quotations and elevate mythical or uncollaborated stories about the faith of the American Founding Fathers and other leaders to the status of Holy Writ without providing proper context and reservations. This has led to serious misun-derstandings, including the idea that America is not only a nation in which a majority of individuals have identified themselves as Christians but that it is also a Christian nation in a covenantal relationship with God similar to that which Israel once had.

One of the many strengths of the Bible is that it presents historical figures without disguising their flaws. If biblical writers could do this, then certainly it is not too much to expect that contemporary scholars will do the same. Surely people of faith are mature enough to recognize that God can work through individuals who are not fully committed Christians. I do not believe that Christianity is an ideology to which all facts must be bent, but an approach that motivates its adherents to pursue truth. It is unnecessary to baptize every Founding Father, every president, every military leader, and every member of Congress with Christian sainthood in order to recognize the important role that religious faith has played, and continues to play, in our history.

Although I recognize that few individuals probably read straight through books that are organized in an A to Z format, I think this format should provide both a handy reference for those scholars and lay individuals who are interested in the intersection of prayer and public life. It should thus be a boon for reference librarians in high school, public, and college and university libraries.

As in the case of my book on the Bible in American law and politics, one of my primary motives for writing this book is to stimulate further research and to provide help for students of history, political science, and religion who might be looking for thesis and dissertation topics but who may be unaware of the broad areas where spiritual exercises intersect with public expressions. To this end, entries include cross-references to related essays and lists of scholarly references.

Additional aidsThis book includes both an alphabetically arranged table of contents and a topical table of contents.

Additionally, I have included a timeline that includes occasional facts that I did not think warranted an individual entry but that I thought might help set the entries within proper context. I have also compiled a short glossary and extensive lists of sources near the end of the book. As a strong proponent of the view that every scholarly book deserves a good index, and that authors and publishers who fail to provide them should be subject to penalties only a hair shy of capital punishment, I have also provided this accoutrement.

I send this book into the publishing world much as I send each prayer to heaven, in hopes that it will communicate effectively and meet genuine needs. With the writer of Psalm 19:14, I hope that “the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart” on the subject of prayer will be acceptable not only to God but also to fellow seekers for truth, including those who might be skeptical of the whole idea of prayer.

FOR REFERENCE

Clanton, J. Caleb. 2014. “George Santayana and the Problem of Petitionary Prayers.” American Journal of Theology & Philosophy. 35 (May): 108-128.

Crosby, Richard Benjamin. 2013. “Cathedral of Kairos: Rhetoric and Revelation in the ‘National House of Prayer.” Philosophy & Rhetoric 46, 2: 132-155.

Diamant, Jeff. 2019. “With high levels of prayer, U.S. is an outlier among wealthy nations.” FACTANK. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/01/with-high-levels-of-prayer-u-s-is-an-outlier-among-wealthy-nations/

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Federer, William J. 1996. America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations. Fame Publications.

Herberg, Will. 1960. Protestant, Catholic, Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology. Rev. ed. New York: Doubleday.

Moore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleday.

Vile, John R. 2020. The Bible in American Law and Politics: A Reference Guide. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

“Westminster Shorter Catechism. Question 98.” https://www.shortercatechism.com/resources/wsc/wsc_098.html

Timeline of Prayer in America

1492 Christopher Columbus, who sailed west from Europe in hope of arriving in the East, lands in the Caribbean and makes contact with inhabitants whom he initially believes to be residents of India.1517 Martin Luther initiates the Protestant Reformation by posting 95 theses on a church door in Germany.1531 King Henry VIII of England separated the Church of England from the Catholic Church.1549 The first Book of Common Prayer, largely compiled by Archbishop Thomas Cramner, is published in

England.1611 The King James Version of the Bible is first published in England.1620 Puritans land at Plymouth Plantation in America and sign the Mayflower Compact.1630 Pilgrims found the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a “city upon a hill.”1636 Roger Williams founds Rhode Island as a refuge for religious dissenters.1653-1658 Oliver Cromwell serves as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland.1774 The First Continental Congress chooses a chaplain to lead each session in prayer.1776 The United States declares its independence from Great Britain. Some churches begin substituting

prayer for Congress for those originally written for the king. 1777-78 George Washington is said to have prayed outside during the terrible winter at Valley Forge, Pa.1781 The states finally ratify the Articles of Confederation. American and French forces defeat the British at the battle of Yorktown in Virginia.1783 The Treaty of Paris brings a formal end to the Revolutionary War. George Washington ends his Circular Letter to the States with a prayer.1787 Benjamin Franklin proposes that the Constitutional Convention, meeting in Philadelphia, begin

each day with prayer1789 A public prayer is part of George Washington’s Inauguration as U.S. president. Washington issues a declaration of thanksgiving and prayer. The Protestant Episcopal Church in America becomes an independent Anglican body. The first American Book of Common Prayer is published.1791 States ratify the first 10 amendments, the first of which both prohibits Congress from establishing a

national religion and guarantees the free exercise of religion.1801 Thomas Jefferson becomes the nation’s first Democratic-Republican president. The Cane Ridge Revival in Kentucky fuels the expansion of evangelicalism.1806 The Haystack Prayer Meeting of students at Williams College develops into the American foreign

missionary movement.1810 The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) is established.1812 The U.S. enters a second war against Great Britain. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions sends out its first missionaries to India.1814 Francis Scott Key composes “The Star-Spangled Banner” after witnessing the American flag flying

after the successful defense of Fort McHenry in Baltimore against English invaders.1821 Jared Sparks is appointed as chaplain to the U.S. House of Representatives, the first Unitarian to

hold such a position in Congress.

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1826 As the nation celebrates 50 years of independence, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson die on the 4th of July.

Ralph Waldo Emerson gives his first sermon on the topic “Pray without ceasing.”1832 The U.S. Senate appoints Charles Constantine Pise as its chaplain. He is the first Roman Catholic

to hold this position.1841 President William Henry Harrison dies and is succeeded by John Tyler.1850 The Virginia Legislature is the first to hear a prayer by a rabbi (Rev. Julius Eckman). President Zachary Taylor dies and is replaced by Millard Fillmore.1853 James Monroe Whitfield publishes America and Other Poems. 1857-1859 The transatlantic “prayer meeting revival” brings almost 2 million new members into churches

in America and the British Isles.1859 Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, which calls traditional interpretations of

biblical creation accounts into question.1860 Dr. Morris J. Raphall becomes the first rabbi to deliver a prayer before Congress. Abraham Lincoln becomes the first Republican to be elected as U.S. president.1861-65 The Civil War pits people from the North and the South who pray to the same God on opposite

sides.1863 President Lincoln calls for a national day of thanksgiving and prayer. Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address.1864 The phrase “In God We Trust” is used for the first time on some U.S. currency.1865 Lincoln delivers his Second Inaugural Address. The U.S. Civil War ends with the defeat of the Confederate states. Lincoln is assassinated and is succeeded by Andrew Johnson. States ratify the 13th Amendment, abolishing involuntary servitude.1868 States ratify the 14th Amendment, providing for equal protection of the laws.1876 The United States celebrates the centennial of its declaration of independence from Great Britain.1877 Federal troops are withdrawn from Southern states, marking an end to congressional Reconstruction.1888 Emile Berliner becomes the first to record the Lord’s Prayer on a phonograph record.1892 An American revised Book of Common Prayer is published.1896 The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson upholds the doctrine of racial segregation.1899 President William McKinley reports that his decision to take over the Philippines was a result of

his prayer for divine guidance. James Weldon Johnson authors “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which some now identify as the

African-American national anthem. The last verse is worded as a prayer.1900 The magazine previously known as The Christian Oracle is renamed The Christian Century and

becomes a leading voice of mainline Protestant Christianity in the U.S.1901 President William McKinley is assassinated and is succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt.1904 Mark Twain writes the short story “The War Prayer.” The Kansas Supreme Court upholds prayers and Bible reading in public schools in Billard v. Board

of Education.1906 The Azusa Street revival, characterized by charismatic manifestations such as faith healing and

speaking in tongues, is born in Los Angeles under the preaching of William Seymour.

1908 Walter Rauschenbusch publishes For God and the People: Prayers of the Social Gospel. The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America is created to promote interdenomina-

tional Protestant unity.1917 The United States joins Britain, France, and Russia against Germany in World War I. Communist forces, soon controlled by Vladimir Lenin, take over Russia.1923 President Warren G. Harding dies and is succeeded by Calvin Coolidge.1925 The Scopes Trial in Tennessee brings into relief conflicts between science and some biblical inter-

pretations. Scopes’ attorneys question the propriety of opening the proceedings with prayer.1928 A revised American Book of Common Prayer is published. A two-cent American stamp commemorates George Washington’s prayer at Valley Forge.1929 The crash of the stock market signals the beginning of the Great Depression and widespread

unemployment.1931 Congress designates “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the official national anthem.1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected as president.1937 The Senate chaplain delivers the first prayer at a presidential inauguration Franklin D. Roosevelt’s,

since the inauguration of President Washington. FDR also invites a Catholic priest to give a benediction.

1938 In its first public performance, Kate Smith sings “God Bless America” over the radio. 1941 U.S. enters World War II on the side of the Allies after the Japanese attack the American naval

base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.1942 The National Association of Evangelicals is founded as an alternative to the more modernist

Federal Council of Churches.1944 President Roosevelt leads Americans in prayer for the D-Day invasion of Europe. Gen. George S. Patton issues his call for prayers for rain.1943 Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr first offers his Serenity Prayer.1945 President Harry S. Truman includes a prayer in his first address to Congress after assuming office

after the death of FDR. World War II ends with the destruction of two Japanese cities by American atomic bombs.1948 In Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a program

that allows members of the clergy to teach religion in public schools during regular class times. The United States recognizes the newly created state of Israel, which many Americans believe to be

the fulfillment of biblical prophesies.1949 William Randolph Hearst urges his papers to “puff ” Billy Graham, who was leading an evangelistic

crusade in Los Angeles. 1952 Evangelist Billy Graham holds a peace rally on the steps of the U.S. Capitol encouraging the estab-

lishment of a National Day of Prayer. Congress adopts and President Truman signs a joint resolution establishing a National Day of Prayer. In Zorach v. Clauson, in which the Supreme Court allowed schools to dismiss students to attend

off-campus religious instruction, Justice William O. Douglas declares that “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”

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1953 President Dwight D. Eisenhower utters a “private prayer” between taking his oath of office and giving his First Inaugural Address.

The first National Prayer Breakfast is held in Washington, D.C. Eisenhower asks that Cabinet meetings begin with prayer. The U.S. House of Representatives adopts a resolution calling for the creation of a prayer room

within the Capitol Building.1954 Congress adds the words “under God” to the Pledge to the American Flag. The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Brown v. Board of Education that racially segregated public

education is unconstitutional.1955 Congress adopts a law permitting the post office to cancel stamps with “Pray for Peace.”1956 Congress votes to make the words “In God We Trust” the national motto. Billy Graham and other evangelical Protestants found Christianity Today.1957 African-Americans hold a Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington, D.C.1960 The U.S. elects John F. Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic president.1962 In a lecture at Brown University, Walter Rostow, dean of the Yale Law School, coins the term

“ceremonial deism,” which is often used to justify public prayers and religious mottoes The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Engel v. Vitale that public prayer in state-supported schools is

unconstitutional. The Second Vatican Council begins three years of meetings focusing on spiritual renewal within

the Roman Catholic Church.1963 In Abington v. Schempp, the U.S. Supreme Court extends its ban on public school prayers to

devotional Bible readings. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washing-

ton. President Kennedy is assassinated and Lyndon B. Johnson becomes president.1964 The Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in most places of public accommodation.1965 The Voting Rights Act seeks to protect the right to vote for African-Americans.1968 Sen. Robert Kennedy urges supporters in Indianapolis to pray for the family of Martin Luther

King Jr., who has just been assassinated. Sen. Kennedy is assassinated after winning the Democratic primary for the presidency in California.1969 The United States successfully lands men on the moon and returns them safely to earth.1971 The Supreme Court articulates a three-part test for deciding whether laws violate the establish-

ment clause of the First Amendment in the case of Lemon v. Kurtzman. Wilminia Rowland becomes the first woman to open a session of the U.S. Senate in prayer.1973 The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the legality of most abortions in Roe v. Wade.1974 President Richard M. Nixon prays with Henry Kissinger as the Watergate crisis brings Nixon’s

administration to an end and Gerald Ford becomes president.1977 A 13-cent Christmas stamp commemorates George Washington’s prayer at Valley Forge.1979 A revised American Book of Common Prayer is published. Pastor Jerry Falwell helps found the Moral Majority.1981 The U.S. Supreme Court decides in Widmar v. Vincent that a public college or university that

allows use of its grounds to secular groups cannot deny them to religious groups.

1982 President Ronald Reagan signs a bill specifically designating the first Monday in May as the National Day of Prayer.

1983 The U.S. Supreme Court decides in Marsh v. Chambers that state legislatures may continue to hire chaplains to begin daily lawmaking sessions in prayer.

1987 Televangelist Oral Roberts announces from a prayer room on his eponymously named college campus that God was going to call him home unless he raised millions of dollars for a missionary program.

1990 Texas high school students engage in the first See You at the Pole (SYATP) events for voluntary student-led prayers.

1992 In the case of Lee v. Weisman, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down public prayers at public high school graduations.

In Board of Education of the Westside Community Schools v. Mergens, the Supreme Court rules that the Equal Access Law requires public schools to accept noncurricular clubs, to allow for an after-hours Bible club.

Wallace D. Mohammed, who heads the American Muslim Mission, a breakoff of the Nation of Islam, becomes the first Muslim to lead opening prayers in Congress.

1996 The Rev. Joe Wright stirs controversy with a highly partisan prayer before the Kansas Legislature.2000 The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down student-led prayers at public school ballgames in the case of

Santa Fe School District v. Doe. Father Daniel P. Coughlin becomes the first Roman Catholic priest to serve as chaplain of the U.S.

House of Representatives. Bruce Wilkinson publishes The Prayer of Jabez. On Sept. 14, Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala becomes the first Hindu to offer a prayer before the U.S.

House of Representatives in conjunction with a speech delivered by Atal Bihan Vajpayee, prime minister of India.

2001 Gurudev Shree Chitrabhanuji becomes the first Jain to pray before the U.S. House of Representatives. Terrorist strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon traumatize Americans.2003 Barry C. Black, a retired Navy rear admiral, becomes both the first African-American and the first

Seventh-day Adventist to become chaplain in the U.S. Senate.2005 Rep. J. Randy Forbes of Virginia helps found the Congressional Prayer Caucus. James P. Moore Jr. publishes One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America.2007 Rajan Zed becomes the first Hindu to lead prayer in the U.S. Senate.2008 Democrat Barack Obama becomes the first African-American elected to the presidency.2012 Republican Mitt Romney becomes the first member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day

Saints, better known as the Mormons, to be nominated for president.2014 In Town of Greece v. Galloway, the U.S. Supreme Court approves opening town meetings with prayer. The National Cathedral opens for Muslim prayers on Fridays for the first time. The Dalai Lama is the first Buddhist to offer a prayer before the U.S. Senate.2017 Televangelist Paula White becomes the first female clergy member to deliver a prayer at a U.S. presi-

dential inauguration, that of Donald Trump.2019 Isleta Pueblo Chief Judge Verna Teller becomes the first Native American to deliver the opening

prayer in the U.S. House of Representatives. Imam Omar Suleiman, the founder of the Yaqeeen Institute for Islamic Research in Dallas, delivers

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AAbington School District v. Schempp

In Engel v. Vitale (1962), the U.S. Supreme Court decided that offering public prayers composed by the New York State Board of Regents in state-supported schools violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment as applied to the states through the due-process clause of the 14th Amendment.

The next year the Court consolidated two additional cases that, while chiefly focusing on reading the Bible, also included repeating the Lord’s Prayer aloud. The lead case of Abington v. Schempp came from Pennsylvania, where the Schempps, who were Unitarians, objected to broadcasting of 10 verses of the Bible to classes over the loudspeaker each day followed by recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. The second case, Murray v. Curlett, came from

Baltimore and was brought by Mrs. Madalyn Murray and her son, William J. Murray III, both of whom were professed atheists. They had objected to readings from the King James Version of the Bible and/or recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. A U.S. district court in Pennsylvania had upheld the plaintiffs, whereas both two Mary-land courts had sided with the defendants.

In reviewing the facts, Justice Tom Clark, who wrote the majority opinion overturning the exercises, observed that an expert for the plaintiff in Schempp had testified that reading from the New Testament was offensive to some Jews and that such readings could accordingly prove to be “psychologically harmful” to children and

“divisive” (1963, 209). An expert for the defense had described the Bible as “non-sectarian” and pointed to its “great moral, historical and literary value” (1963, 210).

After reviewing the facts of both cases, Clark affirmed the importance of religion in U.S. history, while pointing out that the U.S. was also committed to religious liberty. He further noted that the Court had in pre-vious cases applied the religious clauses of the First Amendment to the states and that a variety of prior cases, many focusing on public schools, had attempted to explain the relationship between the establishment and free-exercise clauses. These cases had established that to avoid conflict with these clauses, the primary purpose of laws needed to be secular, and their primary effect should be neither to advance nor inhibit religion.

As in the case of the prayer in Engel v. Vitale, Clark said the exercises at issue were religious in nature. Although the state defended the exercises as a way of promoting moral values, contradicting contemporary materialistic trends, perpetuating existing institutions, and teaching literature, it was seeking to do so through religious exercises. Agreeing that permitting a “religion of secularism” would also violate the First Amend-ment (1963, 225), Clark did not view removing the exercises as a means of doing so but simply as a way of maintaining state neutrality among religious beliefs. He affirmed that “The place of religion in our society is an exalted one, achieved through a long tradition of reliance on the home, the church and the inviolable citadel of the individual heart and mind” (1963, 226).

In a concurring opinion, similar to his opinion in Engel v. Vitale, Justice William O. Douglas argued that a primary defect of the exercises was that state employees who were supported by taxpayers were directing them.

Justice William J. Brennan wrote the longest concurring opinion in the case. Professing not to know what

the daily prayer in the U.S. House of Representatives despite criticism over his support for a boycott of Israel.

In Barker v. Conroy, a U.S. circuit court rejects a case against the chaplain of the U.S. House of Repre-sentatives who had refused to grant permission to an atheist who wanted to deliver a prayer that was not directed to God.

2020 President Trump uses the National Prayer Breakfast to condemn what he considers to be the hypocri-sy of political opponents, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who had supported his impeachment and who claimed to have prayed for him.

The U.S. is hit by the coronavirus pandemic that leads many states to order that people remain in place in their homes and sometimes limits the number of people who could gather together in worship. Trump announces a Day of Prayer.

A mosque in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis becomes the first to broadcast a call to prayer in a major U.S. city during the celebration of Ramadan, when believers typically gather at mosques but are praying at home because of the pandemic.

Demonstrations and rioting break out in response to the police killing of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis. Some police officers try to defuse tension by taking a knee in solidarity with the protesters.

Both Democratic and Republican national nominating conventions feature prayers. Despite losing both the popular and the Electoral College vote, President Trump refuses to concede

the presidential election to Joe Biden.2021 Rioters invade the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6 in an effort to contest congressional certification of

the presidential election ballots, and Jake Angeli, better known as the QAnon Shaman, delivers a prayer from the vice president’s seat in the U.S. Senate in which he thanked God for the opportunity to send a message to “all the tyrants, the communists and the globalists that this is our nation not theirs.”

2022 At the National Prayer Breakfast, which fell on the birthday of President Biden’s son Beau who died of cancer, Biden stressed the importance of knowing others, seeking unity, and not only keeping the faith, but also spreading it.

FOR REFERENCE “Prominent American Religious-Events by Date.” Association of Religion Data Archives.

http://www.thearda.com/timeline/browse_events_date.asp

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American Founders such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison would specifically think about religious exercises in public schools, Brennan thought that “A more fruitful inquiry … is whether the practices here challenged threaten those consequences which the Framers deeply feared; whether, in short, they tend to promote the type of interdependence between religion and state which the First Amendment was designed to prevent” (1963, 326). He further outlined four reasons why he considered “a literal quest for the advice of the Founding Fathers upon the issues of these cases” as “futile and misdirected” (1963, 236). These included the ambiguity of their intentions, the way that American education had changed since the nation was found-ed, the increased diversity of the American people, and the way that this increasing diversity had been reflected in public school classrooms, where attendance was compulsory. He further reviewed a plethora of cases involving church property and ecclesiastical disputes, the relationship between the establishment and free-exercise clauses, cases involving the provision of textbooks to parochial schools, laws that attempted to require attendance at public schools, and laws involving other church/state issues. Recognizing that the practice of Bible reading and prayer had a long history in the United States, Brennan argued that prior decisions “have usually recognized the primarily religious character of prayers and Bible readings” (1963, 277). Brennan said it was possible to provide “cooperation or accommodation between religion and govern-ment” (1963, 294) without government sponsorship of religious exercises in public schools, which involved

“impressionable children” rather than adults (1963, 299). He did, however, think it was possible to retain such patriotic exercises as saluting the flag (a pledge that contains the words “under God”) or allowing the words

“In God We Trust” on coins, where such activities, “though religious in origin, have ceased to have religious meaning” (1963, 303).

Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote an additional concurring opinion, joined by John Marshall Harlan II, in which he distinguished the permissible teaching about religion in public schools from engaging in imper-missible religious exercises.

As in the case of Engel v. Vitale, Justice Potter Stewart authored the sole dissent, arguing that the current record was inadequate to justify the Court’s decision and questioning whether the idea of separation of church and state properly summarized the intention of the two religious clauses within the First Amend-ment. In an argument similar to that against creating a religion of secularism that the majority had cited, Stewart said “a compulsory state educational system so structures a child’s life that if religious exercises are held to be an impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed at an artificial and state-created disadvan-tage. Viewed in this light, permission of such exercises for those who want them is necessary if the schools are truly to be neutral in the matter of religion” (1963, 313). He would accordingly have upheld the religious exercises as long as they were purely voluntary.

This decision, like Engel v. Vitale before it, was highly unpopular and was evaded in many states (Birkby, 1973).

See AlsoEngel v. Vitale (1962); Prayer and Bible Reading in Public Schools

FOR REFERENCEAbington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963); Birkby, Robert H. 1973. “The Supreme Court and

the Bible Belt: Tennessee Reaction to the ‘Schempp’ Decision.” In The Impact of Supreme Court Decisions: Empirical Studies, 2nd ed. Ed. Theodore L. Becker and Malcolm M. Feeley. New York: Oxford University Press; Smith, Rodney K. 1987. Public Prayer and the Constitution: A Case Study in Constitutional Interpretation. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources.

Adams, JohnJohn Adams (1735-1826) of Massachusetts was one of the leading forces behind the American Revolution.

A prominent member of the First and Second Continental Congresses, Adams served on a committee in the first such Congress that issued a call for a fast day and on the committee in the second such Congress as-signed to draft the Declaration of Independence. Adams helped draft the Massachusetts Constitution, served as a U.S. diplomat to Europe during the war, returned to serve as vice president under George Washington, and then served for a single term as president. His son, John Quincy Adams, later served in this office.

Although he was a member of the Federalist Party, John Adams was at loggerheads with Alexander Hamil-ton, also a Federalist, and had a tumultuous administration during which the U.S. was in an undeclared war with France. In an unfortunate response, the Federalist-dominated Congress adopted the Alien and Sedition Acts, which sought to criminalize criticisms of the government and its leaders and make it more difficult for immigrants (who tended to side with Democratic-Republicans) to become citizens. These laws, in turn, prompted James Madison and Thomas Jefferson (Adams’ vice president) anonymously to respond with the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions urging states to resist the legislation, which they considered to violate the First and 10th Amendments. The election of 1800, which elected Jefferson as president, was one of the most partisan in history, with New England Federalists often accusing Jefferson of atheism and of supporting the excesses of the French Revolution, and with Democratic-Republicans responding in kind.

A brilliant and complex man who worried incessantly about his own place in history, Adams has been variously described as “a Puritan, Deist, Orthodox Christian, and Humanist” (Cousins 1958, 75). Like Wash-ington, he was convinced that religion and morality played an important part in maintaining republican governments. In arguing for the possibility that prayers might effect miracles, Adams observed that “The great and Almighty author of nature, who at first established those rules which regulate the World, can as easily Suspend those Laws whenever his providence sees sufficient reason for such suspension. This can be no objection, then to the miracles” (Frazer 2012, 109).

In his presidential inaugural address, Adams lauded the U.S. Constitution and the outgoing president. As he approached the end of his speech, he added, “I feel it to be my duty to add if a veneration for the religion of a people who profess and call themselves Christians, and a fixed resolution to consider a decent respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for the public service, can enable me in any degree to comply with your wishes [to honor the memory of Washington], it shall be my strenuous endeavor that this sagacious injunction of the two Houses shall not be without effect.” As Washington had done in his First Inaugural Address, Adams ended with a prayer: “And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of Order, the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its Government and give it all possible success and duration consistent with the ends of His providence” (Adams 1797).

Consistent with similar colonial resolutions from New England, twice during his administration Adams issued proclamations for days of humiliation, fasting, prayer, and thanksgiving. Unlike either Washington or Madison, Adams’ resolutions do not appear to have been prompted by Congress. Indeed, Alexander Hamilton appears to have pushed for such a declaration, openly acknowledging that “on religious grounds this is very proper—On political, it is very expedient” (Dickson 1987, 192). Professing not to have been influenced by Hamilton’s plea, Adams later reported that “there is nothing upon this earth more sublime and affecting than the idea of a great nation all on their knees at once before their God, acknowledging their faults and implor-ing his blessing and protection, when the prospect before them threatens great danger and calamity. It can

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scarcely fail to have a favorable effect on their morals in general, or to inspire them with warlike virtues in particular” (Dickson 1987, 193).

Adams’ proclamations were distinctly Christian and Trinitarian. His proclamation of March 23, 1798, which called for a day of “solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer” for May 9, specifically beseeched God

“through the Redeemer of the World, freely to remit all our offenses, and to incline us by His Holy Spirit to that sincere repentance and reformation which may afford us reason to hope for his inestimable favor and heavenly benediction” (Adams 1798). Adams’s second such proclamation not only included references to

“the Great Mediator and Redeemer” and “the grace of His Holy Spirit,” but also struck a political note. Thus, in apparent reference to his opponents, Adams remarked that “the most precious interests of the people of the United States, are still held in jeopardy by the hostile designs and insidious acts of a foreign nation, as well as by the dissemination among them of those principles, subversive of the foundations of all religious, moral and social obligations, that have produced incalculable mischief and misery in other countries.” He also asked that God “would withhold us from unreasonable discontent, from disunion, faction, sedition, and insurrection” (Adams 1799). Perhaps with a reference to the Alien and Sedition laws, Adams asked for prayers that God would bless “all magistrates” and “make them a terror to evil doers and a praise to them that do well.” He further asked that God would save American leaders from “mistake, division, and discord” (Adams 1799).

James Madison later noted the tendency of such proclamations both to weigh in on the side of Christian religion and “to a subserviency to political views; to the scandal of religion, as well as the increase of party animosities” (Fleet 1946, 561). Adams’ proclamation stirred rather than quelled partisan controversies, as is revealed by the publication of numerous Federalist fast-day sermons and republican responses to them. A contemporary scholar notes that Adams’ was the last national call specifically for a day of fasting and observes that the lesson of his proclamations and the responses they engendered was that “Political leaders could appeal to the least common denomination in their large and complicated society by publicly thanking Providence for singling out America for special favors, but they could no longer call the nation to repentance” (Dickson 1987, 207).

Adams included one of his most quoted prayers in a letter to his wife on the second day that he occupied the White House, on which construction was proceeding. It said: “I pray Heaven to bestow THE BEST OF BLESSINGS ON THIS HOUSE and All that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and Wise Men ever rule” (Moore 2005, 77).

See alsoAdams, John Quincy; Madison, James; Presidential Proclamations of Prayer and Thanksgiving; Washing-

ton, George, National Day of Thanksgiving ; Washington, George, First Inaugural Address

FOR REFERENCEAdams, John. 1797. “Inaugural Address of John Adams.” The Avalon Project. https://avalon.law.yale.

edu/18th_century/adams.asp; Adams, John. 1798. “A Day of Fasting & Humiliation (Not Thanksgiving).” Pilgrim Hall Museum. https://pilgrimhall.org/pdf/TG_Presidential_Thanksgiving_Proclama-tions_1789_1815.pdf; Adams, John. 1799. “A Day of Fasting & Humiliation (Not Thanksgiving.” Pilgrim Hall Museum. https://pilgrimhall.org/pdf/TG_Presidential_Thanksgiving_Proclamations_1789_1815.pdf; Cousins, Norman, ed. 1958. “In God We Trust”: The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding Fathers. New York: Harper & Brothers; Dickson, Charles Ellis. 1987. “Jeremiads in the New American Republic: The Case of National Fasts in the John Adams Administration.” The New England Quarterly 60 ( June): 187-207; Frazer, Gregg L. 2012. The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders: Reason, Revelation, and

Revolution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas; Fleet, Elizabeth. 1946. “Madison’s ‘Detatched Memoran-da.’” The William and Mary Quarterly 3 (October): 534-568; Moore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleday.

Adams, John QuincyJohn Quincy Adams (1767-1848), the son of John Adams, and the sixth president of the United States,

was one of America’s most dedicated public servants. He served as a young man in several diplomatic posts before becoming secretary of state to President James Monroe and then serving for a single term as presi-dent. He subsequently represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1831 to 1848, during which time he became known for advocating the abolition of slavery and for opposing congressional gag orders that tabled abolitionist petitions.

Generally considered to be a Unitarian, Adams came from a cosmopolitan religious background and had worshiped at a variety of houses of worship throughout this diplomatic journeys. Often separated from his children, he wrote a series of letters to one of his sons urging him to read the Bible and attempting to explain its central meaning (Adams 1848).

Adams sometimes expressed his religious thoughts in poetry. One such poem, “A Congressman’s Prayer,” was as follows:

Almighty Father! Look in mercy down: Oh! Grant me virtue, to perform my part— This patriot’s fervor, and the statesman’s art In thought, word, deed, preserve me from thy frown. Direct me to the paths of bright renoun Guide my frail bark, by truth’s unerring chart, Inspire my soul, and purify my heart; And with success my steadfast purpose crown. My country’s weal—be that my polar star— Justice, thou Rock of Ages, is thy law— And when thy summons call me to thy bar, Be this my plea, thy gracious smile to draw— That all my ways to justice were inclin’d— And all my aims—the blessing of mankind. (Adams)One scholar of Adams observed that the poem contained “a judicious (or judicial) Providence who favored

this nation above all others, the ancient directive to men and women to refine Christianity through citizenship, and the expectation that any heavenly reward still depended on the fulfillment of patriotic duty” (Georgini 2013, 656). It seems significant that Adams titled his poem a congressional, rather than a presidential, prayer.

In another poem he wrote in 1840 for a group of young ladies, “The Wants of Man,” Adams described a host of desires that men have but concluded with a stanza that said:

And Oh! While circles in my veins Of life the purple stream, And yet a fragment small remains Of natur’s transient dream, My soul, in humble hope unscarred, Forget not thou to pray, That this thy want may be prepared To meet the Judgment-day! (Adams 1848, 128)

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See alsoAdams, John ; Providentialism

FOR REFERENCE

Adams, John Quincy. “A Congressional Prayer.” digital.library.ucla.edu/websites/2000_999_009/Page_5x.html; Adams, John Quincy. 1848. Letters of John Quincy Adams, to his Son, on The Bible and Its Teachings. Auburn, NY: Derby, Miller & Co; Georgini, Sara. 2013. “John Quincy Adams at Prayer.” Church History 82 (Septem-ber): 649-658.

African-American SpiritualsAs the widespread use of psalters (books of psalms) in early America demonstrates, psalms, hymns, and

songs often blend with prayers, expressing some of the deepest emotions of the human soul. As slaves were brought to America, they became the subject of widespread conversion attempts, especially

by evangelical denominations like Baptists and Methodists and sometimes by masters who believed that Christianity would encourage their slaves to obey them. Key biblical narratives, however, including the emphasis of the creation narrative on human beings being made in the image of God, the story of Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage, and even the story of the deliverance of Daniel from the lion’s den or his three friends from the fiery furnace, could assure slaves that God was on their side and inspire them to seek their freedom.

Although slaveowners often discouraged, forbade, or punished slaves who sought to learn to read, even those who did not could seek inspiration from biblical stories, which they heard from others. African-Ameri-can spirituals often used coded language in which biblical images like the Promised Land or Canaan could symbolize free states; Pharaoh might symbolize tyrannical masters; or Moses might symbolize an individual like Harriet Tubman who was at hand to help slaves escape (White 1983; Darden 2014). Moreover, it was common for African-Americans to pray for their freedom. Slaves often repeated the adage that “Faith is the key to the kingdom and prayer unlocks the door” (Robinson 1997, 409).

Over time, themes of freedom were incorporated into the genre that is today referred to as the Afri-can-American spiritual, a genre that was popularized by the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University in Nashville. A spiritual called “Ev’ry Time I Feel de Spirit” thus announced that: “Ev’ry time I feel de spirit, movin’ in my heart, I will pray” (Moore 2005, 122). Another spiritual said:

I couldn’t hear nobody pray, Oh, I couldn’t hear nobody pray. Oh, way down yonder by myself, And I couldn’t hear nobody pray. (Moore 2005, 125)

Still another spiritual observed that “Nobody knows de trouble I see, Nobody knows but Jesus” (Moore 2005, 126). A song that might have been inspired by what one writer calls “the African Islamic tradition of facing east during prayer time,” begins with the lines, “Let us break bread togedder on our knees, Yes, on our knees” and ends with, “When I fall on my knees, Wid my face to de risin’ sun; Oh, Lord, have mercy on me” (Moore 2005, 127). Another popular tune begins with the lines, “Not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me, O Lord, Standin’ in the need of prayer.” “Go Down Moses” called upon slaveowners to “Let my people go.”

In the 1950s and 1960s, many civil rights protests began in churches where they were fueled by prayers and songs. These included songs like “We Shall Overcome,” and “We Shall Not Be Moved.” The song “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which was composed by James Weldon Johnson in 1899, has often been described as the black national anthem and includes an extended prayer that the God who has led African-Americans to freedom will continue to provide guidance.

The song “Kumbaya,” or “Come By Here,” which appears to have originated in the South, came to promi-nence as a folk song, and includes references to individuals singing, crying, and praying for God’s intervention.

See alsoKumbaya; “Lift Every Voice and Sing” ; Prayer Vigils; Tubman, Harriet

FOR REFERENCE

Darden, Robert. 2014. Nothing but Love in God’s Water. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press; Moore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleday; Robinson, Beverly J. 1997. “Faith is the Key and Prayer Unlocks the Door: Prayer in African American Life.” The Journal of American Folklore 110 (Autumn): 4-8-414; White, John. 1983. “Veiled Testimony: Negro Spirituals and the Slave Experience.” Journal of American Studies 17 (August) 251-263).

Ahlquist v. City of Cranston ex rel. Strom (2012)Long after the U.S. Supreme Court respectively outlawed public prayer and devotional Bible readings

during regular school hours in Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington v. Schempp (1963) respectively, cases have arisen concerning displays of religious documents, especially in public-school settings.

The case of Ahlquist v. City of Cranston is one such case. It arose when Jessica Ahlquist, a high school junior at Cranston High School West in Cranston, R.I., objected to an eight-by-four-foot mural of a Judeo-Christian prayer on one of the walls of the school auditorium. It had been written by a student and adopted by the school in 1960, when the school was still broadcasting the Lord’s Prayer over the loudspeak-er system. The prayer was as follows:

SCHOOL PRAYER

OUR HEAVENLY FATHER,GRANT US EACH DAY THE DESIRE TO DO OUR BEST.TO GROW MENTALLY AND MORALLY AS WELL AS PHYSICALLY,TO BE KIND AND HELPFUL TO OUR CLASSMATES AND TEACHERS,TO BE HONEST WITH OURSELVES AS WELL AS WITH OTHERS,HELP US TO BE GOOD SPORTS AND SMILEWHEN WE LOSE AS WELL AS WHEN WE WIN,TEACH US THE VALUE OF TRUE FRIENDSHIP,HELP US ALWAYS TO CONDUCT OURSELVES SOAS TO BRING CREDIT TO CRANSTON HIGH SCHOOL WEST. AMEN

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The prayer hung beside another mural with the school’s creed, which had no religious content and the presence of which was not questioned.

The case was decided in Ahlquist’s favor by U.S. District Judge Ronald R. Lagueux, who reviewed in extensive detail the hearings that the controversy had generated. After Ahlquist, who was an atheist, had cited her own feelings of exclusion and had asked for its removal, the school committee had held hearings, a number of which were quite raucous. Several members specifically cited their own religious beliefs as reason for keeping the mural, and the crowd at times yelled out loud “Amens.” The school committee had decided by a four-to-three vote to retain the mural, while members of the community had posted statements on social media indicating that Ahlquist was going to hell (Schmidt 2016, 283).

In deciding that Ahlquist had standing, the district court largely relied on standards accepted in the case of Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (1992). It concluded that Ahlquist had suffered an injury in fact, that was caused by offending conduct, and that was capable of remedy.

In addressing the issue of whether the continuing display of the mural was constitutional, the court relied on the three-part test articulated in the case of Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). It thus looked to ascertain wheth-er a practice serves a secular legislative purpose, that neither advances nor inhibits religion, and that does not promote excessive entanglement between church and state. It also looked at the so-called endorsement and coercion tests, which the Supreme Court had on occasion also used in cases involving the establishment clause.

In examining the Lemon test, the court found that the purpose of the prayer had clearly been religious, that its primary effect had therefore been to advance religion, and that the hearings had been quite divisive as might be expected in a situation mixing church and state. The court also found that the mural violated the endorsement test because it sent a message to non-theists that they were outsiders. In applying the coercion test, the district court relied heavily on the findings of the Supreme Court in Lee v. Weisman (1992) and Santa Fe School District v. Doe (2000), in which it had pointed to the psychological pressures that were put on students to participate in school-prayer exercises. The court further cited the Supreme Court in Stone v. Graham (1980, in which it had outlawed a Kentucky law that had required the posting of the Ten Command-ments in every public-school classroom. Finding that the mural effectively failed all three tests, or sets of tests that the Supreme Court had applied to cases alleged to violate the establishment clause of the First Amend-ment, the court accordingly ordered that the mural be removed.

Noting that courts often cited such American Founders as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the judge chose instead to quote from a letter that Roger Williams, the founder of the state of Rhode Island, had written in the early to mid-1650s and that had employed a striking metaphor. It was as follows:

“There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is common, and is a true picture of a commonwealth, or human combination, or society. It hath fallen out sometimes, that both Papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked on one ship: upon which supposal, I affirm that all the liberty of conscience I ever pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges, that none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks be forced to come to the ship’s prayers or worship, nor compelled from their own particular prayers or worship, if they practice any. (2012, 525-526)

The court rejected a late attempt by another party to intervene in the case as untimely, while also noting that the party had attempted to rely on precedents prior to those that the U.S. Supreme Court had decided since 1962.

See alsoAbington v. Schempp (1963); Engel v. Vitale (1962); Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992); Prayer and Bible

Reading in Public Schools

FOR REFERENCEAhlquist v. City of Cranston, 640 F.Supp.1d 507; Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971); Lujan v. Defenders

of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992); “Rhode Island teen who fought against prayer banner gets scholarship from atheist group.” 2012. Fox News. Feb. 20. https://www.foxnews.com/us/rhode-island-teen-who-fought-against-prayer-banner-gets-scholarship-from-atheist-group; Santa Fe School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000); Schmidt, Leigh Eric. 2016. Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; Stone v. Graham 449 U.S. 39 (1980)

Airport ChapelsMost major airports in the United States are publicly owned, and a fair number provide chapels for employ-

ees and passengers in which to meditate and pray. Some also hold services and provide chaplains.Although the question of the constitutionality of such chapels does not appear to have reached the U.S.

Supreme Court, numerous lower court decisions have affirmed that they are constitutionally permissible, especially when they are open to individuals of all faiths who choose to use them and when the organizations that lease such facilities are treated like other leaseholders rather than being subject to discriminatory treatment.

Rather than being understood as an improper establishment of religion, such chapels are generally consid-ered to be a way of accommodating the faith of those who are traveling and thus providing for their free exercise of religion. One commentator has observed, “An airport is like a small city and a chapel is one of many services available at the airport that would be provided in a city” (Holum 1995, 1185).

See alsoRoadside Chapels

FOR REFERENCE

Holum, Elizabeth J. 1995. “Hawley v. City of Cleveland: Are Airport Chapels Constitutional or Do They Discriminate Against Nonbelievers?” Ohio Northern University Law Review 21: 1181-1201; Cadge, Wendy, and Mary Ellen Konieczny. 2014. “‘Hidden in Plain Sight’: The Significance of Religion and Spirituality in Secular Organizations.” Sociology of Religion 75 (Winter): 551-563.

Aligning Effect of Prayer ReferencesAmericans are generally considered to be more religious than their Western European counterparts, and

prayer is the religious activity that Americans claim to engage in the most frequently. At least 58 percent of Americans have reported praying at least once a day, and 75 percent say that they pray at least once a week (Sharpe 2012, 257). It stands to reason those who pray might look sympathetically on others who also profess to do so.

Borrowing from the work of two previous scholars (Stokes and Hewitt 1976), sociologist Shane Sharp says that prayers and reports of prayer serve as “aligning actions” that may be used “to justify problematic or questionable courses of action and avoid negative characterizations” (Sharpe 2012, 257). As he further ex-plains, individuals may cite their own prayerfulness either as a way of accounting for difficult decisions or behaviors in which they have engaged or as a disclaimer for actions that they are about to take.

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Stokes cites Oprah Winfrey’s explanation of her decision to end her widely popular television show after one additional season, the announcement by Alabama Supreme Court Justice Sue Bell Cobb to resign her seat and not seek reelection, and the decision by Barack Obama to intervene with military force in Libya.

American history undoubtedly is filled with such examples. After the Union victory at Antietam, which forced Confederate troops to retreat, President Lincoln explained his decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation to his Cabinet by saying he had promised God, presumably in prayer, that he would do so if Union forces achieved such a victory (Klitzman 2011). President William McKinley reputedly later reported that in deciding to take colonial possession of the Philippines, he had “gotten on his knees” and “prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night” (Rushing 1903).

Just as President Woodrow Wilson reputedly responded to Republican Sen. Albert Fall of New Mexico, who was visiting him after his stroke and said he was praying for him, by asking Fall specifically what he had been praying for, political opponents may not always take such professions at their face value. President Donald Trump demonstrated that at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2020. Referring to Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives who had help set Trump’s impeachment in motion, he said he disliked people “who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong. Nor do I like people who say ‘I pray for you’ when they know that’s not so” (Samuels 2020). At the very least, these examples suggest that leaders are far more likely to welcome assurance of prayers from their supporters than from their opponents.

See alsoMcKinley, William; National Prayer Breakfast; Trump, Donald, and Nancy Pelosi; Wilson, Woodrow

FOR REFERENCE

Klitzman, Zach. 2011. “Lincoln’s Divine Inspiration.” Lincoln Cottage. Sept. 22. https://www.lincolncot-tage.org/on-this-date-in-1862/; Rusling, James. 1903. “Interview with President William McKinley.” Jan. 22. https://ksassessments.org/sites/default/files/HGSS_Preview_Texts/Grade_11/Interview%20with%20President%20William%20McKinley.pdf; Samuels, Brett. 2020. “Trump hits Romney, Pelosi for invoking religion during impeachment.” The Hill. Feb. 6. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/481800- trump-hits-romney-pelosi-for-invoking-religion-during-impeachment; Sharpe, Shane. 2012. “Prayer Utterances as Aligning Actions.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 51 ( June): 257-265; Stokes, Randall and John P. Hewitt. 1976. “Aligning Actions.” American Sociological Review 42 (October): 838-349.

America on Its KneesIt is common to pray for peace and to regard enemies as obstacles to its achievement. In the 1950s,

Americans often sought solace in their belief that they were part of a Christian nation that was inalterably opposed to atheistic communism, represented by the Soviet Union and Communist (typically designated as

“Red”) China. In that decade, Congress voted to make the words “In God We Trust” the national motto and to add the words “under God” to the pledge to the American flag. The National Prayer Breakfast was also instituted.

Although soldiers fought on the front lines against communism in Korea and later in Vietnam, many clerics also considered that they were part of the international ideological battle. Nor were they alone. In his famed “kitchen debate” at the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959, then Vice

President Richard M. Nixon lauded American technology and wealth in an impromptu debate with Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.

Years before, on July 7, 1952, the hotelier Conrad Hilton published an advertisement in Life magazine titled “America on Its Knees.” It consisted of a long prayer under the following heading: “AMERICA ON ITS KNEES: not beaten there by the hammer & sickle [the symbols of communism], but FREELY, INTELLI-GENTLY, RESPONSIBLY, CONFIDENTLY, POWERFULLY. America now knows it can destroy communism & win the battle for peace. Need fear nothing or no one … except GOD.” The advertisement featured a picture of Uncle Sam on his knees, clutching his hands in prayer and looking to heaven, with his red, white and blue-striped hat on the floor in front of him.

Opening much like the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer, which Hilton had previously introduced in a speech, was much longer. It quoted from Psalm 91:5 and contained elements of petition, confession, and contrition:

Our Father in Heaven: We pray that You save us from ourselves. The world that you have made for us, to live in peace, we have made into an armed camp. We live in fear of war to come. We are afraid of “the terror that flies by night, and the arrow that flies by day, the pestilence that walks in darkness and the destruction that wastes at noon-day.”We have turned from You to go our selfish way. We have broken Your commandments and denied Your

truth. We have left Your altars to serve the false gods of money and pleasure and power. Forgive us and help us. Now, darkness gathers around us and we are confused in all our counsels. Losing faith in You, we lose faith in ourselves. Inspire us with wisdom, all of us of every color, race, and creed,to use our wealth, our strength to help our brother, instead of destroying him. Help us to do Your will as it is done in heaven and to be worthy of Your promise of peace on earth. Fill us with new faith, new strength, and new courage, that we may win the Battle for Peace. Be swift to save us, dear God, before the darkness falls. (Moore 2005, 332)

Hilton distributed this prayer on cards and published it as a poster that eventually found its way into 200,000 American homes (Moore 2005 332).

Conrad Hilton (1887-1979) was born in the Oklahoma Territory and became one of the world’s leading hoteliers, with properties throughout America and the world including the famed Waldorf Astoria in New York City. A pious Catholic who engaged in frequent prayer often related to impending purchases and other business decisions, Hilton touted his own financial success as a sign of the superiority of capitalism. Moreover,

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he viewed each of his foreign hotels as “a little America to show the countries most exposed to communism the other side of the coin” (Wise 2001). Many foreign locations accordingly “resembled American suburbs, complete with lawn, shrubbery, swimming pools and tennis courts” (Wise 2001).

Each motel room contained not only a King James Version of the Bible but also a paperback copy of Hilton’s autobiography, Be My Guest, published in 1957. One analysis of this book, which likens it to the autobiography of another American entrepreneur, Benjamin Franklin, as well as the rags-to-riches stories published by Horatio Alger, says that it centers on three central themes, all of which were designed to portray Conrad Hilton as a quintessential American. These were “the American Dream,” “Manifest Destiny and Expansionism” and “Anti-Communism and almost aggressive patriotism” (Fick 2013, 21). Near the conclusion of his autobiography, Hilton offered 10 ingredients for a successful life:

Find your own particular talent Be Big. Think Big. Act Big. Dream Big Be Honest Live with Enthusiasm Don’t let your possessions possess you Don’t worry about your problems Don’t cling to the past Look up to People when you can – down to no one Assume your full share of responsibility for the world in which you live Pray Consistently and Confidently. (Hilton 1957, 279)

Hilton was a strong supporter of the National Prayer Breakfast, the first of which he hosted in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 5, 1953. Above the dais, Hilton had mounted his painting of “America on Its Knees.” He later observed, “I visualized the portrait of Uncle Sam not weak, not knocked to his knees, but freely and confidently kneeling, knowing how to do battle for peace” (Moore 2015, 77).

Hilton has been satirized in Arthur Hailey’s novel Hotel, and portrayed relatively accurately and positively in the television series Mad Men. A nonfiction book has further tied his international hotels to America’s concern over projecting a positive image during the Cold War (Wharton 2001).

See alsoCommunism and Anti-Communism; Franklin, Benjamin; Lord’s Prayer; National Prayer Breakfast

FOR REFERENCE

Hilton, Conrad N. 1952. “America on Its Knees.” Life. July 7; Hilton, Conrad N. 1957. Be My Guest. New York Prentice Hall Press; Moore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleday; Wharton, Annabel Jane. 2001. Building the Cold War: Hilton International Hotels and Modern Architecture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press; Wise, Michael Z. 2001. “THINK TANK; A Cold-War Weapon Disguised as a Place to Spend the Night.” The New York Times. July 21. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/21/books/think-tank-a-cold-war-weapon-disguised-as-a-place-to-spend-the-night.html

“America the Beautiful”“America the Beautiful” is one of the most winsome songs that celebrate the United States. It was composed

by Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929) who was an English professor at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass. After going via a trip to Niagara Falls and the World’s Columbia Exposition in Chicago to teach for a summer at Colorado College in 1893, she was inspired upon seeing Pike’s Peak to write the song, which was first published in the July 4, 1895, issue of the Congregationalist. A Baptist minister, Clarence A. Barbour, set the song to the music of “Materna,” also known as “O Mother Dear, Jerusalem,” composed by Samuel Ward.

Although the song is primarily a paean to America and its physical beauty, each of the four traditional verses ends with an evocation of God, which is prayerful in nature. The last four lines of the first and fourth verses end with:

America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!The notion of brotherhood is particularly powerful in uniting individuals from different races, religions, and

backgrounds. The second verse, which hearkens back to the Puritan Pilgrims, ends with: America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!Similarly, the third verse ends with: America! America! May God thy gold refine Till all success be nobleness And every gain divine!

The song is both descriptive and aspirational in nature. Lines from the song have been quoted by President Lyndon B. Johnson shortly after he became president, by Pope John Paul II when he visited the United States in 1979, and by Al Gore when he gave his concession speech after the 2000 presidential election (Sherr 2001, 72).

See alsoHymns, Songs, and Poems

FOR REFERENCE

Collins, Ace. 2003. Songs Sung Red, White and Blue: The Stories Behind America’s Best-Loved Patriotic Songs. New York: HarperCollins; Sherr, Lynn. 2001. America the Beautiful: The Stirring True Story Behind Our Nation’s Favorite Song. New York: Public Affairs.

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“American Patriot’s Prayer”One of the most influential works in nudging the colonies to break from English rule was the book

Common Sense, which Thomas Paine (1737-1809) published in January 1776, about six months before the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Although Paine later became known for his religious skepti-cism as expressed in The Age of Reason, in Common Sense he made extensive arguments, described by one scholar as “Hebraic Republicanism” (Perl-Rosenthal 2009), against both the divine right of kings and hereditary succession.

Paine originally published his book anonymously. It went into many printings, including a third edition published by Robert Bell in Philadelphia, and later elsewhere, with addenda, including a poem, “The American Patriot’s Prayer.”

The poem contains five stanzas. The first two address God as a “parent,” and ask for knowledge of his purpose: PARENT of all, omnipotent In heav’n, and earth below, Thro’ all creation’s bounds unspent, Whose streams of goodness flow.

Teach me to know from whence I rose, And unto what design’d; No private aims let me propose, Since link’d with human kind.

The next two verses, consistent with Paine’s own decision to publish his work anonymously and not to take any royalties from his book, sought God’s help in the single-minded pursuit of freedom:

But chief to hear my country’s voice, May all my thoughts incline, ‘Tis reason’s law, ‘tis virtue’s choice, ‘Tis nature’s call and thine.

Me from fair freedom’s sacred cause, Let nothing e’er divide; Grandeur, nor gold, nor vain applause, Nor friendship false misguide.

In the last two verses, Paine distinguished true patriotism from factionalism: Let me not faction’s partial hate Pursue to this land’s woe; Nor grasp the thunder of the state, To wound a private foe.

If, for the right, to wish the wrong My country shall combine. Single to serve th’ erron’ous throng, Spite of themselves, be mine.

Althought the poem was originally attributed to Paine, subsequent studies have shown an almost identical prayer had been published under the title “The Patriot’s Prayer” in Whitefield’s Almanack of Newport, R.I., in 1760, albeit with the fifth stanza referring “to Britain’s woe” rather than “to this land’s woe” (Hogue 1930, 171). Later publications in the Essex Almanack of 1773 and The Continental Almanack of 1781 refer to “Americ’s woe” (Hogue 1930, 171).

The initial reference to Britain suggests that it was probably originally published in England and repur-posed for political developments in America.

During the Civil War, Root & Cady, a Chicago firm, published “The Patriot’s Prayer Song” by F.F. Mackey, which implored God to help crush secession and bless the nation with liberty.

More recently, a far-right, anti-immigrant, pro-gun group in Washington state has appropriated the term Patriot Prayer (Morlin 2018).

See alsoProvidentialism

FOR REFERENCE

Hogue, Caroline. 1930. “The Authorship and Date of ‘The American Patriot’s Prayer,’” American Literature 2 (May): 168-172; Mackey, F.F. 1864. “The Patriot’s Prayer Song.” Music by C.H. Bach. Chicago: Root & Cady; Morlin, Bill. 2018. “Patriot Prayer rally in Seattle: Plenty of guns and shouting.” Southern Poverty Law Center. Aug. 20. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/08/20/patriot-prayer-rally-seattle-plen-ty-guns-and-shouting; Paine, Thomas. 1776. Common Sense. Large additions to Common sense; addressed to the inhabitants of America, on the following interesting subjects. I. The American patriot’s prayer. II. American independancy [sic] defended, by Candidus. III. The propriety of independancy [sic], by Demophi-lus. [Two lines from Thompson] IV. A review of the American contest, with some strictures on the King’s speech. Addressed to all parents in the thirteen united colonies, by a friend to posterity and mankind. V. Letter to Lord Dartmouth, by an English American. VI. Observations on Lord North’s conciliatory plan, by Sincerus; To which is added, an appendix to Common sense: together with an address to the people called Quakers, on their testimony concerning kings and government, and the present commotions in America. Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809. Common sense; Evans Early American Imprint Collection. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N32759.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext; Perl-Rosenthal, Nathan R. 2009. “The ‘Divine Right of Repub-lics’: Hebraic Republicanism and the Debate over Kingless Government in Revolutionary America.” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser. 66 ( July): 535-564.

Anglo-American Judicial ProceduresIt is possible that a number of Anglo-American legal procedures reflect biblical and other Near Eastern

prayer practices. It is still common to refer to a request or petition to a court as a “prayer” for relief, and there are other parallels as well.

Professor Shalom E. Holtz says that when people prayed in biblical Israel and surrounding regions, they often imagined themselves “as petitioners making their case before divine judges” (2019, 1). He explains that

“throughout biblical and ancient Near Eastern literature, and even in postbiblical Jewish texts, prayers are framed as courtroom speeches. In this form, prayers evoke an entire legal system analogous to the one that operates in the human sphere” (2019, 1).

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Just as courtroom appearances are typically proceeded by petitions, so too the language of biblical prayer often invokes “an approach, or drawing near, to God” (2019, 95), much as a modern lawyer may ask to approach the bench. Similarly, the analogy of kneeling before God is often followed by the idea of “standing” before God (2019) just as today, plaintiffs must establish legal “standing” before a court will agree to rule on their case.

Like God, a judge, who is typically seated on a raised bench in front of the court, is regarded as being in a higher position than the parties to the case. Like God, a judge can offer relief to the one with what the judge believes to be the more just cause.

Whereas biblical prophets often brought accusations against their people for ungodly behavior, thus arguably serving as prosecutors, so too, some like Abraham, Moses, and Jeremiah, stood in the role of defense attorneys, who while innocent themselves, make oral arguments before the judge representing those who were sinful. In such cases “Israel is ‘the defendant’ and God the King is also God the Judge” (Holtz 2019, 108). In Christian theology, perhaps best represented in the New Testament book of Hebrews, this semi-priestly role is assigned to Jesus, who as both God and man can mediate between the two.

In biblical accounts, God hears these pleas, much like a modern judge, and then pronounces judgment. Like modern judges, he might further rely chiefly upon the law, or he might invoke mercy, especially in sentencing petitioners who appear to be penitent or who, like biblical predecessors, have confessed their sins, as in the case of defendants who have entered into plea bargains (Holtz 2019, 66).

See alsoGovernment Petitions as Prayers; Petitionary Prayer

FOR REFERENCE Holtz, Ahalom E. 2019. Praying Legally. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies.

Answered Prayer NarrativesAmerican religion, especially evangelical religion, has often featured personal testimonials both within

church services and in evangelistic literature. Although many center on conversion experiences, they often report other, sometimes miraculous answers to prayer.

In his profound discussion of late 19th and early 20th century doubts about the efficacy of intercessory prayer in light of modern natural science and its strict empiricism, Professor Rick Ostrander observes that theological conservatives responded by putting increased emphasis on what he calls “the answered prayer narrative” as part of its devotional literature (Ostrander 2000, 39).

Ostrander believes that narratives by George Mueller (1805-1898), of England, who detailed numerous answered prayers for needs associated with an orphanage he was running, as well as the narratives of Hudson Taylor (1832-1905), a missionary with the China Inland Mission, were especially influential (Ostrander 2000, 40-41). In his discussion of prayer in The Varieties of Religious Experience, the philosopher William James singled out Mueller for what he considered to be “the extraordinary narrowness” of his “intellectual horizon” in always asking for very practical needs (1958, 357). Somewhat ironically, one could argue that Mueller’s approach was quite similar to James’ own pragmatic advice to seek the “cash value” of

ideas. James himself had concluded "that prayer or inner communion with the spirit thereof—be that spirit ‘God’ or ‘law’—is a process wherein work is really done, and spiritual energy flows in and produces effects, psychological or material, within the phenomenal world” (1958, 367).

One manner in which writers have sought to demonstrate that America has a providential purpose has been to cite incidents in which they believe that God has supernaturally intervened in U.S. history (Loud-ermilk 2011). Sometimes such works have a distinctly personal focus. During World War II, Margaret Runbeck published a book, The Great Answer, which focused on providential deliverances in answer to American service members whose lives had been jeopardized in battle (1944).

See alsoPetitionary Prayer; Providentialism

FOR REFERENCEJames, William 1958 [1902]. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. New York: A

Mentor Book from New American Library; Loudermilk, Barry. 2011. And Then They Prayed: Moments in American History Impacted by Prayer. Campbell, CA: FastPencil; Ostrander, Rick. 2000. The Life of Prayer in A World of Science: Protestants, Prayer, and American Culture 1870-1930. New York: Oxford University Pres; Runbeck, Margaret Lee. 1944. The Great Answer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Anti-CommunismAmerican leaders often considered prayer to be a critical “weapon” in the war against international

communism. Both Catholics and Protestants in the United States embraced anti-communism, from the time that communists seized power in Russia in 1917 through the Cold War, which lasted from the end of World War II to the demolition of the wall that separated communist East Berlin from capitalist West Berlin in 1989.

Writing specifically about Roman Catholics, one scholar has observed that they “had been anticommu-nists before there was communism, at least before 1917 when communism established its first foothold in Russia” (Powers 2004, 17). American Catholics viewed the anti-clerical movement of the Mexican Revolu-tion of 1911, from which many Catholics had fled to the United States, as a portent of persecution that they would likely receive if communists came to power. Catholic popes made a concerted effort to rally forces in Europe against communism in the 1930s when, preoccupied with the Depression, the United States had largely disengaged from foreign affairs (Chamedes 2019).

At the end of World War II, President Harry S. Truman instituted a policy of containment, designed to thwart communist expansion. This policy accounts in part for America’s initiative of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe after World War II, America’s armed response to the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950, and for America’s long participation in the war in Vietnam. Some opposition to communism was connected to repression of civil liberties (as in the so-called Red Scare of 1919-1920), to anti-Semitic sentiments like those of the radio priest Father Charles Coughlin (1891-1979), and to the red-baiting of Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957). The Rev. Carl McIntire (1906-2002) was a fundamentalist Presbyterian radio preacher who engaged in similar tactics (Routsila 2012).

On the religious front, the establishment of the National Prayer Breakfast, the adding of the words “under God” to the pledge to the American flag, and the adoption of “In God We Trust” as the national motto were all attempts to contrast the faith of the American people with the atheism of communism. Among

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Catholics, the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, was considered to be a particularly formidable foe against communism, and the rosary was identified both as “a ‘weapon for peace’ and a means to atone for the ‘powers of darkness’” (Kane 2004, 101-102). The Crusade for Family Prayer that Father Patrick Peyton (1909-1992) led with the motto “The Family That Prays Together Stays Together” emphasized similar themes (Kane 2004, 103). A study of evangelical Christians during this same period described as “Cold Warriors for Christ” (Sutton 2014, 293).

Prayer was considered to be an especially potent weapon against communism because communism was often associated in popular theology with satanic powers that could best be combatted through spiritual means.

See alsoAmerica on Its Knees; The Family That Prays Together Stays Togetherl Military Language; National Prayer

Breakfast; Roman Catholics Rosary

FOR REFERENCEChamedes, Giuliana. 2019. A Twentieth-Century Crusade: The Vatican’s Battle to Remake Christian Europe.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; Kane, Paula M. 2004. “Marian Devotion Since 1940: Continuity or Casualty?” Habits of Devotion: Catholic Religious Practice in Twentieth-Century America. Ed. James M. O’Toole. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 88-100; Powers, Richard Gid. “American Catholics and Catholic Americans: The Rise and Fall of Catholic Anticommunism.” U.S. Catholic Historian 22 (Fall): 17-35; Ruotsila, Markku. 2012. “Carl McIntire and the Fundamentalist Origins of the Christian Right.” Church History 81 ( June): 378-407; Sutton, Matthew Avery. 2014. American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangel-icalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Atlantic Charter PrayersEven before the Japanese attacked American forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941, President

Franklin D. Roosevelt was determined to provide aid to Great Britain in its struggle against Hitler’s Germany. To that end, he arranged a lend-lease program, or “destroyers for bases” agreement, in which Americans provided aging warships to Britain in return for leases to navy bases.

In early 1941, presidential advisor Harry Hopkins traveled to London to meet with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. At a state dinner, in explaining the message that he intended to take back to Roosevelt, Hopkins quoted Ruth’s comments to Naomi in the book of Ruth in the Old Testament: “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God” (Moore 2005, 302).

Arrangements were subsequently made for Roosevelt and Churchill to meet secretly at Placentia Bay in Newfoundland, Canada, in August 1941. A highlight of this meeting included a Sunday worship service, which Churchill largely choreographed. This was held aboard the HMS Prince of Wales, which would be sunk four months later at great cost of life, where the flags of both nations were displayed and their national anthems were played. Roosevelt and Churchill were seated with their chiefs of staff behind them facing a large group of British and American seamen who were mingled together.

An American chaplain offered the following prayer on behalf of President Roosevelt: “O Lord, High and Mighty, Ruler of the Universe, look with favour we beseech thee, Upon the President of the United States of America, and all others in authority. Grant them in health and prosperity long to live. We ask this in the Name of Him who liveth and reigneth world without end. Amen” (Morton 1943, 99). The British chaplain in turn offered a prayer for King George VI and for oppressed nations: “Let us pray for the invaded countries in

the grief and havoc of oppression; for the upholding of their courage; and the hope for the speedy restoration of their freedom. O Lord God, whose compassions fail not, support, we entreat thee, the peoples on whom the terrors of invasion have fallen: and if their liberty be lost to the oppressor, let not this spirit and hope be broken, but stayed upon thy strength till the day of deliverance. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord” (Morton 1943, 100).

These prayers were followed by the singing of the hymn, “O God Our Help in Ages Past” in a scene that one observer likened to the pope’s crowning of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor (Morton 1943, 100). A reading of the lesson was followed by the hymn “Onward, Christian Soldiers” and by yet another prayer for the victory of right and truth:

“Save us and deliver us from the hands of our enemies; abate their pride, assuage their malice, and confound their devices; that we, being armed with thy defense, may be preserved ever more from all perils, to glorify Thee, who art the only giver of all victory.

“Stablish our hearts, O God, in the day of battle, and strengthen our resolve, that we fight not in enmity against men but against the powers of darkness enslaving the souls of men, till all the enmity and oppression be done away and the peoples of the world be set free from fear to serve one another as children of our Father, who is above all and through all and in all, our God for ever and ever” (Morton 1943, 101-102).

At Roosevelt’s request, this was followed by the singing of “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” which is the anthem of both the American and British navies.

The service ended with words that are repeated each day by the Royal Navy:O Eternal Lord God, Who alone spreadest out the heavens, and rules the raging of the sea; Who has

compassed the waters and bound until day and night come to an end; Be pleased to receive into Thy Al-mighty and Most Gracious protection the persons of us Thy servants, and the Fleet in which we serve. Pre-serve us from the dangers of the sea, and from the violence of the enemy; that we may be a security for such as pass upon the seas upon their lawful occasions; that the people of the Empire may in peace and quietness serve Thee, our God; and that we may return in safety to enjoy the blessings of the land, and the fruits of our labours, and with a thankful remembrance of Thy mercies to praise and glorify Thy Holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Morton 1943, 103)

This service helped cement the friendship between Roosevelt and Churchill. Churchill later commented, “The service was felt by us all to be a deeply moving expression of the unity of faith of our two peoples, and none who took part in it will forget the spectacle presented that sunlit morning on the crowded quarterdeck … the close-packed ranks of British and American sailors completely intermingled, sharing the same books and joining fervently together in the prayers and hymns familiar to both” (“Churchill and Roosevelt Pray Together”).

The meeting resulted in agreement on the Atlantic Charter, which articulated principles that the two nations held in common, although it did not immediately result in American entry into the war.

See also“Eternal Father, Strong to Save”; Military Language ; Navy Hymn

FOR REFERENCE“Churchill and Roosevelt pray together.” https://ww2today-com/10thh-august-1941-churchill-and-roos-

evelt-pray-together; Moore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleday; Morton, H.V. 1945. Atlantic Meeting, 5th ed. London, Methuen & Co. Ltd.

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BBaha’i Prayer for America

Just as Puritans and others sought to interpret the Bible through their own lens as pilgrims in what was for them a new world, so too, emergent religions have attempted to understand their relationship with the nation, which they have often celebrated.

The Baha’i faith emerged in Persia (today’s Iran) when a merchant named Sayyid ‘Ali-Muhammad identified himself as the Bab or “gate” to proclaim the arrival of another great teacher. After Ali-Muhammad was executed by a firing squad on July 9, 1850, his followers turned to Mirza Husayn-‘Ali Nuri, also known as Baha’u’llah, denoting the glory of God. His son ‘Abdu’l-Baha succeeded him in 1892, and, after his release from prison, he traveled abroad spreading principles of peace and justice and was succeeded by his grandson

Shoghi Effendi (Buck 2015, 299-300). Baha’i envisions the unity of all faiths in a world of peace whose people have transcended racism and class

differences. Visiting Chicago in 1912, Abdu’l-Baha offered a prayer that suggested that America would have a central role in bringing this faith to fruition. His prayer was as follows:

“O Thou kind Lord! This gathering is turning to Thee. These hearts are radiant with Thy love. These minds and spirits are exhilarated by the message of Thy glad tidings. O God! Let this American democracy become glorious in spiritual degrees, even as it has aspired to material degrees, and render this just government victorious. Confirm this revered nation to upraise the standard of the oneness of humanity, to promulgate the Most Great Peace, to become thereby most glorious and praiseworthy among all the nations of the world. O God! This American nation is worthy of Thy favors and is deserving of Thy mercy. Make it precious and near to Thee through Thy bounty and bestowal. (Purushotma 2015)

Although sometimes critical of the materialism and perceived moral laxity of America, the Baha’I faith, like that of the Puritans, views America as an exceptional nation. Its leaders were especially enamored with President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and with President Woodrow Wilson’s plan to unite the nations of the world in a League of Nations.

See alsoProvidentialism; Puritans

FOR REFERENCE Buck, Christopher. 2015. God & Apple Pie: Religious Myths and Visions of America. Kingston, NY: Educator’s

International Press; Cole, Juan R. I. 1998. “The Baha’I Faith in America as Panopticon, 1963–1997.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37 ( June): 234-248; Lehman, Dale E. 2019. “A Prayer for America.” Medi-um. July 2. https://medium.com/publishous/a-prayer-for-america-68684243d8be; Purushotma, Shastri. 2017.

“Baha’I Prayer and Quotes About America.” December 6. Huffington Post. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bahai-prayers-and-quotes-_b_7598844

Barker v. Conroy (2019)Both houses of the U.S. Congress hire a chaplain who delivers morning prayers, but at the request of

members, the chaplains may also invite guest clerics to pray. This practice has increasingly been used to recognize individuals from non-Christian faiths, with nominating members of Congress reading something about the individual praying and that individual’s faith into the Congressional Record.

In Barker v. Conroy, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia had to decide whether the chaplain was obligated to accept a request to pray on the part of an atheist. In this case, Daniel Barker, a former Christian pastor who had been ordained but who had lost his faith and become co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, sued Father Patrick J. Conroy, chaplain to the U.S. House of Represen-tatives, who had refused to offer him the opportunity to lead the House in prayer. The U.S. district court had dismissed the suit for lack of Article III standing and for failure to state a claim, but the D.C. Circuit re-viewed both claims.

After Barker first made his request, Chaplain Conroy had explained that, although the rules were not written, he had allowed invocations only when “(1) they are sponsored by a member of the House, (2) they are ordained, and (3) they do not directly address House members and instead address a ‘higher power’” (p. 5). Barker, however, had planned only to invoke “the ‘higher power’ of human wisdom” rather than of God. Moreover, Conroy further observed that his ordination had come from a denomination of which he was no longer a member. Barker had claimed that these requirements unfairly discriminated on behalf of those who were religious as opposed to those who were nonreligious and therefore unfairly excluded atheists. The district court had concluded that Barker had experienced no real injury because the House chaplain had no authority to allow him to deliver a secular invocation, and because the Supreme Court decisions in Marsh v. Chambers (1983) and Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014) had allowed Congress to open with such religious prayers.

Since Barker filed his complaint, the House counsel had clarified its rules in order to make it clear that its members required a religious prayer. The court did not believe that Barker’s request presented a non-justicia-ble political question or that it was protected by the Speech or Debate Clause, which it took to relate to lawmaking activities rather than invocations that preceded such deliberations.

In addressing whether Congress was required to be neutral in its actions with respect to believers and non-believers, however, the court relied on Marsh v. Chambers and Town of Greece v. Galloway in concluding that the relevant consideration was the history of such prayers in legislative sessions. Its duty was simply to ascertain “the essential characteristics of the practice” and then determine whether the practice “falls within the tradition the Supreme Court had recognized as consistent with the Establishment Clause.”

Concluding that this “is no ordinary case,” because it dealt “with Congress’s interpretation of its rules—something no court can lightly disregard,” the circuit court said the Rulemaking Clause of Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution reserved such rulemaking to Congress, and to interpret the rules differently from Con-gress would essentially constitute judicial rather than legislative rulemaking. Even if Barker were to establish that the chaplain was discriminating against him because he was an atheist, the court could not offer him relief ”because the House permissibly limits the opening prayer to religious prayer.”

See alsoCongress, Chaplains; Marsh v. Chambers; Town of Greece v. Galloway

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FOR REFERENCE Barker v. Conroy, 921 F.3d 1118 (2019); Buchman, Brandi. 2019. “Panel Rules Congress Can Reject

Atheist Bid to Give Prayer.” Courthouse News. April 19. https://www.courthousenews.com/panel-rules-con-gress-can-reject-atheist-bid-to-give-prayer/

Bible Reading and MeditationMany religions take inspiration from one or more holy books, which typically include examples of and

instruction in prayer and/or meditation. In America, where most individuals identify themselves as Christians, the most commonly known of these holy books is the Bible, which deals with both Jewish and Christian history. It is accordingly common for Americans to speak of prayer and Bible reading together. Both are widespread devotional practices, which are often practiced in conjunction with one another.

Because the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the establishment of religion, public devotional exercises involving both prayer and devotional Bible reading have been banned from public schools in Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington v. Schempp (1963) respectively, and in subsequent public school-related cases. Both Bible reading and prayer are generally included in public worship as well as private devotions. American Puritans were especially known for using contemplative readings of Scripture as a way of generating and directing their prayers. Jacob Duché tied the first prayer that he offered before the First Continental Congress to that day’s reading from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

The most commonly known Christian prayers are typically rooted in Scriptures. The Lord’s Prayer, also known as the disciples’ prayer or the model prayer, comes from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, while the prayer that accompanies the Catholic rosary is taken in part from the angel’s annunciation of Jesus’s birth to Mary as recorded in the first chapter of the gospel of Luke. The Bible portrays individuals as being created in the image of God, which highlights that God himself is a personal being with whom individuals can communicate.

Although they often disagree as to its proper meaning, Christians and Jews accept the idea that God has communicated through written texts to humankind, while prayer can be considered to consist of human responses to, and communication with, God. The Bible says believers should pray consistently, with faith, and in accordance with God’s will. Many biblical passages suggest that believers are lacking because they have failed to ask for what they need, although proponents of the Prosperity Gospel tend to interpret such passages more in terms of financial or physical benefits than in terms of spiritual blessings.

Many Jewish and Christian hymns of praise and prayer are taken directly from Scriptures, especially from the Psalms, many of which are attributed to the biblical King David. Although many such psalms are reverent songs of praise, many also show individuals in deep struggle with God, expressing grief and sorrow and sometimes questioning God’s justice and purposes. The New Testament Gospels portray Jesus as struggling in prayer with God about his forthcoming crucifixion and crying out from the cross about His feeling of being forsaken by Him.

In addition to prayers of petition for personal favors, praise to God, and intercession for the needs of others, the Bible includes prayers of confession and repentance. The Lord’s Prayer ties requests for God’s forgiveness to the understanding that believers are to extend forgiveness to others. Biblical prayer may often be consid-ered as much as an attitude of yearning and openness to God as the repetition of specific words—hence biblical references to “groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26) and injunctions to pray “in the spirit” (Ephesians 6:18). Although the Bible provides examples of public prayer, Jesus often spoke out against prayer

or works of charity being used as a public display of religiosity rather than as heartfelt communication with God, suggesting that those who pray in private might be more sincere, and effectual, than those who make a point of praying in public.

It is common to quote from the Bible when addressing God in prayer, but biblical prayers, which some-times call for God to judge one’s enemies and give victory over them (so-called imprecatory prayers), are often not as sanitized as those that are uttered in public. Whereas biblical prayers are often directed toward unity among fellow believers, public prayers often include a wider audience such as a state or nation, which includes individuals of multiple faiths as well as nonbelievers. In such contexts, the Christian invocation of Jesus’s name sometimes becomes more problematic.

Just as there is sometimes a fine line between prayer and magic, David Mathis, the author of Habits of Grace, observes that many believers approach Bible reading and the rest of their devotional times “as a super-stitious incantation” rather than as a time for genuine reflection and prayer. He quotes the Puritan pastor Thomas Watson as observing, “The reason we come away so cold from reading the word is because we do not warm ourselves at the fires of meditation” (Mathis, “The Missing Link”). Mathis contrasts Christian medita-tion on a biblical text with what he considers to be attempts at meditations in other religions that he believes are designed to free the mind from all conscious thoughts.

The Bible contains numerous exhortations encouraging believers to pray for government leaders and even for one’s enemies. The Book of Common Prayer, which originated in England, included prayers for the monarch and the monarch’s family. In delivering his prayer before the First Continental Congress, Jacob Duché directed these prayers to Congress. Although it is probably most common for Americans to pray for the president, the president is but the head of one of three branches of the U.S. government, and there are many leaders at the state and local levels as well. The One Year Pray for America Bible (2019) encourages individuals to pray through the Bible in a year and to offer a prayer each day for the United States and its leaders.

See alsoAbington v. Schempp; Book of Common Prayer; Congress, First Prayer in; Enemies, Prayers for; Engel v.

Vitale; In Jesus’s Name; Lord’s Prayer; Pray for America Bible; Prosperity Gospel; Puritans; Rosary

FOR REFERENCE Mathis, David. “The Missing Link Between Bible and Prayer.” https://www.desiringgod.org/the-missing-

link-between-bible-and-prayer; One Year Pray for American Bible. 2019, Foreword by Barry C. Black. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc; Vile, John. 2020. The Bible in American Law and Politics: A Reference Guide. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Billard v. Board of Education (1904)Long before the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the due-process clause of the 14th Amendment, which

was adopted in 1868, applied the establishment and free-exercise clauses of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to the states, many states had their own equivalents. One such state was Kansas. Section 8 of its bill of rights provided that “The right to worship God according to the dictates of conscience shall never be

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infringed; nor shall any person be compelled to attend or support any form of worship; nor shall any control of or interference with the rights of conscience be permitted.” Similarly, a statute in Topeka provided that “No sectarian or religious doctrine shall be taught or inculcated in any of the public schools of the city; but nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit the reading of the holy scriptures.”

In a prelude to cases that would later reach the U.S. Supreme Court, the Kansas Supreme Court was called upon to apply these provision in the case of Billard v. Board of Education (1904). In that case, J.B. Billard petitioned on behalf of his son Philip, who had been expelled for attempting to devote himself to other work while the teacher led the class in repeating the Lord’s Prayer, Psalm 23, reading selections from natural history, and sometimes singing. Philip, and presumably his father, conscientiously opposed participating in the exercises because they considered them to be “a form of religious worship,” but the school board had adopted a resolution supporting the teacher’s decision to suspend the student, who had not been required to partici-pate but who had been forbidden from doing other work at that time.

In upholding this suspension, Justice Adrian Lawrence Greene denied that the state constitution or laws had been designed to exclude the Bible from public schools. He pointed out that Section 2, Article 6 of the Constitution required the establishment of a system of common schools and that schools had the duty of imparting “a more acute sense of right and wrong, higher ideals of life, a more independent and manly character, a higher and truer moral sense of his duty as a citizen, and a more laudable ambition in life than when he entered” (1904, 423). He further argued that “The noblest ideals of moral character are found in the Bible” (1904, 423).

Although Greene was writing before the U.S. Supreme Court had required that to avoid conflicts with the establishment clause, laws had to evince a clear secular (rather than a religious) purpose, he observed that, when asked the purpose of repeating the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23, the teacher had responded, “It is necessary to have some general exercise after the children come in from the playground to prepare them for their work. You need some general exercise to quiet them down” (1904, 423). Relying upon the general belief among Protestants of his day that the Bible was religious without being “sectarian,” or directed toward the benefit of a particular denomination, Justice Greene affirmed the decision of the lower court and decided that

“the exercises of which the plaintiff complained were not a form of religious worship, or the teaching of sectarian or religious doctrine. There was not the slightest effort on the part of the teacher to inculcate any religious doctrine” (1904, 423). The demand that students conduct themselves in an orderly fashion, which the justice apparently thought applied to refraining from engaging in other kinds of work during the exercises, applied whether students chose to take part in the exercise or not.

Later, in Engel v. Vitale (1962), Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) and other cases, the U.S. Su-preme Court decided that devotional Bible reading and prayer aloud were both religious exercises that were forbidden in public schools under the First and 14th Amendments.

See alsoAbington School District v. Schempp; Engel v. Vitale; Prayer and Bible Reading in Public Schools

FOR REFERENCEBillard v. Board of Education, 69 Kan. 53 (1904).

Board of Education of the Westside Community Schools v. Mergen (1990)

Although U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington v. Schempp (1963), limiting spoken prayer and devotional Bible reading in state-supported schools have led to charges that the Supreme Court has kicked God out of public schools, the Court has in fact permitted some voluntary religious exercises. These include prayer on school properties as part of extracurricular activities and after-school usages.

In Widmar v. Vincent (1981), the Supreme Court struck down a regulation adopted by the University of Missouri at Kansas City that prohibited the use of its buildings and grounds for religious purposes. The decision, written by Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., rested chiefly on the free-speech clause of the First Amend-ment, as applied to states through the 14th Amendment.

Under existing free-speech doctrine, once an entity opened up its facilities to one type of advocacy group, it could not limit the content it would approve because it had created an open forum that had to be accessible to all. This practice did not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment because it was not reason-able to think that the university was endorsing, or establishing, the speech or activities of one group simply by equally opening its facilities to all. In a similar manner, the Supreme Court later decided in Rosenberger v. Rectors and Visitors of the University of Virginia (1995) that once a state permitted student funds to be appro-priated for student publications engaged in advocacy, it could not deny them to religious publications, in this case a student-produced magazine named Wide Awake.

In between these two cases, the Supreme Court decided in Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens (1990) that the reasoning it had used for colleges in Widmar also applied to high school students. It had been encouraged in this view by the Equal Access Act of 1984, in which Congress sought to deny federal funds for schools that discriminated against religious groups in providing access to its facilities.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the Court’s majority opinion, ruling that the school had acted uncon-stitutionally when it refused to allow Bridget Mergens to form a Christian Club that would meet after hours to engage in Bible study, prayer, and related activities. Mergens had sought to insulate the school from charges that it was unconstitutionally “endorsing” the club by providing that rather than seeking a faculty sponsor like other clubs, it would simply have a teacher on hand for custodial purposes.

O’Connor decided that the school had created a limited open forum by allowing such extracurricular groups as the chess club, a scuba diving club, and others. O’Connor argued that “the message is one of neu-trality rather than endorsement: “if a State refused to let religious groups use facilities open to others, then it would demonstrate not neutrality but hostility toward religion” (1990, 248). O’Connor further distinguished private from government speech, observing that “secondary school students are mature enough and are likely to understand that a school does not endorse or support student speech that it merely permits on a nondis-criminatory basis” (2990, 250).

The decision featured a number of concurring opinions as well as a dissenting opinion by Justice John Paul Stevens. He did not think that the school had created an open forum equivalent to that in Widmar v. Vincent, which had specifically involved advocacy groups.

In Good News Club v. Milford Central School (2001), the Supreme Court subsequently decided that a public school that allowed community use of its facilities could not deny such use to religious groups.

See alsoAbington v. Schempp; Engel v. Vitale; Prayer and Bible Reading in Public Schools

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FOR REFERENCE Board of Education of the Westside Community Schools v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226 (1990); Good News Club v.

Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98 (2001); Laylock, Douglas. 1986. “Equal Access and Moments of Silence: The Equal Status of Religious Speech by Private Speakers.” Northwestern University Law Review 81: 1-67; Rosenberger v. Rectors and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819 (1995); Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263 (1981).

Book of Common PrayerAlthough the United States has never as a whole had an established church, a number of colonies and states,

especially in the South, had established the Anglican Church of England, which came in time to be known in America as the Protestant Episcopal Church. Especially popular among elites, through much of its history this church has been the favored church of a disproportionate number of public officials (Konolige 1978).

This church grew out of the desire of Henry VIII of England to divorce his wife and marry another woman who might produce a male heir. When the Catholic Church refused to allow this, he created the Church of England, with himself and his successors serving as its titular head. Although it thus bore a close resemblance to the Roman Catholic Church from which it split, over time, Protestant reformers, many of whom came to England in the face of religious persecution in other predominately Catholic European nations, pushed the church closer to that of Protestant denominations that had developed during the Reformation that Martin Luther had initiated in 1517.

One of the greatest contributions of the Anglican Church to prayer was the development of the Book of Common Prayer, which was a way of seeking to unite the church and the nation around common forms of liturgy and prayer. By providing a common liturgy for worship, the king could assure relative uniformity among those who wanted either to return to the Roman Catholic fold or to those like the Puritans who wanted further to “purify” the church of what they considered to be Catholic errors and to move its services closer to those of other Protestants. Puritans typically put more emphasis on the sermon than on liturgy, being especially wary of prescribed rather than spontaneous prayers, while monarchs tended to prefer a set service that reined in further reform.

The first prayer book to be adopted in 1549, under Edward VI, the Protestant successor to Henry VIII, was largely compiled by Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), the archbishop of Canterbury. He drew from a variety of prior liturgical books as well as from recent translations of the Bible into vernacular English by William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale, whose work would later significantly influence the King James Version of the Bible, first published in 1611. The first Book of Common Prayer, like others that followed, was accompanied by a parliamentary Act of Uniformity. Revised in 1552, the new book was, in turn, abandoned with the accession to the English throne by Mary, a Roman Catholic.

Elizabeth I became queen in 1558, and a revised Book of Common Prayer was issued the following year. It was probably the most influential in history, doing much to influence not only church practices and doctrine but also the development of the English language. It was replaced in 1604 with the accession of James I (under whose reign the King James Version of the Bible was published), and lasted until 1645, when under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell the nation reverted to a Presbyterian (rather than an Episcopalian) form of church government. Another prayer book was launched in 1662 after the restoration of Charles II.

The Anglican Prayer Books contained prayers for the king and the royal family. Many Anglican priests in

America returned to England during the Revolutionary War because they thought they were under continuing obligation to the British monarchy. Those who remained replaced prayers for the king with prayers for mem-bers of Congress and others in the new government. The first prayer offered in the Continental Congress by Jacob Duché drew from the psalm prescribed in the readings from the Book of Common Prayer for that day.

After America secured its independence, it set up its bishops independent of the English church and published its own prayer book in 1789. Americans have issued subsequent prayer books in 1892 (Northup 1995), 1928, and 1979, and there are plans to issue a prayer book with more inclusive gender language, and likely with same-sex marriage ceremonies, in 2030 (Zauzmer, 2018; Trueman 2018). During the U.S. Civil War, which split the Episcopal Church into northern and southern divisions, three printings of a prayer book were made for the Southern states (with appropriate revisions of president and Congress for whom prayers were to be offered), but only one such printing actually made it through the northern blockade (Wohlers). A few selections from the Prayer Book were, however, published in Virginia (London 1948, 348). Charles Todd Quintard of the Episcopal Church, who served as chaplain general of the Confederate Army, also wrote The Confederate Soldier’s Pocket Manual of Devotions, which contained numerous prayers, including one that offered hope for impending victory (Nichols-Belt and Belt 2011, 61-64).

In addition to being used to order services, the language of the Book of Common Prayer is often used for ceremonies connected to christenings, marriages, ordinations, and funerals. Revisions, which have often been the subject of intense controversies, have often centered on doctrinal matters connected to holy communion, the language of various creeds that it has included, the proper address for God, and the like. Traditionalists have typically opposed both doctrinal and linguistic changes, whereas advocates for change have generally favored updating both.

See alsoBible Reading and Meditation; Congress, First Prayer in; Liturgical Versus Spontaneous Prayers

FOR REFERENCE Nichols-Belt, Traci, with Gordon T. Belt. 2011. Onward Christian Soldiers: Religion and the Army of Tennes-

see in the Civil War. Charleston, SC: History Press; Branch, Lori. 2005. “The Rejection of Liturgy, the Rise of Free Prayer, and Modern Religious Subjectivity.” Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660-1700. 29 (Spring): 1-28; The Book of Common Prayer, 1559, The Elizabethan Prayer Book. 1976. Ed. by John E. Booty. Published for the Folger Shakespeare Library by the University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville; Jacobs, Alan. 2013. The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; Konolige, Kit and Frederica. 1978. The Power of Their Glory: America’s Ruling Class: The Episcopalians. New York: Wyden Books; London, Lawrence F. 1948. “The Literature of the Church in the Confederate States.” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 17 (December) 345-355; Northup, Lesley A. 1995. “Public Response and the Nineteenth-Century Prayer Book Revision Process.” Anglican and Episcopal History 64 ( June): 173-194; Syndor, William. 1997. The Prayer Book Through the Ages. Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing; Trueman, Carl. R. 2018. “Common Prayer, or Predictable Politics?” First Things. July 10. https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/07/common-prayer-or-predictable-politics; Wohlers, Charles. n.d. “The Book of Com-mon Prayer: Confederate States of America.” http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1789/csa.htm; Zauz-mer, Jule 2018. “The Episcopal Church will revise its beloved prayer book but doesn’t know when.” The Washington Post. July 18. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/07/18/the-episcopal-church-will-revise-its-beloved-prayer-book-but-doesnt-know-when/

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Borowicz, Stephanie, Prayer in Pennsylvania LegislatureIn Marsh v. Chambers, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the practice of having a chaplain open state legisla-

tive proceedings with prayer, but circuit courts have subsequently split on whether legislators themselves should be delivering such prayers. This is more controversial in part because it can lead to political divisiveness, the avoidance of which is one of the reasons that has been cited for the establishment clause of the First Amendment (Taxy 2019, 155).

A good example of such potential was evident on March 25, 2019, when Stephanie Borowicz, a Pennsylva-nia state Republican representative, offered a prayer on the day that the first Muslim representative, Movita Johnson-Harrell, was being sworn into office. She had brought family members and had chosen to take her oath of office with her hand on a Koran.

Borowicz’s prayer was soaked in biblical references and included the words “God forgive us—Jesus—we’ve lost sight of you, we’ve forgotten you, God, in our country, and we’re asking you to forgive us” (Barillas 2019). Some observers believed these words were intended to refer specifically to Johnson-Harrell’s election.

After further praising President Donald Trump for recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which is particularly controversial among Muslims, Borowic quoted and paraphrased Philippians 2:10: “I claim all these things in the powerful name of Jesus, the one who, at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, and every tongue will confess, Jesus, that you are Lord, In Jesus’s name” (Thebault 2019).

Democratic state Rep. Frank Dermody reacted to Borowicz’s prayer by saying that “Prayer should never divide us. It should bring us together.” Similarly, Rep. Jordan Harris tweeted that “Prayer should never be weaponized, especially on a celebratory day” (Barillas 2019).

Borowicz responded by saying that “That’s how I pray every day … . I don’t ever apologize for praying” (Thebault 2019). At least one commentator took the criticism of Borowicz to be a form of persecuting Christians (Barlias 2019).

See alsoMarsh v. Chambers; State Legislative Prayers

FOR REFERENCE Barillas, Martin M. 2019. “U.S. legislator persecuted for praying to Jesus before swearing in of Muslim.

Lifesitenews. March 27. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/u.s.-legislator-prays-to-jesus-before- swearing-in-of-muslim-and-is-accused-of-islamophobia; Dicker, Ron. 2019. “Lawmaker’s Prayer Mentions Jesus 13 Times Before Muslim Colleague Is Sworn In. Huff Post. March 27. https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/lawmaker-apos-prayer-mentions-jesus-113436078.html; Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 483 (1983); Taxy, Samu-el. 2019. “Pressure to Pray? Thinking beyond the Coercion Test for Legislator-Led Prayer.” The University of Chicago Law Review 86 ( January): 143-186; Thebault, Reis. March 27, 2019. “GOP Legislator Prays for Forgiveness Before Pennsylvania’s First Muslim Woman Swears In.” Governing. https://www.governing.com/topics/politics/GOP-Legislator-Prays-for-Forgiveness-Before-Pennsylvanias-First-Muslim-Wom-an-Swears-In.html Accessed March 30, 2019.

Buddhist, First Prayer in Congress. See Dalai Lama.

Bush, George H.W., Inaugural PrayerAlthough a number of presidents have included prayers within their inaugural addresses, only two have

specifically led the nation in prayer at the beginning of their speeches. The first was Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the second was George Herbert Walker Bush (1924-2018). Both were Republicans.

Bush, a businessman and politician who had served as a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and as vice president under Ronald Reagan, was an Episcopalian who credited prayer for his rescue at sea after he was shot down in a plane during World War II, and with helping his family cope with the loss of a young daughter to leukemia. Professor Gary Smith observes that “During his presidency Bush referred to prayer in 220 different speeches, proclamations, and remarks.” Bush “exhorted Americans to pray for the hostages taken in Lebanon in 1989, victory in the nation’s battle against drugs, and the success of Operation Desert Storm. ‘We asked for God’s help’ to win the Cold War, Bush asserted. And ‘we should thank God’ for ‘this magnificent triumph of good over evil’” (2015, 299).

Bush became president in a year that would later mark the dismantling of the Berlin Wall that had divided the German city between the democratic west and the communist east. He had defeated Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis in a campaign in which Bush had called for a “kinder gentler” conservativism and had touted voluntary organizations as “a thousand points of light” through which the nations could progress. As president, Bush won a significant military victory when he sent U.S. forces to invade Iraq after its leader, Saddam Hussein, invaded neighboring Kuwait, but Bush went down to defeat in 1992 to the younger and more charismatic Bill Clinton.

Immediately after thanking his immediate predecessor and hearkening back to the administration of the first president, George Washington, Bush observed at his inauguration that “We meet on democracy’s front porch, a good place to talk as neighbors and as friends. For this is a day when our nation is made whole, when our differences, for a moment, are suspended” (Bush 1989). After then saying that “my first act as President is a prayer,” he asked members of the audience to bow their heads and prayed as follows:

“Heavenly Father, we bow our heads and thank You for Your love. Accept our thanks for the peace that yields this day and the shared faith that makes its continuance likely. Make us strong to do Your work, willing to heed and hear Your will, and write on our heart these words: ‘Use power to help people.’ For we are given power not to advance our own purposes, not to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power, and it is to serve people. Help us to remember it, Lord. Amen” (Bush 1989).

The prayer is notable for addressing God as Father and ending with a generic Amen that did not specifically mention Jesus’s name. One of the prayer’s most powerful lines—“Use power to help people”—is quoted but not specifically attributed.

In the speech that followed, Bush, with an apparent eye on the Soviet Bloc, observed that “the day of the dictator is over.” He further summarized the advice of an unnamed saint who advised seeking “in crucial things, unity; in important things diversity; in all things, generosity.” Pointing out that government resources were limited, Bush referred to Democrats as members of the “loyal opposition,” acknowledged that “a Presi-dent is neither prince nor pope,” said that “God’s love is truly boundless,” and presented leadership not as

“high drama” accompanied by the sound of trumpets but as the continuing writing of a book of many pages. As Reagan had done so many times before, Bush ended with the words “God bless you and God bless the United States of America” (Bush 1989).

Bush is only the second president who had a son who also served as president. In addition to his son, George W. Bush, Bush’s biographer Jon Meacham was among those who spoke at Bush’s funeral, which was

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held at the National Cathedral. Meacham opened his speech by using the prayer that Bush had used at his inauguration, noting that “Very few human beings could have written that prayer as well” (Obert 2018).

See alsoEisenhower, Dwight D., “Inaugural Prayer”; God Bless America as a Benediction; National Cathedral;

Presidential Inaugural Prayers

FOR REFERENCEBush, George H.W. 1989. “Inaugural Address of George Bush.” Jan. 20. The Avalon Project. https://avalon.

law.yale.edu/20th_century/bush.asp; Oberg, Ted. 2018. “Prayer from George H.W. Bush’s 1989 inauguration fills National Cathedral.” ABC3. https://abc30.com/politics/prayer-from-bushs-1989-inauguration-fills-ca-thedral/4817332/; Smith, Gary Scott. 2015. Religion in the Oval Office: The Religious Lives of American Presidents. New York: Oxford University Press.

C

Cabinet MeetingsPresidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower to the present have participated

fairly regularly in National Prayer Breakfasts. During that time, there have been at least four presidencies where it was common to open meetings between the U.S. president and his Cabinet with prayer.

President Eisenhower may have been the first to initiate this practice, which he began on Feb. 6, 1953, when he invited Ezra Taft Benson, who was heading the Department of Agriculture and was a member of the ruling Council of Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, to pray at an informal luncheon of Cabinet members (Kruse 2015, 81). The prayer included the following thoughts, which portrayed America as a land of promise: “We are deeply grateful for this glorious land in which we

live. We know it is a land choice above all others, the greatest under Heaven … . We thank Thee for the glorious Constitution of this land which has been established by noble men who Thou didst raise unto this very purpose … . Help us ever, we pray Thee, to be true and faithful to these great and guiding principles” (Bergera 2008, 88). After Benson asked that this be done on a regular basis, Eisenhower polled his Cabinet, most of whom decided that they would prefer generally to begin with silent prayer, with public prayers being reserved for special occasions (Kruse 2015, 82).

These prayers may in part have represented an attempt to contrast the American government with its Soviet counterpart. Thus, the Eisenhower administration also marked the time when the words “under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag and when Congress adopted the phrase “In God We Trust” as the national motto.

Prayers, sometimes silent and sometimes vocal, also began Cabinet meetings during the presidency of George H.W. Bush (Smith 2015, 299). George W. Bush, who claimed that a conversion he had with evange-list Billy Graham had helped him overcome alcoholism, also opened Cabinet meetings with prayer (Cornwell 2003). One of the most memorable was uttered by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, just four days after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001:

“Ever-faithful God, in death we are reminded of the precious birthrights of life and liberty you endowed in your American people. You have shown once again that these gifts must never be taken for granted.

We pledge to those whom you have called home, and ask of you— Patience, to measure our lust for action; Resolve, to strengthen our obligation to lead; Wisdom, to illuminate our pursuit of justice, And Strength in defense of liberty. We seek your special blessing today for those who stand as sword and shield, protecting the many from the

tyranny of the few. Our enduring prayer is that you shall always guide our labors and that our battles shall always be just.

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We pray this day, heavenly Father, the prayer our nation learned at another time of righteous struggle and noble cause—American’s enduring prayer: ‘Not that God will be on our side, but always, O Lord, that America will be on your side.’ Amen.”

Cabinet meetings in the Trump administration also opened with prayer. At one meeting in 2018, Trump asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an evangelical Christian, to pray. He read the following prayer from the “Cadet Prayer” booklet with which he had become acquainted at West Point:

“O God, our Father, Thou Searcher of men’s hearts, help us to draw near to Thee in sincerity and truth. May our religion be filled with gladness and may our worship of Thee be natural. Strengthen and increase our admiration for honest dealing and clean thinking, and suffer not our hatred of hypocrisy and pretense ever to diminish. Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never be too content with a half truth when the whole can be won. Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when truth and right are in jeopardy. Help us to maintain the honor of the United States untarnished and unsullied and to show forth in our lives the ideals of America in doing our duty to Thee and to our nation. All of which we ask in the name of the Great Friend and Master of man. Amen” (Foust 2018).

Housing Secretary Ben Carson, a Seventh-day Adventist, has also prayed prior to Cabinet meetings (Schor 2019). Vice president Mike Pence, an evangelical Christian, has said that “There’s prayer going on on a regular basis in this White House. And it’s one of the most meaningful things to me. Whether it’s public meetings or not, I’ve lost count of the number of times that the president has nudged me, or nudged another member of the Cabinet and said, ‘Let’s start this meeting with prayer’’” (Delk 2018). Some critics feared that such prayers pushed the boundaries between church and state (Schor 2019).

See alsoNational Prayer Breakfasts

FOR REFERENCE Bergera, Gary James. 2008. “‘Rising above Principle’: Ezra Taft Benson as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture,

1953-61, Part 1.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Theology 42, 3: 81-122; Cornwell, Rupert. 2003. “News Analysis: In God he trusts—how George Bush infused the White House with a religious spirit.” Feb. 21. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/news-analysis-in-god-he-trusts-how-george-bush-in-fused-the-white-house-with-a-religious-spirit-119777.html; Delk, Josh. 2018. “Pence: ‘There’s prayer on a regular basis in this White House.’” The Hill. May 3. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/386158-pence-theres-prayer-on-a-regular-basis-in-this-white-house; Foust, Michael. 2018. “Trump Cabinet Meet-ing Begins with Prayer by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.” Aug. 17. Christian Headlines. https://www.christianheadlines.com/contributors/michael-foust/trump-cabinet-meeting-begins-with-prayer-by-secre-tary-of-state-mike-pompeo.html; Kruse, Kevin M. 2015. One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America. New York: Basic Books; Rumsfeld, Donald. 2001. “A Prayer and a Pledge.” Washington Times. Sept. 15, p. 17; Schor, Elena. 2019. “Secular Groups Decry Ben Carson’s Prayer Before President Trump Cabinet Meeting.” Oct. 23. https://thevillagereporter.com/secular-groups-decry-ben-car-sons-prayer-before-president-trump-cabinet-meeting/; Smith, Gary Scott. 2015. Religion in the Oval Office: The Religious Lives of American Presidents. New York: Oxford University Press.

Cartoons and JokesEven though Americans have a reputation for being more religious than most of their Western European

counterparts, their relationship to prayer, especially in public life, can be the subject of humor. In the 19th century Watson Heston (1846-1905), a notable freethinker, spent much of his efforts creating

detailed engravings poking fun at Christianity, the Bible and other sacred beliefs, which he published in a magazine known as The Truth Seeker. One cartoon, which he published on Feb. 27, 1892, suggested that Congress should replace its chaplains with an “Automatic Chaplain” praying machine (Schmidt 2016, 108-109). Another cartoon, which he published on Nov. 28, 1896, to ridicule the idea of calling a national day of prayer for Thanksgiving, portrayed President Grover Cleveland calling upon “the disinherited” to join Uncle Sam as he bowed down to money, “The God of Nations,” and included a long list of supplications mostly aimed at what he considered to be the hypocrisy of the president (Schmidt 2016, 113, 115).

In addition to mocking those who prayed for victory in war, Mark Twain criticized American missionaries for ignoring lynching in America as they went abroad. He begged, “O compassionate missionary, leave China! Come home and convert these Christians” (Lindvall 2015, 203).

Prayer may not always have its intended effect. One story tells of a man who climbs a flimsy tree that a bear begins shaking. After the man prays, “God, may this bear be a Christian bear,” the bear folds its paws and says,

“Heavenly father, that you for this food, which I am about to eat!” When the author surveyed a contemporary website, CartoonStock, on May 1, 2020, it contained a total of

676 cartoons under “Praying Cartoons and Comics,” with many referencing public prayer. The subject of prayer in public schools, or the lack thereof, remains a common theme. A popular adage

repeated by former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos says, “As long as there are final exams in schools, there will always be prayer in schools” (“Remarks by President Trump …” 2020). In a similar vein, a cartoon by Marty Burcelia shows a student presenting his report card to his parents and saying, “Don’t blame me. They won’t let me pray in school.” Another cartoon by Norman Jung shows a student who is doing math on a chalkboard turning to his teacher and asking, “Do you mind if I pray just this once?” In yet another cartoon by A. Bacall, which makes something of an argument for parochial schools, a nicely dressed teen girl is talking with a boy her age and saying, “I like going to Catholic school. I need to be able to pray before tests.”

A fair number of cartoons center on the idea of thoughts and prayers and school shootings. Under a headline, “Congress brings prayer back in schools,” Mike Peters thus shows a group of school students cowering and praying, “Please don’t let me get shot.” Another cartoon by Kevin Necessary shows angels at the gates of heaven noting that humans “keep sending us their ‘Thoughts and Prayers,’” while another answers, “And their kids.”

Concern about government aid to religion is reflected in a cartoon by Mick Stevens in which a preacher delivers a prayer from his pulpit: “And may the Lord in his wisdom see to it that we get our hands of some of that government scratch.” As the Supreme Court has wrestled with which religious symbols are appropriate to display on government properties, Scott Hilburn portrayed the Tenodera Sinensis Athiesto (aka the Anti-Praying Mantis) saying into a telephone, “Yes, I’d like to file a complaint about the nativity scene in front of city hall.”

Many cartoons hold government leaders up to scorn. Thus Bruce Gerencser has a picture of former Vice President Mike Pence, then the head of President Trump’s coronavirus task force who is known for his evangelical piety, holding a cross and commanding, “Get thee away, coronavirus,” while a cartoon figure representing the virus thinks “This is gonna be so easy …” Steve Bell portrays Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast saying, “In the words of Jesus Christ … Get Outta My Country.” Glenn McCoy focused on earlier

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remarks by President Barack Obama at the prayer breakfast in a cartoon that shows someone asking, “When you say our country must never forget, are you referring to 9-11?” and the response, “No. The crusades.”

Elections are a prime subject for cartoons related to prayer. Ann Telnaes published a cartoon with a quota-tion from President George W. Bush saying, “One thing that’s really great about our country is there are thousands of people who Pray for Me,” and a group of people all with folded hands saying, “I pray for one term.” In a related vein, Jack Ziegler created a cartoon of a man speaking to a partner over dinner and saying,

“God has chosen to ignore my prayers concerning the outcome of this year’s election, and so I feel that I am once again free to be a very bad little boy.” Apparently hoping for continuing material, Christo Komarniski has published a cartoon called “Cartoonist’s Prayer,” in which a cartoonist pleads, “Dear Americans, please, elect Trump for president.”

One of America’s best-known prayers is the Serenity Prayer, written by Reinhold Niebuhr. Perhaps indicat-ing the perceived limits of any government functionary, Warren Miller has a cartoon showing a man praying beside his bed for Alan Greenspan, the former chair of the Federal Reserve. The man says, “And please let Alan Greenspan accept the things he cannot change, give him the courage to change the things he can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Cartoons sometimes reference current laws. A cartoon by Dana Fradon, which may reflect contemporary fears about government information-gathering, shows a man praying beside his bed: “Under the Freedom of Information Act, I’m requesting that you disclose what you have on me in your files.”

On another matter of contemporary public debate, Mike Peters has a cartoon with an elephant praying, “Make pregnant women and Republicans feel the same way.” It is followed by lightning and another frame with the same elephant calling Planned Parenthood. From another perspective, a cartoon about Alyssa Milano shows a baby reading a paper in heaven and saying, “Mom says that her life would lack joy if she hadn’t killed us,” and the other saying, “We just need to keep praying for her.”

Jokes sometimes capture humor that is difficult to express in cartoons. One describes an African-American man about to return to Mississippi who prays, “Lord, you know I’m scared. I’m gettin’ ready to go to Missis-sippi and I’m afraid, Lord, please go with me. Please give me a sign that you’re goin’ with me.” God reportedly answers with, “Man, even I don’t go into Mississippi” (Nichols 2013, 239).

Given a chance to speak to justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the late North Carolina Sen. Sam Ervin of North Carolina told the story of a lawyer attending an evangelistic meeting who was unexpectedly called upon to pray and, speaking straight from his heart, prayed, “Stir up much strife among thy people, Lord, lest thy servant perish” (Campbell 2003, 446). In the same speech, Ervin told about a teacher who demanded to know what a group of huddled boys were doing. After one of them said they were “shooting craps,” she responded, “That’s all right. I was afraid you were praying” (Campbell 2003, 447).

A joke intended to describe Hollywood’s ignorance of American religious culture describes a conversation between filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen in which one issues a bet challenging the other to repeat the Lord’s Prayer. After hearing him repeat the children’s prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep,” he hands him $50 for winning the bet (Lindvall, 2019, 4).

In a different vein, a recent book, The Book of Comic Prayer (Annis 2016) attempts to use cartoons and comics to teach basic principles of prayer.

See alsoNational Prayer Breakfast; Serenity Prayer; Thoughts and Prayers; Twain, Mark, The War Prayer

FOR REFERENCE Annis, Heather J. 2016. The Book of Comic Prayer: Using Art and Humor to Transform Youth Ministry. New

York: Morehouse Publishing; Campbell, Karl E. 2003. “Senator Sam Ervin and School Prayer: Faith, Politics, and the Constitution.” Journal of Church and State 45 (Summer): 443-456; Lindvall, Terry. 2019. God on the Big Screen: A History of Hollywood Prayer from the Silent Era to Today. New York: New York University Press; Lindvall, Terry. 2015. God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire from the Hebrew Prophets to Stephen Colbert. New York: NYU Press; Nichols, Mark W. 2013. From Azaleas to Zydeco: My 4,600-Mile Journey through the South. Little Rock: Butler Center for Arkansas Studies; “Praying Cartoons and Comics.” CartoonStock. https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/p/praying.asp; “Remarks by President Trump on the Announcement of Guidance on Constitutional Prayer in Public Schools.” 2000. Law & Justice. Jan. 16. https://www.white-house.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-announcement-guidance-constitutioal-prayer-pub-lic-schools/; Schmidt, Leigh Eric. 2016. Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Chapels at Secular Colleges and UniversitiesMany U.S. colleges and universities began under religious auspices, and a fair number continue to retain

religious affiliations. In early American history, it was not uncommon even for public colleges and universities to express interest in their students’ spiritual development. A survey of 24 state colleges in 1890 revealed that 22 provided for daily chapel meetings, and, in half of these, chapel attendance was mandatory (Grubiak 2012, 79).

In the early 20th century, many institutions began either to renounce their denominational ties or to end chapel requirements, leaving spiritual development to extracurricular groups like the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). Modern Supreme Court decisions limit the degree to which funds can be used to support religious activities at public institutions. In Tilton v. Richardson (1971), for example, the Court restricted federal funds for buildings on religious campuses to those that were used to teach secular subjects, that did not display religious symbols and that were not used for religious activities.

In Widmar v. Vincent (1981), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that when public institutions create a public forum by opening their facilities to other groups, they cannot exclude religious groups from enjoying this same privilege. Moreover, in addition to groups like Campus Crusade and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, which arrange meetings of Bible study and prayer on campus, it is common for denominations to build meeting places close to campus for students to pray, socialize, and worship.

It is also not uncommon to find nondenominational or interfaith chapels on secular campuses where students and professors can engage in prayer, meditation, or worship. In the 1940s and 1950s, the Danforth Foundation, created by William Danforth (1870-1955), who had founded the Ralston Purina Co., provided money to construct chapels on 25 U.S. campuses, 11 of which were at secular institutions, mostly in the Midwest and South. Although this initiative faced some resistance, it overcame them, both because the chapels were privately financed and because they were open to all denominations (Grubiak 2012, 82). Their designation as “meditation chapels” further diminished any association with a particular religious denomina-tion (Grubiak 2012, 82).

Danforth, however, insisted that each chapel display a replica of Heninrich Hoffman’s devotional painting, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. A scholar observes that “The painting provided a visual model of the act of prayer and meditation, the promotion of which was the Danforth Chapel program’s principal purpose” (Gru-

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biak 2012, 89). This was a distinctly Christian painting, and it was not uncommon to have other Christian symbols, like the cross, on display. Each of the chapels also had a plaque inscribed with the following words:

“Dedicated to the worship of God with prayer that here in the communion with the highest those who enter may acquire the spiritual power to aspire nobly, adventure daringly, serve humbly” (Grubiak 2012, 89). Most of the chapels that Danforth contributed were relatively small in order to facilitate prayer and meditation and so as not to conflict with neighborhood churches.

U.S. military academies, which limit students’ off-campus interactions, each have their own chapels. The one at the Air Force Academy in Colorado is particularly magnificent. It has made accommodation for a Muslim place of prayer, and as a result of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Colum-bia Circuit in Anderson v. Laird (1972), attendance at military chapels is no longer mandatory (Gefand, 2008).

See alsoAirport Chapels; Congress, Prayer Room; Roadside chapels

FOR REFERENCE Anderson v. Laird, 466 F.2d 283 (1972); Gelfard, Michael. 2006. Sea Change at Annapolis: The United States

Naval Academy, 1949-2000. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. See especially Chapter 4, “The Spiritual Ball Game: Anderson v. Laird and the End of Mandatory Chapel Attendance,” pp. 79-108; Grubiak, Margaret M. 2012. “The Danforth Chapel Program on the Public American Campus.” Buildings & Land-scapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum 19 (Fall): 77-96; Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672 (1971); Widmar v. Vincent, 254 U.S. 262 (1981).

Chavez, CesarCesar Chavez (1927-1993) was a Hispanic American activist with the United Farm Workers who led a suc-

cessful strike on behalf of California grape growers and received support from Robert F. Kennedy and other liberal politicians.

Raised as a Roman Catholic, Chavez was particularly drawn to its social teachings with respect to the poor, and many of his protests began with a “peregrinacion,” or penitential march, in which a Roman Catholic priest delivered an opening prayer and that ended with the Catholic celebration of a Mass. Chavez was particularly drawn to Jesus’s teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.

Chavez composed a prayer for the Farm Worker’s Struggle, which is sometimes simply known as “Cesar’s Prayer.” Often printed in both English and Spanish (Oracion del Campesino en la Lucha), the former is as follows:

Show me the suffering of the most miserable; So I will know my people’s plight

Free me to pray for others; For you are present in every person.

Help me to take responsibility for my own life; So that I can be free at last.

Grant me the courage to serve others: For in service there is true life.

Give me honesty and patience; So that I can work with other workers.

Bring forth song and celebration; So that the spirit will be alive among us.

Let the spirit flourish and grow; So we will never tire of the struggle.

Let us remember those who have died for justice;

For they have given us life.

Help us love even those who hate us; So we can change the world. (Chavez 2017)

As his movement lost some of its momentum, Chavez moved away from Catholicism toward Synanon,

which was associated with the New Age movement.

See alsoKennedy, Robert F.

FOR REFERENCE Chavez, Cesar. 2017. “Prayer of the Farm Worker’s Struggle/Oracion del Campesino en la Lucha.” United

Farm Workers. March 7. https://ufw.org/prayer-far-workers-struggleoracion-del-compesino-en-la-lucha; Piar, Carlos R. 1996. “Cesar Chavez and La Causa: Toward a Hispanic Christian Social Ethic.” The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics 16:103-129; Romero, Robert Chao. 2017. “The Spiritual Praxis of Cesar Chavez.” Perspectives 14 (Spring): 24-39.

Christening, Launching, and Commissioning ShipsU.S. Navy ships and submarines are typically christened before being launched and commissioned. The most

familiar part of this ceremony is probably the breaking of a bottle of champagne across the ship’s bow, typical-ly by a woman who has been asked to be the ship’s sponsor.

There are accounts going back to Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome of such events being accompanied by prayer. Greeks favored prayers to Poseidon, and Romans to Neptune, both of whom were considered to be gods of the sea. As Europe Christianized, it was common to sprinkle wine and or holy water on the ship (Reilly 2014).

For a time, the Protestant Reformation converted many of these affairs into secular ceremonies, but, in time, they regained a religious element, which usually included prayer. Since 1843, the prayer most commonly used in America is as follows:

“O Eternal God … may the vessels of our Navy be guarded by Thy gracious Providence and care. May they not bear the sword in vain, but as the minister of God, be a terror to those who do evil and a defense to those who do well. Graciously bless the officers and men of our Navy. May love of country be engraven on their hearts and may their adventurous spirits and severe toils be duly appreciated by a grateful nation. May their lives be precious in Thy sight, and if ever our ships of war should be engaged in battle, grant that their strug-gle may be only an enforced necessity for the defense of what is right. Bless all nations and kindreds on the face of the earth and hasten the time when the principles of holy religion shall so prevail that none shall wage war any more for the purpose of aggression, and none shall need it as a means of defense. All of which blessings we ask through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (Moore 2005, 230)

Another compilation that includes “The Blessing of a Ship,” includes a prayer that gives thanks “for those who built this ship, for those who designed and installed its equipment and those who use it. We pray especially for the captain and crew, and all who run and maintain this vessel. May all they undertake be in accordance with your will and supported by your blessing. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen” (Welbourn).

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See alsoNavy Hymn

FOR REFERENCE Moore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleday;

Reilly John C. 2014. “Christening, Launching, and Commissioning of U.S. Navy Ships.” June 23. https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/christening-launching-and-commissioning-of-u-s- navy-ships.html; Welbourn, David. n.d. “The Blessing of a Ship.” Theology at work. https://www.thelogyof-work.org/work-in-worship-sample-services-the-blessing-of-a-ship

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) Temple Dedications

One church that was born on American soil is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), more popularly known as the Mormon Church. Its founder, Joseph Smith (1805-1844), said he had discovered gold tablets in New York that included additional scriptures known as the Book of Mormon, which he transcribed. This and subsequent revelations said that America was the site of the Garden of Eden, that the lost tribes of Israel had settled here, and that it would eventually become the site of the New Jerusalem. In time, most Mormons moved to Utah, where they believed that their petitionary prayers led to divine deliverance from a plague of grasshoppers. They were led by the charismatic Brigham Young (1801-1877), who practiced polygamy, which church leaders renounced before Utah was accepted into the Union as a state on Jan. 4, 1896.

In addition to supplemental scriptures, the church has a number of distinctive beliefs that differ from those of mainline Christianity. One study of the LDS Church concludes that three central elements of LDS theology include the following: restorationism—the attempt, mirrored in a number of other Protestant denominations, to bring the church back to its earliest foundations; perfectionism—the idea that believers will one day become like God; and millenarianism—the belief, reflected in the church’s name but also shared with some other denominations, that the last days are at hand. Other distinctive features of the church include the belief in eternal families and the practice of baptizing individuals on behalf of those who have died. Indeed, the church has conducted baptisms on behalf of most of America’s Founding Fathers, whom the church believes were divinely inspired when they wrote the U.S. Constitution (Buck 2015, 157-184). The church has a strict moral code and sends young people throughout the nation and the world as missionaries to spread its message.

The LDS Church puts great emphasis on temples where members are married for eternity and where baptisms are conducted. The best known is the one in Salt Lake City, but others have been built throughout the United States and the world.

A study of dedication prayers for such temples from 1836 to 2000 has noted significant similarities as well as changes over time. As to commonalities: “Minimally the speaker addresses God, invites God to accept the offering of the temple, usually invokes priesthood authority, prays for the temple’s sanctification and protec-tion in general terms, often prays for the redemption of the dead (through the temple rites), makes mention of God’s presence in the temple, and closes in the name of Jesus” (Brown 2006, 177). As the church has become more integrated into American culture, recent prayers have put less emphasis on its distinctive cosmology and on its founders and their encounters with Christian saints, and greater emphasis on the

atoning work of Jesus (Brown 2006, 185). Prayers during the last period have a number of identifiable ele-ments, namely, “the authority of the priesthood is invoked, the ordinance is performed in the name of Jesus, the temple is dedicated to both the Father and the Son, both the full name of the temple and the full name of the LDS Church are used, and a plea is made that God will accept the temple” (Brown 2006, 191).

See alsoSeagulls, Crickets, and Mormon History

FOR REFERENCE Brown, Samuel. 2006. “A Sacred Code: Mormon Temple Dedication Prayers, 1836-2000.” Journal of

Mormon History 32 (Summer): 173-196; Buck, Christopher. 2015. God & Apple Pie: Religious Myths and Visions of America. Kingston, NY: Educator’s International Press.

Colonial Interactions with Native AmericansWhen early Europeans arrived on the North American continent, it was undergoing a time of falling

temperatures and variable rainfall associated with the Little Ice Age (White 2015, 33). Numerous accounts in multiple languages and from multiple sites record Native Americans imploring Europeans to pray for rain.

At the time, Europeans had come to distinguish prayer from magic, or satanic forces, which they often associated with Native Americans, much as, in I Kings Chapter 18, the prophet Elijah associated the prayers to Balaam on Mount Carmel with false religion. Sam White, a professor of environmental history, thus observes that “Religion came to be identified with approved practices of prayer or supplication to God, who could intervene or not according to his judgment of the supplicant. Magic, although no less real, came to be identified with the compulsion of some devil or spirit, and came increasingly to be feared and despised as witchcraft” (White 2015, 47).

Although Europeans often interpreted Native American requests for help as a concession to their superior-ity and that of their God, White thinks it is more likely that they were simply extending “invitations to the newcomers to make their own contributions to established weather rites” (White 2015, 50). By contrast, a resident of Plymouth Colony, after contrasting the “soft, sweet, and moderate showers” for which Christians had prayed with the “stormes and tempests” that Indian magic had wrought, observed that this contrast showed “the difference betweene their conjuration, and our invocation on the name of God for rayne” (White 2015, 52; unusual spellings in original).

According to White, European “claims of supernatural influence over the weather could engender fear and suspicion rather than admiration or trust” (2015, 53). Christians recognized that God could withhold blessings from people who failed to repent, or who lacked insufficient faith, or as a test of their faith, but Native Ameri-cans may well have thought that when God failed to answer Christian prayers with rain, this was a sign either that the Christian God had weakened or that Christians were malignantly withholding blessings from them.

Colonial history was filled with calls for prayers during natural calamities, and even modern governors have called for special days of prayer for droughts and other environmental ills.

See alsoColumbus, Christopher, and Other Early European Explorers of the Americas; Puritans; Weather

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FOR REFERENCE White, Sam. 2015. “‘Shewing the difference between their conjuration, and our invocation on the name of

God for rayne’: Weather, Prayer, and Magic in early American Encounters.” The William and Mary Quarterly 72 ( January): 33-56.

Columbus, Christopher, and Other Early European Explorers of the Americas

A comprehensive history of prayer in America correctly notes that the first Christian prayers to be uttered in the Americas were uttered by European explorers and discoverers beginning with the Italian Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), who sailed for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain and continuing with a variety of Italian, Spanish, French, and English successors (Moore 2005). The author points out that Colum-bus was religiously motivated and that it would have been common for members of his crew to begin the day by chanting Christian prayers (Moore 2005, 11). Moore further points to prayers by the Frenchman Jacques Cartier (1491-1557); the Englishmen John Smith (1580-1631) (associated with the settlement at Jamestown, Va.), Sir Francis Drake (c. 1549-1596) (who helped defeat the Spanish Armada), and Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618); and the Pilgrims, some of whom came to America directly from England and others via Hol-land (Moore 2005, 10-16).

For many years, Christopher Columbus was one of the most celebrated men in America, with a holiday and numerous public monuments dedicated to him. He helped frame European understandings of the Americas by describing it as a new Eden or utopia and its natives as pagan children (Paul 2014, 46). Perhaps as important, Columbus also portrayed the land as a cash cow for the monarchs under whose flag he had voyaged and in whose name he had laid claim to the lands he discovered.

Although historians remain divided on the degree to which Columbus anticipated the European slaughter and plundering of Native Americans that would follow, in early American history, American writers like Jeremy Belknap (1744-1798), Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784), Philip Freneau (1752-1832) and Joel Barlow (1754-1812), portrayed him and other explorers as visionaries who would herald the “progress” of European ideals in the Americas. Notably, whereas it is common to identify Columbus as a Roman Catholic, his discoveries actually preceded the religious divisions that followed in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, which began in 1517.

One advantage that Columbus provided to American revolutionaries was that he offered a non-English origin story. Like the colonies themselves, he had been underappreciated and exploited by foreign monarchs. He further seemed to prefigure America’s own westward expansion, to epitomize American individualism, and to underline the role of Providence in American history (Paul 2014, 47). Numerous individuals argued that the proper name for America should be Columbia, which was long used as a national name and symbol. In the 19th century, Columbus was particularly popular among Italian immigrants to the U.S; Roman Catho-lics formed chapters of the Knights of Columbus. Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass included a laudatory poem, the “Prayer of Columbus.”

Just as others have pointed both to Puritan efforts to convert Indians and to their role in destroying Native Americans, so too, in recent years, Native Americans and other critics have led to a reconceptualization of the European “discovery” of America. This has been accompanied by questions about the sincerity of the prayers and religious aspirations of early settlers given their ill treatment and virtual annihilation of many Native American tribes, actions often fed by “naked materialism” (McClay 2019, 21). In understanding themselves as

Christians with access to the only true God, and the native inhabitants as pagans who, like the Canaanites whom the Jews discovered on their return from Egypt to Palestine, relied on mere superstition and magic (White 2015), Europeans’ prayers for their own success often put them at odds with the continuation of Native American cultures.

See also Colonial Interactions with Native Americans; Providentialism; Puritans; Roman Catholics

FOR REFERENCE Delaney, Carol. 2006. “Columbus’s Ultimate Goal: Jerusalem.” Comparative Studies in Society and History

48 (April): 260-292; McClay, Wilfred M. 2019. Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story. New York: Encounter Books; Moore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleday; Paul, Heike. 2014. The Myths That Make America: An Introduction to American Studies. N.Y.: Columbia University Press, Transcript Verlag; White, Sam. 2015. “‘Shewing the difference betweene their conjuration, and our invocation on the name of God for rayne’: Weather, Prayer, and Magic in early American Encounters.” The William and Mary Quarterly 72 ( January): 33-56.

Congress, ChaplainsChaplains in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate are among the institutions that appear

somewhat at odds with many interpretations of the two religious clauses in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Not only do such chaplains offer prayers at the beginning of congressional sessions, and some-times at presidential inaugurations, but they are also paid from public funds. House chaplains are elected at the start of each two-year term, but once they are appointed, those in the Senate do not have to be reelected (Cadge, Olson, and Clendensen 2015, 684).

Because the chaplains are considered to be nonvoting members, subject to the choice of each congressional house, it is likely that any direct legal challenge to their existence might pose a “political question” that the U.S. Supreme Court would avoid. It did, however, uphold the use of a paid chaplain by the Nebraska Legislature in Marsh v. Chambers (1983), by using historical precedent, much of it from Congress itself, in place of its typical use of the three-part Lemon test that it had articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971).

The practice of opening congressional sessions with prayers began in the Continental Congress, when Jacob Duché was invited to pray on Sept. 7, 1774. Although the practice was not followed at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 (largely, it appears, for lack of funds and for fear that hiring a chaplain in mid-proceedings might be interpreted as a sign of distress), it was resumed in the first Congress under the new Constitution. Samuel Provoost, the chaplain of the Senate, also delivered a prayer at George Washington’s first inauguration.

The formation of the congressional chaplaincy got off to something of a rocky start when, after prayers for the success of the colonial cause, Duché switched his allegiance to the British Crown and left for England. He was, however, replaced with more suitable candidates, typically members of the Episcopal Church, includ-ing Provoost, who was the Episcopalian bishop of New York. In a notable exception, Sen. Henry Clay nomi-nated and the Senate confirmed Charles Constantine Pise, a Roman Catholic, as chaplain on Dec. 11, 1832 (Mallory 2004, 54); the House would not select a Catholic for this position until 2011 (Brudnick 2011, 4).

After continuing questioning of the institutions, three reports were compiled, the Thompson Report by the House Judiciary Committee in 1850, the Badger Report by the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1858, and the

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Meacham Report by the House Committee on the Judiciary in 1854. All of these reports concluded that the institution was constitutional because it was non-denominational and non-coercive (Lund 2009, 1199-1200). Still, both the House and the Senate experimented for a time by rotating individuals who would come in to deliver morning prayers, but they ultimately reverted to the formal practice of having a single individual perform this duty for each house. This was done with the apparent expectation that this individual would not only deliver opening prayers, but also minister to the needs of its members, many of whom were far away from their home districts. One hope was that as a fellow member of that body, this individual would direct members’ attention to common national interests. Sen. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts thus noted that a permanent chaplain “who would become acquainted with us, and who would know the interests and wants of the body” would be preferable to a series of individuals who would not (Mallory 2004, 66).

In attempting to explain the role of the chaplains, a report by the House Judiciary Committee issued in 1853 explained, in language reminiscent of James Madison’s account of faction in Federalist No. 10, that:

“If there be a God who hears prayer—as we believe there is—we submit, that there never was a deliberative body that so eminently needed the fervent prayers of a righteous man as the Congress of the United States. There never was another representative assembly that had so many and so widely different interests to protect and to harmonize, and so many local passions to subdue. One member feels charged to defend the rights of the Atlantic, another of the Pacific coast; one urges the claims or constituents on the borders of the torrid, another on the borders of the frigid zone; while hundreds have the defence of local and varied interests stretching across an entire continent. If personal selfishness or ambition, if party or sectional views alone, bear rule, all attempts at legislation will be fruitless, or bear only bitter fruit. If wisdom from above, that is profit-able to direct, be given to answer to the prayers of the pious, then Congress need those devotions, as they surely need to have their views of personal importance daily chastened by the reflection that they are under the government of a Supreme Power, that rules not for one locality or one time, but governs a world by general laws, subjecting all motives and acts to an omniscient scrutiny, and holds all agents to their just awards by an irresistible power.” (Mallory 2004, 64)

In the 20th century, Scottish-born Presbyterian Peter Marshall (1902-1949), who served from 1947-1949, was known for his fervent prayers in Congress. Similarly, Chaplain David Halverson (1916-1995), another Presbyterian who served from 1981 to 1993 and was the first person to hold the position as a full-time job, became known for tending to the personal needs of its members (Feaver 1995). One study of five recent congressional chaplains has observed that each had “a distinct personal prayers style” with considerable variations “including a continuum from the pastoral to prophetic; different underlying assumptions about how God works in Congress, the nation, and the world; varying approaches to policy issues; and different ideas about how to negotiate religious diversity in prayers” (Cadge, Olson, and Clendenen 2015, 699).

Chaplains can be especially important during times of national crisis or tragedy. Thomas Hewling Stockton, a Methodist minister who was chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives, delivered a notable prayer at the dedication of the National Cemetery in Gettysburg on the same day that Lincoln gave his immortal address. On Nov. 22, 1963, Chaplain Frederick Brown Harris (1883-1970), a Methodist who remains the longest serving individual in this position (1942-1947 and 1949 to 1969), was asked to pray as Congress awaited news of President Kennedy’s condition after he was shot in Dallas. Rising to the occasion with a reference to a poem by Edwin Markham and a remark by James G. Garfield that both originally referenced President Lincoln, Harris offered up the following prayer:

“Our Father, Thou knowest that this sudden, almost unbelievable, news has stunned our minds and hearts

as we gaze at a vacant place against the sky, as the President of the Republic goes down like a giant cedar green with boughs goes down, with a great shout upon the hills, and leaves a lonesome place against the sky. We pray that in Thy will his life may still be spared.

“In this hour we cry out in words that were uttered in another hours of deep loss and bereavement: ‘God lives! And the Government at Washington still stands.’

“Hold us, we pray, and the people of America, calm and steady and full of faith for the Republic in this tragic hour of our history.

“God save the state and empower her for whatever awaits for the great world role she has been called to fill in this time of destiny. Amen.” (Mallory 2004, 72-73)

It was not until 1969 that the duties of the Senate chaplain were formally prescribed in a set of guidelines sent under the names of Sens. Mike Mansfield (D) and Everett Dirksen (R). They were as follows:

1. The Chaplain is responsible for the opening prayer each day and, except in emergencies, will be on hand for all openings of the Senate, whether or not a guest Chaplain is scheduled.

2. The Chaplain is responsible for avoidance in his own prayers, and in the prayers of guest Chaplains, of the injection of political partisanship and personal points of view respecting contemporary national and interna-tional issues.

3. The Chaplain is responsible for limiting opening prayers not to exceed two minutes.4. The title “Chaplain of the United States Senate” will not be used in any way in connection with any

sectarian or other religious conflict.5. The Title “Chaplain of the United States Senate” will not be employed in connection with non-religious

purposes. Specifically, it will not be employed on petitions or in advertisements or commercial undertakings of any kind. (Mallory 2004, 80-81)

In addition to evidencing a possible wariness about overly long prayers, these guidelines focus chiefly on seeing that the chaplains provide spiritual perspectives without meddling in partisan politics.

As of 2020, a total of 51 individuals have served as chaplains in the U.S. House and 52 in the Senate (some lists have more, apparently because they count individuals more than once when they served nonconsecutive terms), and their affiliations arguably highlight differences between the two houses. The Senate has had 16 Episcopalian, 13 Presbyterian, 12 Methodist, 5 Baptist, and only 1 Congregationalist, 1 Lutheran, 1 Roman Catholic, 1 Seventh-day Adventist, and 1 Unitarian chaplain, with Episcopalian chaplains especially dominat-ing in the early years. The House has had 16 Methodist, 16 Presbyterian, 7 Baptist, 4 Episcopalian, 3 Congre-gationalist, 2 Roman Catholic, 2 Unitarian, and only 1 Christian, 1 Disciples of Christ, 1 Lutheran, and 1 Universalist Chaplain, with Presbyterians particularly dominating in the early years. Notably, however, some chaplains have served much longer than others.

See alsoCongress, First Prayer in; Madison, James; Presidential Inaugural Prayers; Stockton, Thomas Hewlings; U.S.

Constitutional Convention of 1787

FOR REFERENCE Brudnick, Ida A. May 26, 2011. “House and Senate Chaplains: An Overview.” Congressional Research

Service. 7-5700, www.crs.gov, R41807; Cade, Wendy, Laura R. Olson and Margaret Clendenen. 2015. “Idio-syncratic Prophets: Personal Style in the Prayers of Congressional Chaplains, 1990-2010.” Journal of Church

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and States 64: 680-701; “Chaplains of the House.” https://history.house.gov/People/Office/Chaplains/; Feaver, Karen M. 1993. “The Soul of the Senate.” Christianity Today. Jan. 9, pp. 26-29. https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1995/January9/5t1026.html; “Chaplain of the United States Senate.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaplain_of_the_United_States_Senate; Lund, Christopher C. 2019. “The Congressional Chaplain-cies.” William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. 17: 1171-1214; Mallory, Jeremy G. 2004. If There Be a God Who Hears Prayer: An Ethical Account of the United States Senate Chaplain. Dissertation for doctor of philosophy degree at the University of Chicago; Wexler, Jay. 2009. Holy Hullabaloos: A Road Trip to the Battlegrounds of the Church/State Wars. Boston: Beacon Press, pp. 120-147.

Congress, First Prayer inThe first public prayer delivered in Congress occurred on Sept. 7, 1774. It was uttered by Jacob Duché

(1738-1798). He had been born in Philadelphia and educated at Clare College at Cambridge before becom-ing rector of the Parishes of Christ Church and St. Peter’s in Philadelphia, and the first individual who served as a congressional chaplain.

The Congress had convened at Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia on Sept. 5, 1774, and discussed the ap-pointment of a chaplain the following day. After Thomas Cushing III of Massachusetts proposed opening each day’s sessions with prayer, John Jay of New York and John Rutledge of South Carolina expressed fears that such a selection might accentuate denominational differences. At that point, Samuel Adams, a Congrega-tionalist who was particularly known for his evangelical piety (Stoll 2018), observed that: “I am no bigot. I can hear a prayer from a man of piety and virtue, who is at the same time a friend of his country. I am a stranger in Philadelphia, but I have heard that Mr. Duché deserves that character; and therefore I move that Mr. Duché, an Episcopalian clergyman, be desired to read prayers to the Congress tomorrow morning” (Medhurst 1982, 574).

As Martin Medhurst, a rhetoric professor, has observed, Duché’s nomination and subsequent selection served a number of political purposes. Most members of Congress were at least nominal Episcopalians, and finding a member of this denomination who would serve might not only encourage fellow members to join, but might also influence members of the Anglican laity (1982, 174-175). Anglican priests faced greater pressures in the years preceding up to the American Revolution than those of other denominations because the Anglican Church was the official Church of England, and its priests had taken oaths to uphold the king.

The next morning, Duché appeared and read from the reading prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, which was from Psalm 35. It would have been difficult to find a more fitting passage for conveying the sentiment of the Congress:

“Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for mine help. Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am thy

salvation. Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul: let them be turned back and brought

to confusion that devise my hurt. Let them be as chaff before the wind: and let the angel of the Lord persecute them. For without cause they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul. Let destruction come upon him at unawares; and let his net that he hath hid catch himself: into that very

destruction let him fall.”John Adams wrote a letter to his wife indicating that it “seemed as if Heaven had ordained the Psalm to be

read on that morning” (Medhurst 1982, 577). Although the text of Duché’s apparently extemporaneous prayer that followed has not been preserved

(those who quote from it appear to be quoting from a later prayer discussed below), Adams was equally effusive about it: “I must confess, I never heard a better prayer, or one so well pronounced … . Such Fervor, such ardor, such earnestness and pathos, and in language so elegant and sublime, for America, for the Con-gress, for the province of Massachusetts Bay [the object of Britain’s Coercive Acts], and especially the town of Boston. It has had an excellent effect upon everybody” (Medhurst 1982, 577-578). Silas Deane, of Connecti-cut, observed that Duché “prayed with such fervency, purity, and sublimity of style and sentiment … that even Quakers shed tears” (Werther 2019). Samuel Adams described Duché as having “made a most excellent extemporary prayer, by which he discovered himself to be a gentleman of sense and piety, and a warm advo-cate for the religious and civil rights of America” (Neill 1878, 64).

In July 1775, Duché delivered two sermons that bolstered the revolutionary cause. The first was titled “The Duty of Standing Fast in our Spiritual and Temporal Liberties,” the second “The American Vine,” in which he emphasized the connection, like that of a branch to a vine, that the colonies had to Britain, while caution-ing that the vine needed to take care of the branch. When Congress finally adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, Duché held a meeting with his vestrymen in Christ Church and decided to delete the prayers for the king and substitute prayers for Congress (Medhurst 1982, 579-580), one of the first times this is believed to have happened (Dellape 1995, 298).

When John Hancock, president of the now independent Congress, subsequently requested Duché to serve as its chaplain, he complied and delivered another prayer. Fortunately, we have its text. The first paragraph addressed God as the Supreme Ruler and asked for his mercy on behalf of the United States:

“Our Lord, our Heavenly Father, high and mighty, King of kings, and Lord of lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth, and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all kingdoms, empires, and governments, look down in mercy, we beseech thee, on these our American States, who have fled to thee from the rod of the oppressor, and thrown themselves on they gracious protection, desiring to be henceforth dependent only on thee; to thee have they appealed for the righteousness of their cause; to thee do they now look up for that countenance and support, which thou alone canst give.”

Duché’s second paragraph further asked for God’s care and wisdom and prayed for peace: “Take them, therefore, heavenly Father, under thy nurturing care; give them wisdom in council, and valour

in the field; defeat the malicious designs of our cruel adversaries; convince them of the unrighteousness of their cause, and if they still persist in their sanguinary purposes, oh! Let the voice of thine own unerring justice, sounding in their hearts, constrain them to drop the weapons of war from their unnerved hands in the day of battle.”

Duché’s third paragraph specifically prayed for Congress, again expressing the hope for peace: “Be thou present, O God of wisdom, and direct the counsels of this honourable assembly; enable them to

settle things on the best and surest foundation, that the scene of blood may be speedily closed, that order, harmony and peace may be effectively restored, and truth and justice, religion and piety, prevail and flourish amongst thy people; preserve the health of their bodies, and the vigor of their minds; shower down on them, and the millions they represent, such temporal blessings as thou seest expedient for them in this world, and crown them with everlasting glory in the world to come. (Medhurst 1982, 580-581).

This prayer is characterized not simply by its spiritual sentiments, but also by its rhetorical power, emphasiz-ing the unity of “our American States,” and deftly contrasting the independence that the colonies had de-clared from Britain with their continuing dependency on God (Medhurst 1982, 580). The close of the prayer, in which Duché prays that the people may be crowned, also seems an appropriate metaphor for a people,

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which had effectively uncrowned a king. Although lauded for his patriotism, Duché, who had shared many of the colonists’ grievances against

Britain, became increasingly concerned about the revolutionary cause. He resigned as chaplain, remained in Philadelphia when British forces occupied the city, and resumed prayers for the king (they jailed him over-night), wrote a letter urging George Washington to surrender, and sailed to England where he became enamored with the mystical writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (Duché had long admired the mystical works of William Law). Although Duché returned to Philadelphia after the war, he was never again as lauded as he was during the First Congress.

Duché’s prayer has been commemorated in The Liberty Window at Christ Church in Philadelphia. It is based on a painting by Harrison Tomkins Matteson that he did in about 1848.

Medhurst (1982) notes that just as a chaplain delivered the first prayer before Congress, so too a chaplain, Samuel Provoost, was asked to give the first prayer at a presidential inauguration. When the practice was re-sumed for the inauguration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a congressional chaplain was once again chosen.

See AlsoBook of Common Prayer; Congress, Chaplains; Presidential Inaugural Prayers

FURTHER READING Dellape, Kevin J. 1995. “Jacob Duché: Whig-Loyalist?” Pennsylvania History: Journal of Mid-Atlantic

Studies 62 (Summer): 293-305; Garrett, Clarke. 1975. “The Spiritual Odyssey of Jacob Duché.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 119 (April 16): 143-155; Neill, Edward Duffield. 1878. “Rev. Jacob Duché, the First Chaplain of Congress.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 2,1: 58-73; Medhurst, Martin J. 1982. “From Duché to Provoost: The Birth of Inaugural Prayer.” Journal of Church and State 24 (Autumn): 573-588; Stoll, Ira. May 3, 2018. “The Revolutionary Gospel According to Samuel Adams.” Historynet. https://www.historynet.com/revolutionary-gospel-according-samuel-adams.html; Werther, Rich-ard J. 2019. Journal of the American Revolution. Aug. 6. https://allthingsliberty.com/2019/08/ja-cob-duche-mixing-religion-and-politics-during-the-revolution/

Congress, Prayer CaucusMembers of Congress represent many different interests and constituencies, and they often join caucuses in

addition to their own political parties. The Congressional Prayer Caucus is one such group that Republican Rep. J. Randy Forbes of Virginia founded in 2005. An article published in 2015 indicated that the group had about 90 House members and one from the Senate (Singer 2015). The group meets once a week in Room 219 of the U.S. Capitol to pray and “seek God’s wisdom and guidance in leading our great nation” (Posner 2013). Members also pray for constituents in distress and sometimes send cards to them (Singer 2015). In a refer-ence to the Old Testament prophet who returned from Babylon to help rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, Demo-cratic Rep. Mike McIntyre, a co-chair of the caucus, notes that “Just as Nehemiah build a wall around Jerusa-lem, we want to build a wall of prayer around our nation’s capital” (Posner 2013).

Members chip in money from office accounts paid for by taxpayers to support a single staff member. The group is also supported and funded by the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation (Singer 2015).

Some members of the Prayer Caucus have argued that America is a Christian nation and that religious liberties are under attack. They accordingly issued public statements and filed amicus curie (friend of the court) briefs upholding the right of prayer in public meetings in the case that resulted in the decision in Town

of Greece v. Galloway (2014), supported traditional views of marriage, and advocated public displays of the nation’s motto “In God We Trust.”

The group has created a number of counterparts in a variety of state legislatures and helped support a Missouri ballot initiative to add an amendment to the state constitution protecting the right to pray. It also supported the resolution designating 2010 as “The National Year of the Bible.”

The American Humanist Association and other groups have criticized the caucus for eroding what it believes to be a wall of separation between church and state. It has counseled newly elected members of Congress not to join.

See alsoMissouri Public Prayer Amendment; Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014)

FOR REFERENCE “Congressional Prayer Caucus is Consolidating Power, Researcher Asserts.” 2013. American United for

Separation of Church and State. October. https://www.au.org/church-state-october-2013-church-state/people-events/congressional-prayer-caucus-is-consolidating; Kerby, Lauren R. 2020. Saving History: How White Evangelicals Tour the Nation’s Capital and Redeem a Christian America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press; “Newly Elected Congress Told: Don’t Join Prayer Caucus.” 2012. American Humanist. https://americanhumanist.org/news/2012-11-nonbelievers-ask-new-house-representatives-to-shun-p/; Posner, Sarah. 2013. “A battle over prayer – and much more.” Al Jazeera America. Aug. 27. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/8/27/a-battle-over-prayeraandmuchmore.html; Singer, Paul. 2015. “Prayer Caucus, funded by taxpayers, defends faith in the public square.” USA Today. Sept. 28. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/09/28/prayer-caucus-funded-taxpayers-defends-faith-government-policy/72428692/; Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565 (2014).

Congress, Prayer RoomPrayer has been a part of congressional proceedings since the prayer by Jacob Duché in the First Continen-

tal Congress on Sept. 7, 1774. In 1953, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a resolution to establish a prayer room in the Capitol

Building for members to pray in and to serve as a symbol of member’s faith (Epstein 1996, 2105). Congress subsequently constructed an interfaith room that is dominated by a beautiful stained-glass window that depicts George Washington on one knee with folded hands in a posture of prayer, probably at Valley Forge. Surrounding him are words from Psalm 16: “Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do I put my trust.” Above and below Washington are cartouches of the Great Seal of the United States. Above Washington is also the phrase “THIS NATION UNDER GOD.” Below the window is an open Bible that is usually turned to Psalm 23 (the Shepherd’s Psalm), a candelabra, two kneeing benches, and 10 seats (Epstein 1996, 2106).

This prayer room was completed during the Cold War, near the time when the Congress adopted “In God We Trust” as the official U.S. motto and the time that it added the words “Under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag. This decade also marked the start of the National Prayer Breakfast.

The U.S. Supreme Court specifically upheld the practice of hiring a chaplain to deliver prayers in state legislatures in its decision in Marsh v. Chambers (1983). Indiana established a prayer room in its legislature in 1962, and Illinois decided to do so in 1985 (Epstein 1996, n. 129).

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See alsoCongress, First Prayer in; Marsh v. Chambers; Washington’s Prayer at Valley Forge

FOR REFERENCE ChurchPop Editor. 2016. “Inside the Private ‘Congressional Prayer Room’ Hidden in the U.S. Capitol.”

https://churchpop.com/2016/01/10/congressional-prayer-room-us-capitol/; Epstein, Steven B. 1996. “Re-thinking the Constitutionality of Ceremonial Deism.” Columbia Law Review 96 (December): 2083-2174.

Conroy, Patrick J., and Paul RyanIt is now standard procedure for chaplains of the U.S. Congress to serve for designated terms. Paul Ryan (b.

1970), the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, called this practice into question when, in 2018, he asked Father Patrick J. Conroy (b. 1950), the chaplain of the House, to resign, and he initially agreed to do so.

Conroy, a Jesuit priest, was only the second Roman Catholic to hold this post, and once it became clear that Ryan had pressured him to resign, both fellow congressmen and members of the press criticized his decision. Ryan was himself a Roman Catholic, which arguably made the situation less volatile than it might otherwise have been—Rep. Mark Walker, who was also a Baptist minister, had arguably expressed anti-Cath-olic bias when, during the controversy, he said he hoped members might be ministered to by a married man, a status forbidden to Catholic priests (Dias and Stolbert 2019).

Still, although Ryan offered other justifications, his main reason for asking for Conroy’s resignation cen-tered on Ryan’s social conservatism and Conroy’s greater attention on social justice, which often divides Catholic voters. Conroy expressed his concern for social justice when he offered a prayer in which he asked:

“May all members be mindful that the institutions and structures of our great nation guarantee the opportuni-ties that have allowed some to achieve great success, while other continue to struggle. May their efforts these days guarantee that there are not winners and losers under the new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans” (Dias and Stolbert, 2018).

Although Conroy kept his job, he raised some eyebrows when he offered another prayer in 2019, in the midst of debates over whether to condemn President Trump for tweets saying four House Democratic women should “go back” to their home countries, even though three were natural born and the other was naturalized. After Conroy prayed “In your most holy name, I now cast out all spirits of darkness from this chamber, spirits not from you,” some observers likened his prayer to the rite of exorcism. Disputing this comparison, Conroy said he had been primarily inspired by traditional Catholic blessings on homes and buildings. He further claimed to have been “intentionally non-partisan,” explaining that “I wasn’t picking sides. That’s ultimately the goal every day. I want every member of the House to be able to say ‘Amen’” (Burke 2019).

See alsoCongress, Chaplains; Roman Catholics

FOR REFERENCE Burke, Daniel. 2019. “House chaplain prays to cast ‘spirits of darkness’ from Congress.” CNN. July 23.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/18/politics/house-chaplain-demons/index.html; Dias, Elizabeth, and Sheryl Gay Stolbert. 2018. “Firing of House Chaplain Causes Uproar on Capitol Hill.” The New York Times. April 27. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/us/politics/house-chaplain-fired.html

D

Dalai LamaThe first Buddhist to give a prayer before the U.S. Senate was the Dalai

Lama, the spiritual head of Tibet, who did so in early June 2014. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had invited him to speak, and Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii and the only Buddhist in the Senate, greeted him (Mascaro 2014).

Dressed in saffron robes, the 14th Dalai Lama (b. in 1935 in China as Tenzin Gyaltso), who is known for his defense of human rights against his nation’s occupation by the Peoples’ Republic of China, alternated between his native Tibetan language and English.

His prayer was relatively short: “With our thoughts, we make our world. Our mind is central and precedes our deeds. Speak or act with a pure mind,

and happiness will follow you like a shadow that never leaves. May there be joy in the world with harvest and spiritual rest. May every good fortune come to be and may all our wishes be fulfilled” (Rogers, 2014). He added: “This is my favorite prayer. Daily I pray this. That gives me inner strength. So I am asking to serve humanity. As long as space remains and as long as sentient beings remain, until then may I too, remain and help dispel the misery of the world. Thank you” (Rogers 2014).

Although less than a dozen Democrats and even fewer Republicans attended (Mascare 2014), there does not appear to have been any protest as happened when Rajan Zed, a Hindu priest, offered a prayer on the Senate floor in 2007.

See alsoHindu Legislative Prayers; Pluralism

FOR REFERENCE Mascaro, Lisa. 2014. “In a first for the Senate, the Dalai Lama gives the opening prayer.” Los Angeles Times.

March 6. https://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-dalai-lama-senate-201403306-story.html; Rogers, Alex. 2014. “Dalai Lama Gives Prayer on Senate Floor.” Time. March 6. https://time.com/14056/dalai-lama-senate-prayer/

Davis, JeffersonJefferson Davis (1808-1889) was a Mississippi politician who served both as a member of the House of

Representatives and a U.S. senator. He also served as secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce. Davis is best known for defending slavery, advocating secession of the Southern states from the Union, and serving as president of the Confederate States of America during the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865).

On Jan. 21, 1861, Davis addressed fellow senators in a speech announcing that because his state had

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declared its separation from the Union, he was resigning. Justifying state secession, Davis argued that his state was following the philosophy of the Declaration of Independence, which, in his judgment, referred to the equality of states rather than to the equality of individuals, and thus did not apply to African-Americans. Al-though he did not offer a prayer during this speech, he hoped that his state’s parting from the Union would be amicable, but observed that if the Union resisted secession, “we will invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them from the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear; and thus, putting our trust in God and in our own firm hearts and strong arms, we will vindicate the right as best we may” (Davis 1861a).

Davis gave two inaugural addresses, one on Feb. 18, 1861, after delegates to the confederate congress created a provisional constitution, and another on Feb. 22, 1862, after being elected under the permanent document that succeeded it (NCC STAFF 2019). Both are notable for their reliance on the Declaration of Independence as a justification for Southern secession and for the fact that they both invoked God and ended, like some U.S. presidential inaugural addresses, with prayers. Neither speech is thought to equal Lincoln’s own inaugural addresses, which set an unusually high bar.

In the first address, Davis observed that Southern states were declaring their “separate existence and independence which we have asserted, and, with the blessing of Providence, intend to maintain” (Davis 1861b). Later in this speech, Davis observed that if the North refused to allow the South to leave in peace, “it will but remain for us, with firm resolve, to appeal to arms and invoke the blessings of Providence on a just cause” (Davis 1861b). He ended with a prayer: “Reverently let us invoke the God of our fathers to guide and protect us in our efforts to perpetuate the principles which, by his blessing, they were able to vindicate, estab-lish and transmit to their posterity, and with a continuance of His favor, ever gratefully acknowledged, we may hopefully look forward to success, to peace, and to prosperity” (Davis 1861b).

At his second inauguration, which was held on George Washington’s birthday, Davis observed that he was taking his oath “in the presence of the people and before high Heaven” (Davis 1862). He further mused that

“It was, perhaps, in the ordination of Providence that we were to be taught the value of our liberties by the price which we pay for them” (Davis 1862). As in his first inaugural address, Davis ended with a prayer:

“With humble gratitude and adoration, acknowledging the Providence which has so visibly protected the Confederacy during its brief but eventful career, to thee, O God, I trustingly commit myself, and prayerfully invoke thy blessing on my country and its cause” (Davis 1861). As with Washington’s first inauguration, Davis had invited the congressional chaplain to offer a prayer at the inauguration. Davis also invited Basil Manly Sr. (1798-1868), a former president of the University of Alabama, to do the same.

On Oct. 31, 1861, Davis issued a call for a day of thanksgiving and humiliation for Nov. 5, in which he invited clergy and laypersons “to repair on that day to their homes and usual places of public worship, and to implore blessing of almighty God upon our people, that he may give us victory over our enemies, preserve our homes and altars from pollution, and secure to us the restoration of peace and prosperity.” On Sept. 4, 1862, he issued a proclamation of thanksgiving and prayer for victories at the battle of Manassas, Va., and Rich-mond, Ky. On Feb. 18, 1865, in response to a joint resolution by the Confederal Congress, he issued another call for “a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, with thanksgiving” for March 5 in which he observed, “It is our solemn duty, at all times, and more especially in a season of public trial and adversity, to acknowledge our dependence on His mercy, and to bow in humble submission before His footstool confessing our manifold sins, supplicating His gracious pardon imploring His divine help, and devoutly rendering thanks for the many and great blessings which he has vouchsafed to us” (Davis 1865). He further expressed the hope “that the Lord of Hosts will be with our armies, and fight for us against our enemies; and that He will gratuitously take

our cause into His own hand and mercifully establish for us a lasting, just and honorable peace and indepen-dence” (Davis 1865). Just over a month later, on April 9, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of North-ern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant, effectively bringing the war, and the Confederacy, to an end.

On Sept. 12, 1865, President Andrew Johnson pardoned Manly for his offenses, which apparently included his prayer at Davis’s inauguration. Manly’s son provided a copy of his prayer, which was published by the Confederate Veteran in June 1921 in Nashville, Tenn. It called upon God to bless both President Davis and the Confederate Congress. It ended with the request: “Let the administration of the government be the reign of truth and peace; let righteousness, which exalteth a nation, be the stability of our times; and keep us from sin, which is a reproach to any people. Establish thou the work of our hands upon us, turn the counsel of our enemies into foolishness, and grant us assured and continual peace in all our borders.” It ended in the name of

“Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

See alsoLincoln, Abraham, Second Inaugural Address; Presidential Inaugural Prayers; Presidential Proclamations of

Prayer and Thanksgiving; Washington, George, First Inaugural Address

FOR REFERENCE Davis, Jefferson. 1861a. “Jefferson Davis’ Farewell Address.” Rice University. Jan. 21. https://jeffersondavis.

rice.edu/archives/documents/jefferson-davis-farewell-address; Davis, Jefferson. 1861b. “Jefferson Davis’ First Inaugural Address.” Rice University. Feb. 18. https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/archives/documents/jefferson-da-vis-first-inaugural-address; Davis, Jefferson. 1862. “Jefferson Davis’ Second Inaugural Address.” Feb. 22. https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/archives/documents/jefferson-davis-second-inaugural-address; Davis, Jefferson. 1865. “Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer” proclaimed. Feb. 18. Richmond Times-Dispatch. https://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/; Fuller, A. James. 2000. Chaplain to the Confederacy: Basil Manly and Baptist Life in the Old South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press; Manley, Basil Jr. June 1861. “Prayer at Inauguration of President Davis.” Confederate Veteran, p. 1; NCC Staff. 2019. “Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln: Dueling inaugural addresses.” National Constitution Center. Feb. 18. https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/jefferson-davis-and-abraham-lincoln-dueling-inaugural-addresses; “The Pardon of Basil Manly. History Engine. https://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/4335; Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations. Pilgrim Hall Museum https://pilgrimhall.org/pdf/TG_Presidential_Thanksgiving_Proclama-tions_1862_1869.pdf; Stout, Harry S. 2006. Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War. New York: Penguin Books.

Deaths of U.S. PresidentsFew events have been more traumatic in U.S. history than the deaths of presidents, especially when they

were the result of assassinations. As presidents hovered between life and death, and as they were subsequently buried, many Americans undoubtedly uttered prayers both that they would survive and that the nation would remain secure. Altogether, four American presidents have died of natural causes while in office, and four have

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been assassinated. Each successor took the oath of office without a formal inaugural ceremony, where prayers have been common since the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The first president to die in office of natural causes was William Henry Harrison, a popular former general who ran as a Whig and who died in 1841 a month after his inauguration. He was succeeded by his vice president, John Tyler, a former Democrat, whom he had chosen largely to balance his ticket, and who estab-lished the precedent that he would take the oath of office for president (rather than just relying on the oath that he took as vice president) and assume the full duties of the office rather than simply acting as an interim until the nation could choose another. In his first address to Congress, which he delivered on April 9, 1841, Tyler said, “My earnest prayer shall be constantly addressed to the all-wise and all-powerful Being who made me, and by whose dispensation I am called to the high office of President of this Confederacy, understanding-ly to carry out the principles of that Constitution which I have sworn ‘to protect, preserve and defend.’” Ending this speech by “confiding in the protecting care of an ever watchful and overruling Providence,” Tyler said that “it shall be my first and highest duty to preserve unimpaired the free institutions under which we live and transmit them to those who shall succeed me in their full force and vigor.”

The next president to die in office, also a former general who ran as a Whig, was Zachary Taylor, who assumed office in 1849 and died 16 months later, also of natural causes. In his first speech to Congress, on Dec. 2, 1850, his successor Millard Fillmore referred to “a painful dispensation of Divine Providence” that had brought him “to the responsible station which I now hold.” He ended this fairly long speech by saying that “I can not bring this communication to a close without invoking you to join me in humble and devout thanks to the Great Ruler of Nations for the multiplied blessings which He has graciously bestowed upon us. His hand, so often visible in our preservation, has stayed the pestilence, saved us from foreign wars and domestic distur-bances, and scattered plenty throughout the land.” He further hoped “that His all-wise providence will so guide our counsels as that they shall result in giving satisfaction to our constituents, securing the peace of the country, and adding new strength to the united Government under which we live.”

Republican Warren G. Harding, a former Ohio senator, died of natural causes in 1923 and was succeeded by Calvin Coolidge. Although taciturn in comparison with his gregarious predecessor, Coolidge was a great speechmaker. Though his first speech to Congress did not specifically invoke prayer, it appealed to a number of religious virtues. He ended by observing that:

“The world has had enough of the curse of hatred and selfishness, of destruction and war. It has had enough of the wrongful use of material power. For the healing of the nations there must be good will and charity, confidence and peace. The time has come for a more practical use of moral power, and more reliance upon the principle that right makes its own might. Our authority among the nations must be represented by justice and mercy. It is necessary not only to have faith, but to make sacrifices for our faith. The spiritual forces of the world make all its final determinations. It is with these voices that America should speak. Whenever they declare a righteous purpose there need be no doubt that they will be heard. America has taken her place in the world as a Republic—free, independent, powerful. The best service that can be rendered to humanity is the assurance that this place will be maintained.”

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s passing in April 1945 was particularly traumatic, because the nation was still at war with Japan, and Roosevelt had been serving as president since 1933. As Harry S. Truman was stunned by the news that he was now president, he turned to a group of reporters and said, “If you ever pray, pray for me now” (Glass 2018). In his first address to Congress on April 16, the day after Roosevelt’s funeral,

Truman ended with a prayer drawing from Scriptures in both the Old and New Testaments: “At this moment, I have in my heart a prayer. As I have assumed my heavy duties, I humbly pray Almighty God, in the words of King Solomon: ‘Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad; for who is able to judge this thy so great a people’ I ask only to be a good and faithful servant of my Lord and my people.” Truman, who had not known of the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, would make the fateful decision to drop two of them on Japan to bring an end to the war, and he began the process of containing Soviet communism.

Abraham Lincoln was the first U.S. president to be assassinated. He was shot on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, just days after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered his forces to General Ulysses S. Grant, which had brought an effective end to the Civil War. Rarely, if ever, did a presidency descend to a less worthy successor than Andrew Johnson, a former Democrat from Tennessee, who had been chosen to help balance the ticket and became the first president ever to be impeached. As Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase adminis-tered the oath to Johnson, he announced, “You are the President, May God guide, support, and bless you in your arduous labors.” Johnson responded with, “The duties of the office are mine. The consequences are with God” (Stout 2006, 449).

Ironically, on the day that Lincoln died, James Garfield, the next president who would die from an assas-sin’s bullet in 1881, had spoken to a group of panicked citizens as he heard the news while visiting New York. Speaking of God, he had observed that “clouds and darkness are around about Him. His pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. Justice and judgment are the establishment of His throne! Mercy and truth shall go before His face! Fellow citizens, God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives” (Rosen 2016, 83).

Chester A. Arthur, who succeeded Garfield, changed his reputation from that of a machine politician to embrace the cause of civil service reform. Garfield’s assassination was particularly trying because he lingered for 80 days between being shot and his death, during which time many people had prayed for his recovery. His demise, like the subsequent death of William McKinley in 1901, led numerous individuals to question why their prayers had not been answered with his recovery (Ostrander 2000, 3). This was the subject of a pamphlet published by a Presbyterian minister in 1881, The problem of prayer and the death of President Gar-field (Sunderland 1881).

The year after Garfield died, the Gugler Lithograph Co. in Milwaukee published a colorful lithograph of an acrostic “Garfield’s Prayer” on what it referred to as an unfinished James A. Garfield Monument (“Gar-field’s Prayer”). The bottom of the proposed monument contained an acrostic poem, “Voice of the Nation,” with another acrostic that spelled out “Garfield Our Dead President.” The last verse read as follows:

Prayers have ascended to God o’er thy grave, Requiems of sorrow—bitter tears have been shed; Every native born freeman and unshackled slave, Suffers deep anguish to know thou art dead. In truth, has the heart of the whole nation bled. Death has not robbed us of all thou hast given; Even clouds cannot shut out the light of the day. Now, while thy spirit is resting in heaven, The light of thy life work illumines our way.

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McKinley’s assassination in 1901 led to further ruminations on God’s providence. A devout Methodist, whose mother had hoped he would become a bishop rather than a president, he exhibited Christ-like behav-ior in first urging the crowd not to hurt his assassin and then in his reputed last words, which echoed the Lord’s Prayer in saying “It is God’s way. His will, not ours, be done” (Smith 2015, 189).

In his first speech to Congress, McKinley’s successor, Theodore Roosevelt, ended by noting how the U.S. had expressed its sorrow over the death of Britain’s Queen Victoria, and how it had in return received many messages of sympathy from abroad on the death of President McKinley. He concluded by saying: “In the midst of our affliction we reverently thank the Almighty that we are at peace with the nations of mankind; and we firmly intend that our policy shall be such as to continue unbroken these international relations of mutual respect and good will.” Roosevelt later gave one of his finest speeches after being shot as he gave a speech while unsuccessfully running for president as a Bull Moose, or Progressive, candidate in 1912. He survived the shooting but was defeated by Woodrow Wilson in a three-way race.

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963 and was succeeded by Lyndon B. Johnson, who evoked Kennedy’s memory in pushing through numerous acts of legislation. After Johnson disembarked from his plane in Washington, D.C., after taking his oath of office, he said: “This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me, it is a deep personal tragedy. I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help—and God’s” ( Johnson 1971, 17). In his address to a joint session of Congress on Nov. 26, 1963, Johnson ended by saying:

“I profoundly hope that the tragedy and the torment of these terrible days will bind us together in new fellowship, making us one people in our hour of sorrow. So let us here highly resolve that John Fitzgerald Kennedy did not live—or die—in vain. And on this Thanksgiving eve, as we gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing, and give Him our thanks, let us unite in those familiar and cherished words:

America, America, God shed His grace on thee, And crown thy good With brotherhood From sea to shining sea.”

The editors of Christianity Today subsequently noted that “When the occupant of the most powerful office in the world publicly acknowledges such reliance upon the One who is higher than he, the Christian heart is touched,” while also saying it was the duty of Christians to pray for the president and other leaders with “a sense of solidarity with the nation, a sense of being America” (Padgett 2020, 320-33).

After Robert F. Kennedy, who had quieted a crowd in Indianapolis earlier in the year after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated, was mortally wounded in California in 1968 as he ran to succeed Johnson as president, a bystander handed him a rosary, which he clutched in his hands.

See also“America the Beautiful”; Kennedy, Robert F; McKinley, William; Truman, Harry S.

FOR REFERENCE. Coolidge, Calvin. Dec. 6, 1923. “First Annual Message.” https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presiden-

tial-speeches/december-6-1923-first-annual-message; Fillmore, Millard. Dec. 2, 1850. “First Annual Mes-sage.” https://millercenter.org/the-presidency-presidential-speeches/decvember-2-1850-first-annual-message;

“Garfield’s Prayer/ the Gugler Lith. Co., Milwaukee.” https://www.loc.gov/resources/pga.01426/; Glass, Andrew. 2018. “Truman sworn in as 33rd president, April 12, 1945,” April 12. Politico. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/12/harry-truman-sworn-in-as-33rd-president-april-12-1934-511037; Johnson, Lyndon B. Nov. 17, 1963. “Address to Joint Session of Congress.” https://millercenter/org/the-presidency/presiden-tial-speeches/november-27-1963-address-joint-session-congress; Johnson, Lyndon Baines. 1971. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston; Nelson, Michael. 2013. “Removal of the President and the Vice President.” The Presidency and the Executive Branch, 5th ed., Vol. I of 2. Ed. Michael Nelson. Sage/CQ Press: Los Angeles; Washington, D.C., pp. 483-533; Ostrander, Rick. 2000. The Life of Prayer in a World of Science: Protestants, Prayer, and American Culture, 1870-1930. New York: Oxford University Press; Padgett, Timothy D., ed. 2020. Dual Citizens: Politics and American Evangelicalism. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press; Roosevelt, Theodore. Dec. 3, 1901. “First Annual Message.” https://miller-center.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-3-1901-first-annual-message; Rosen, Fred. 2016. Murdering the President: Alexander Graham Bell and the Race to Save James Garfield. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, Potomac Books; Smith, Gary Scott. 2015. Religion in the Oval Office: The Religious Lives of American Presidents. New York: Oxford University Press; Stout, Harry S. 2006. Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War. New York: Penguin Books; Sunderland, B. (Byron). 1881. The problem of prayer and the death of President Garfield. Washington, D.C. E. Henkle; Truman, Harry S. April 16, 1945. “First Speech to Congress.” https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/april-16-1945-first-speech-congress; Tyler, John. April 9, 1841: Address Upon Assuming the Office of President of the United States. https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/april-9-1841-address-upon-assum-ing-office-president-united

Dolan, Timothy M.Timothy Michael Dolan (b. 1950) is a Roman Catholic cardinal and has been serving as the archbishop of

New York since 2009. He delivered the opening prayer at the Republican National Convention of 2020 that re-nominated Donald J. Trump and Mike Pence for president and vice president. The week before, Democrats had nominated Joe Biden (a Roman Catholic) for president and Kamala Harris for vice president.

On the eve of Dolan’s appearance, Brian Frawley, a former Augustinian Catholic priest, suggested that the prayer “gives every appearance of another hierarchical hit job on Biden’s pro-choice views,” and suggested that it was inappropriate in light of Trump’s strong stance against illegal immigration and his policies with regard to environmental protection and other issues. He quoted Dolan, however, as noting that “I want to say that I maintain almost neutrality when it comes to politics … . If we don’t pray for America, as Catholics, who will?” (Frawley 2020).

As it turns out, Dolan’s prayer was among the least partisan of the utterances on the opening night of a convention that largely sought to portray Democrats as anarchists, socialists, and communists.

Early in his prayer, Dolan noted that America was a land “where both Republicans and Democrats begin their conventions, heads bowed in prayer.” As he reached the end, he prayed that God’s hand would be “upon this convention and the nominees of both parties,” and that God would bestow “his wisdom upon an elector-ate so eager to perform its duty of faithful citizenship.”

Moreover, although Dolan included a plea “for the innocent life of the baby in the womb,” he also included

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prayers for those in uniform, for health-care workers, “for our immigrants and refugees,” and “for those lives threatened by religious persecution throughout the world, or by plague, hunger, drugs, human trafficking or war.”

Dolan’s prayer was more memorable than most because he built it around the theme of “pray we must,” which was repeated four times, and “pray we do,” which was its penultimate line.

Dolan’s opening lines introduced the theme. “Let us pray. And pray we must, as grateful citizens of a country we boldly claim to be one nation under God.” In a slight variation, he ended with “Pray we do, for we dare claim. In God We Trust.”

See alsoNational Nominating Conventionsl; Roman Catholics

FOR REFERENCE Dolan, Timothy Michael. 2020. “Read: Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s prayer at the Republican National

Convention.” America Magazine. Aug. 24. https://www.americamagazine.ofg/faith/2020/08/24/read-cardi-nal-timothy-dolans-prayer-republican-national-convention; Frawley, Brian. 2020. “Cardinal Dolan is making a mistake by praying at RNC.” CNN. Aug. 24. https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/24/opinions/cardinal-dolan- praying-rnc-frawley/index.html;

Duché, Jacob

See Congress, First Prayer In

E

Ecumenical PrayersJust as Christians are divided into Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, and

Protestants of various denominations, so too, Jews and Muslims, which are also monotheistic, are also divided into different sects while other groups can be classified as polytheistic, agnostic, or atheistic.

Public occasions, especially those of celebration, commemoration, and mourning, often bring people from different faith traditions together and often involve public prayers. In such situations, individuals who pray may choose to mute their own denominational differences or pray within their own traditions in hopes that different prayers will reflect the sentiments of diverse groups within the audience.

Some denominations have higher bars for members of their clergy to participate in such ceremonies than do others. The LCMS, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, is a particularly conservative denomination that values doctrinal purity. Indeed, the group migrated to the United States from Germany in 1839 after the German government attempted to force it into a union with Calvinists (Hertz 2002). On at least two occasions, the denomination has taken steps that have highlighted its exclusiveness.

One such event occurred after the denomination suspended the Rev. David Benke, president of the church’s Atlantic District, after he offered a prayer at an interfaith event at Yankee Stadium to honor those who had been killed in the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001. Charges against him included “syncretism (mixing religions), unionism (worshiping with non-LCMS Christian clergy), and violating the Bible’s com-mandment against worship of other gods” (Hertz 2002). Ironically, Benke had offered his prayer in Jesus’s name, as his denomination required. Benke refused to apologize for what he continued to believe was an appropriate action, and the LCMS subsequently reinstated him (Associated Press 2003).

After a mass shooting at a school in Newtown, Conn., however, the LCMS subsequently reprimanded the Rev. Rob Morris, the pastor of the Christ the King Lutheran Church, for participating in a vigil along with other Christian pastors as well as Muslim, Jewish, and Baha’i clergy (Bell 2013). He, in turn, apologized, saying, “I believed my participation to be, not an act of joint worship, but an act of community chaplaincy” (Bell 2013). Moreover, the Rev. Matt Crebbin, who was pastor of the Newtown Congregational Church, had introduced the proceedings by saying, “We are not here to ignore our differences or diminish the core beliefs which define our many different faith traditions” (Bell 2013). The LCMS church has acknowledged that it is not in complete agreement about the meaning of the prohibition of joint worship.

See alsoIn Jesus’s Name; Prayer for America; Prayer Vigils; Sherwood, Diane, Prayer After Terrorist Attacks

FOR REFERENCE Associated Press. 2003. “Lutheran Panel Reinstates Pastor After Post-9/ll Interfaith Service.” The New York

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Times. May 13. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/13nyregion/lutheran-panel-reinstates-pastor-after-post-9-ss-in terfaith-service.html; Bell, Caleb. 2013. “Lutheran pastor apologizes for praying at Newtown vigil.” NCRonline. Feb. 7. https://www.ncronline.org/news/parish/lutheran-pastor-apologizes-praying-new-town-vigil; Hertz, Todd. 2002. “Benke Suspended for ‘Syncretism’ after 9/11 Event.” Christianity Today. July 1. https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/julyweb-only/7-29-31.0.html

Eisenhower, Dwight D. “Inaugural Prayer”As he highlights in the introduction to a book devoted to explaining the increasing introduction of religion

in the public square in the 1950s and thereafter, Kevin M. Kruze observes that, in contrast to earlier presi-dents, Dwight D. Eisenhower announced at a meeting of his cabinet nominees that he would be attending a special service at the National Presbyterian Church on the morning of his inauguration on January 20, 1953 and invited them to join him (Kruze 2015, x).

Public prayers at presidential inaugurations had been resumed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, after a long gap between his inauguration and the first inauguration of George Washington, but Eisenhower added an additional private prayer after taking the oath of office and before giving his Inaugural Address. He prefaced the prayer with: “My friends, before I begin the expression of those thoughts that I deem appropriate to this moment, would you permit me the privilege of uttering a little private prayer of my own? And I ask that you bow your heads. (Eisenhower 1953).

Beginning with the salutation “Almighty God,” Eisenhower prayed not only for himself but on behalf of “my future associates in the executive branch of the government.” He beseeched that “Thou will make full and complete our dedication to the service of the people in this throng and their fellow citizens everywhere,” and he petitioned God for “the power to discern clearly right from wrong and allow all our works and actions to be governed thereby and by the laws of this land.” Recognizing that he was president not simply over those who had voted for him but over all the people, he prayed “that our concern shall be for all the people, regard-less of station, race or calling.” He repeated this theme in his closing sentence: “May co-operation be permit-ted and be the mutual aim of those who, under the concept of our Constitution, hold to differing political beliefs, so that all may work for the good of our beloved country and for Thy glory, Amen.” This prayer is often appropriately titled “A Prayer for Unity.”

At the end of the Inaugural Address that followed, Eisenhower further said that “This is the work that awaits us all, to be done with bravery, with charity, and with prayer to Almighty God.”

Crowds reportedly responded positively to the prayer. A Louisiana oilman was among other who reprinted Eisenhower’s prayer, with his own prayer, which reflected back on Eisenhower’s role as commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War II: “God Save Our President Who Saved Our Country and Our World” (Kruze 2015, xi).

Eisenhower subsequently became the first president to institute the practice of saying prayers before cabinet meetings (Kruze 2015, xii). In 1953, he attended the first National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. In 1954, Congress added the words “under God” to the Pledge to the U.S. Flag, in 1954, the term “In God We Trust” was first added to a U.S. postage stamp, and in 1956 Congress voted to make this phrase the official national motto. Such actions were, in part, a way to heighten the contrast between America’s commit-ment to religious freedom and communist nations like Russia and the People’s Republic of China

Eisenhower ended his presidency much as he had begun. Although the Farewell Address that he gave in

January of 1951, is primarily known for his warnings of a military-industrial complex, he ended by expressing what he called “America’s prayerful and continuing inspiration.” To this end, he prayed for the fulfillment of human needs, the spread of freedom and a world at peace:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experi-ence its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learns charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time; all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love. (Eisenhower 1961).

See also Presidential Inaugural Prayers of 1937

FURTHER READINGEisenhower, Dwight D. January 20, 1953. “First Inaugural Address.” American Rhetoric Online Speech

Bank. https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwighteisenhowerfirstinaugural.htm; Eisenhower, Dwight D. 1961. “Transcript of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address.” www.ourdocuments.gov; Kruse, Kevin M. 2015. One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America. New York: Basic Books.

Emerson, Ralph WaldoRalph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), the son of a Unitarian minister, was a graduate of Harvard and of its

divinity school who left a life of preaching and teaching to become one of America’s best-known essayists. A strong individualist, he was a leader of the Transcendentalist movement in Boston and lectured widely.

Emerson’s first sermon, which he delivered in 1826, after a period of physical ailments and religious doubts (Richardson 1995, 63-72), was subsequently circulated as an essay. It was based on the biblical admonition in I Thessalonians 5:17 to “Pray without ceasing.” Emerson began by observing that although individuals can judge others only on the basis of their actions, it seems credible “that the thoughts of the mind are the subjects of perception to some beings, as properly, as the sounds of the voice, or the motions of the hand are to us.”

He posited that human beings “stand in the midst of two worlds, the world of matter and the world of the spirit. Our bodies belong to one; our thoughts to the other” (Emerson 1826). Although it is common to focus on the material world, the spiritual world is actually even more real and imperishable, and our thoughts are

“so many parts of the imperishable universe of morals” that are open to divine scrutiny. Emerson reasoned that “It is not only when we audibly and in form, address our petitions to the Deity that

we pray. We pray without ceasing. Every secret wish is a prayer. Every house is a church; the corner of every street is a closet of devotion.” The result is to minimize the distance between the human and the divine, for

“the minds of men are not so much independent existences, as they are ideas present to the mind of God; that he is not so much the observer of your actions as he is the potent principle by which they are bound together; not so much the reader of your thoughts as the active Creator by whom they are aided into being.” Emerson concluded that since we are “surrendered unreservedly to the unsleeping observation of the Divinity, we cannot shut our eyes to the conclusion, that, every desire of the human mind, is a prayer uttered to God and registered in Heaven.”

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Although based on a passage from Scripture, Emerson’s view of prayer turned the emphasis away from petitionary prayer to distinct divine being to the idea that humans join God in prayer through their ideas and thoughts.

See alsoPetitionary Prayer

FOR REFERENCE Emerson, Ralph Waldo. 1826. “Pray Without Ceasing.” https://www.uuministry.com/emerson/wp-con-

tent/uploads/2016/12/Pray-without-Ceasing-RWE.pdf; Richardson, Robert D. 1995. Emerson: The Mind on Fire. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Enemies, Prayers for One of the most difficult teachings of the Bible is found in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, wherein he urged

his followers to pray for those who persecute them. Classic expositions of justice more typically advised readers to love fellow countrymen and to hate enemies.

President Barack Obama has been among those who have suggested that the doctrine of praying for one’s enemies and other teachings in the Sermon on the Mount are “so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application” (Burke 2009).

At least one president has said, however, that he attempted to follow Jesus’s injunction to pray for enemies. Thus, at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1980, Jimmy Carter, whose presidency was marred by the capture of 52 American hostages in Iran by members of the Revolutionary Guard who were loyal to the Ayatollah Khomeini, said the following:

“The Bible says even the worst sinners love and pray for their friends, the ones who love them. And some-times we don’t go that one more step forward in growth, not on a single cataclysmic, transforming experience, but daily, and count those against whom we are alienated. At least every day, list them by name, and say, ‘God, I pray for that person or those people.’ Every day, I pray for the Ayatollah Khomeini. Every day, of course, I pray for those who are held hostages as innocents. It’s not easy to do this, and I have to force myself sometimes to include someone on my list, because I don’t want to acknowledge that that person might be worthy of my love. And the most difficult thing of all, I think, is to go one step even further than that and thank God for our difficulties, our own disappointments, our own failures, our own challenges, our own tests” (Korte 2016).

Although the mission did not succeed, Carter’s prayers did not prevent him from sending a military force to rescue the hostages.

The dogs of war make it difficult to pray for enemies. One of the strengths that Abraham Lincoln demon-strated was his ability to acknowledge in his Second Inaugural Address and elsewhere that individuals in both North and South prayed to the same God but for different outcomes, both of which God could not possibly fully honor. Lincoln suggested that God might have purposes (including wiping out the economic benefits that slavery had brought) that were incompatible with complete victory by either side. In his short story, “The War Prayer,” Mark Twain pointed out that prayers for victory by one side might be the equivalent of praying for death and destruction on the other.

Some presidents and other leaders have moderated sentiments against enemy forces by distinguishing between foreign governments, who may be fighting against American interests, and their nationals who may have little choice but to support what their government commands, especially if that government is oppressive.

Just as Adolf Hitler’s hatred of Jews led to the Holocaust, so too, racially motivated and culturally insensitive portrayals of all Germans as Huns, or of all Japanese as slanty-eyed “Japs” during World War II, or of North Vietnamese as “gooks,” can result not only in battlefield cruelty but in nativist sentiments against American immigrants from these nations, such as when the U.S. interred more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent during World War II.

Particularly in times of deep partisan division, involving emotional issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, gun violence, and the extent of religious liberties, it might be almost as difficult to pray for one’s domestic enemies as for foreign foes. Barbara Williams-Skinner, who has served for many years as a host of the Na-tional Prayer Breakfast, notes that she has witnessed leaders in apartheid South Africa and on both sides of the Berlin Wall “praying with and for each other” (2019). She might have added that commissions for peace and justice, which require full accounting for past wrongs without full punishment, have done much to heal wounds as South Africa has transitioned to majority rule. As an African-American, Williams-Skinner said she had particular difficulty praying for President Donald J. Trump, but did so because Scripture admonishes citizens to pray for all those who are in authority.

Asked whether she hated President Trump, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives who had approved of the House vote to impeach him, responded that “I don’t hate anyone. I was raised in a way that is a heart full of love, and always pray for the president. And I still pray for the president. I pray for the president all the time” (Shear 2019). At the 2020 National Prayer Breakfast, Trump dismissed her rhetoric: “I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong. Nor do I like people who say ‘I pray for you’ when they know that’s not so” (Samuels 2020).

See alsoLincoln, Abraham, Second Inaugural Address; National Prayer Breakfast; Trump, Donald, and Nancy

Pelosi; Twain, Mark, “The War Prayer”

FOR REFERENCE Burke, Daniel. 2009. “Obama Uses Sermon on the Mount to Elevate Speeches.” Christianity Today. April

24. https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/aprilweb-only/116-51.0.html; Korte, Gregory. 2016. “How presidents pray: The prayer breakfast from Eisenhower to Obama.” USA TODAY. Feb. 4. https://www.usatoay.com/story/news/politics/theoval/2016/02/04/how-presidents-pray-prayer-breakfast-eisenhow-er-obama/79786384/; Samuels, Brett. 2020. “Trump hits Romney, Pelosi for invoking religion during im-peachment.” The Hill. Feb. 6. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/481800-trump-hits-romney-pe-losi-for-invoking-religion-during-impeachment; Shear, Michael. 2019. “Pelosi Denies ‘Hate’ for Trump, Who Accuses Her of Having a ‘Nervous Fit.’” The New York Times. Dec. 5; Williams-Skinner, Barbara. 2019. “Praying for Your Enemies Empowers the Journey for Justice.” Skinner Leadership Institute. Feb. 5. https://www.skinnerleaders.org/post/praying-for-your-enemies-empowers-the-journey-for-justice

Engel v. Vitale (1962)One of the most passionate issues that has faced the U.S. Supreme Court is the issue of public prayer in

state schools. Although there had been a number of controversies in the 19th century related to prayer and Bible reading in schools (Vile 2020), the Supreme Court’s most important decision on the subject occurred in Engel v. Vitale (1962).

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The controversy arose when a group of 10 parents of diverse religious beliefs from the Union Free School District No. 9, New Hyde Park, N.Y., challenged the practice of having students begin each day in the presence of their teacher by reciting an ecumenical prayer adopted by the State Board of Regents as part of its Statement on Moral and Spiritual Training in the Schools. The prayer was: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.” The parents argued that the law violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment as applied to the states through the due-process clause of the 14th Amendment, but all three of the New York courts who heard the case rejected this argument.

Justice Hugo Black delivered the majority opinion overturning these decisions. Justices Felix Frankfurter and Byron White did not participate in this decision, and Justice Potter Stewart dissented from it. Black, who was known as a constitutional absolutist who stressed a strict reading of the Constitution and full application of the provisions of the federal Bill of Rights to the states, immediately identified the prescribed prayer as “a religious activity” (1962, 424). Black further observed that “the constitutional prohibition against laws respect-ing an establishment of religion must at least mean that in this country it is no part of the business of govern-ment to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government” (1962, 425).

Noting that many Europeans had come to America to escape an established church, Black emphasized the way in which the Book of Common Prayer had, in England, “set out in minute detail the accepted form and content of prayer and other religious ceremonies to be used in the established, tax-supported Church of England” (1962, 426). He further pointed to the manner in which proposed changes to this prayer book had accentuated religious differences in England and how such controversies continued as churches were estab-lished in U.S. colonies and states. Black said Americans had adopted the First Amendment so that the government would not “be used to control, support or influence the kinds of prayer the American people can say—that the people’s religions must not be subjected to the pressures of government for change each time a new political administration is elected to office” (1962, 429-430).

Responding to defenses of the prayer based on the fact that it was nondenominational, and that school authorities allowed students to remain silent during the prayer or even be dismissed from the room during this time, Black said neither defense was adequate in the case of violations of the establishment clause. Viola-tions could occur even without coercion, because the clause’s “first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion” (1962, 431). Citing James Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, Black further said that the establishment clause stood for the principle “that religion is too personal, too sacred, too holy, to permit its ‘unhallowed perversion’ by a civil Magistrate” (1962, 432).

Countering the further argument that prohibiting state-mandated prayers was an expression of “hostility toward religion or toward prayer,” Black positively observed that “The history of man is inseparable from the history of religion. And perhaps it is not too much to say that since the beginning of that history many people have devoutly believed that ‘More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of ’” (1962, 434). Although the First Amendment sought “to put an end to governmental control of religion and of prayer,” it “was not written to destroy either” (1962, 435). Even though the New York prayer fell far short of establishing a state religion, it was important to follow the counsel that James Madison had offered in opposition to religious assessments in recognizing that “It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties” (1962, 436).

In a concurring opinion, Justice William O. Douglas, while recognizing a number of ways in which govern-ments acknowledge religion, thought that the key to this case was that the teachers were being paid by the state and were thus forbidden from participating in this capacity in religious activities.

Justice Stewart’s dissent questioned the relevance of the Book of Common Prayer, which had developed from an established state church, or the wall of separation between church and state that was often invoked in this kind of case. Pointing out that the U.S. Supreme Court began its own sessions with “God save the United States and this Honorable Court,” that one of the stanzas of the national anthem invoked God, and that the nation had adopted the words “In God We Trust” as the national motto and added the words “under God” to the pledge to the flag, Stewart said the New York prayer no more established religion than had the authors of the Declaration of Independence when in 1776 they had avowed their “firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence” (1962, 450).

Although some individuals defended the majority decision as a means of preventing state domination of religion, others denounced it strongly. New York Republican Congressman Frank Becker referred to the decision as “the most tragic decision in the history of the United States” (Becker and Feeley 1973, 24). Oppo-sition was probably heightened when, in Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), the Supreme Court extended the injunction against state-written prayers to devotional Bible readings and recitations of the Lord’s Prayer. There were numerous proposals, none of which has succeeded, to restore both prayer and Bible reading through a U.S. constitutional amendment (Dierenfield 2007).

In Wallace v. Jaffree (1985), the Supreme Court struck down an Alabama law that specifically designated prayer as an option during prescribed moments of silence while leaving the door open for a law that did not privilege prayer over other activities. In Lee v. Weisman (1992), the Court further extended a ban on prayers delivered by members of the clergy at public school graduations, and Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000) extended a similar prohibition to student-led prayers at football games.

Many critics continue to charge that it is necessary to restore Bible reading and prayer to public schools in order to combat the nihilism and violence evident in contemporary America and in recent mass school shootings (Feuerherd 2019).

See alsoAbington School District v. Schempp; Book of Common Prayer; God Save the United States and This Honor-

able Court; Madison, James; Moments of Silence; Prayer and Bible Reading in Public Schools; Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe; Wallace v. Jaffree

FOR REFERENCE Abington School District v. Schempp. 374 U.S. 203 (1963); Becker, Theodore L., and Malcolm M. Feeley, eds.

1973. The Impact of Supreme Court Decisions: Empirical Studies. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press; Dierenfield, Bruce J. 2007. The Battle Over School Prayer: How Engel v. Vitale Changed America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas; Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962); Feuerherd, Peter. 2019. “How Columbine Brought Religion Back into Public Life.” JSOR Daily. April 14. https://daily.jstor.org/how-colum-bine-brought-religion-into-public-life/; Keynes, Edward, with Randall K. Miller. 1989. The Court vs. Congress: Prayer, Busing, and Abortion. Durham, NC: Duke University Press; Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000); Smith, Rodney K. 1987. Public Prayer and the Constitution: A Case Study in Constitution-al Interpretation. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources; Smith, Steven D. 2020. “Why School Prayer Mat-ters.” First Things. N.v. (March): 43-48; Vile, John R. The Bible in American Law and Politics: A Reference Guide. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield; Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985).

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F

The Family That Prays Together Stays TogetherOne of the most familiar mottos related to prayer in America is the

statement that “the family that prays together stays together.” According to one article, it has been placed on more than 100,000 billboards throughout the United States (Konecny).

The slogan is most frequently associated with Father Patrick Peyton (1909-1992), a Catholic immigrant from Ireland who was educated at the University of Notre Dame and Holy Cross College at Catholic University (Gribble 2001). He developed the “Family Theater of the Air,” a highly successful radio and then a television show featuring Hollywood celebrities, and led a crusade for Family Prayer, also known as the Family Rosary Cru-sade, from 1942 until his death. The slogan itself was apparently coined on

Father Peyton’s behalf by Al Scalpone, a New York advertising executive, who also coined the phrase, “A world at prayer is a world at peace” (Konecny). Other phrases used by the Family Theater included “Troubled? Try Prayer,” “Don’t Give Up! Pray, It works,” and “God Makes House Calls” (Konecny).

Father Peyton grew up in a family where his father led the Rosary Prayer each evening. While in college, Peyton had faced tuberculosis and attributed his recovery to a prayer to Mary. As the slogan he adopted for his program indicated, Peyton saw prayer as the answer to rising divorce rates and juvenile delinquency (Gribble 2001, 54).

Today a Museum of Family Prayer in North Easton, Mass., honors Father Peyton.

See alsoRoman Catholics; Rosary

FOR REFERENCE Gribble, Richard. 2001. “‘Family Theater of the Air’: The Radio Ministry of Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C.,

1945-1952.” U.S. Catholic Historian 19 (Summer): 51-66; Konecny, Tom. “The Origin of the Motto, ‘The Family That Prays Together Stays Together,’” MeetAmerica. https://www.meetamerica.com/the-origin-of-the-motto-the-family-that-prays-together-stays-together/; Phalen, John. “The Family That Prays Together Stays Together.” https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/family-that-prays-together-stays-together-5494

Films and MoviesOne common place that individuals publically gather together is in movie theaters, an experience that has

been extended, albeit somewhat privatized, by the ability to rent movies or to download them on television. In 2017, a film critic, Josh Larsen, wrote a provocative book in which he compared entering a theater to

entering a house of worship, and classified movies as prayers. In so doing, he asked readers to “accept that prayers can be unintended and can come from unbelievers, [and] that even the howl of an atheist is directed at the God they don’t acknowledge” (2017, 15). He followed by describing movies that were similar to

“prayers of praise,” “prayers of yearning,” “prayers of lament,” “prayers of anger,” “prayers of confession,” “prayers of reconciliation,” “prayers of obedience,” “prayers of meditation and contemplation,” “prayers of joy,” and

“prayers as journey.” Working from a Christian perspective, he was especially interested in highlighting prayers that follow a “creation-fall-redemption-restoration trajectory,” namely: “the understanding that this world was created good, fell into sin, has been redeemed by Christ’s work on the cross, and now awaits the full return to its original glory” (2917, 165).

In another book Terry Lindvall from Virginia Wesleyan University surveyed portrayals of prayer though this history of more than 500 silent films and movies, describing each within the context of the larger plot. He chose to survey films through time periods, which he tied to various religious developments. He variously described these as the periods of silent prayers (1902-1927), censored prayers (1927-1939), foxhole prayers (1939-1945), postwar secular prayers (1946-1963), cynical prayers (1964-1976), revival of prayers (1976-1988), postmodern prayers (1989-2000), and millennial prayers (2000-2017) (2017, v).

What is particularly exciting about Lindvall’s study is the degree to which he finds that “these films embed practices of prayer on a fairly regular basis” in an industry that is often criticized for its secularism (2017, 5; 328). Further noting that movies present “a diversity of prayer types and praying agents” who “confess, give thanks, or make supplication” (2017, 326), Lindvall describes many movies as “parables that invite reflection” (201, 327). He explains: “Some are exemplary: they model how to talk to God, what to talk about, what it means to engage in prayer. Others are revelatory: they show us something about ourselves, about our culture, or about the narcissism or deepest yearnings of the human soul. They speak to subterranean currents of anxiety, fear, hope, longing, or gratitude. Like jokes, cinematic prayers can be laid alongside some truth or insight that enables them to spark an idea in the one who sees and hears” (2017, 327). Noting that movies typically place much more emphasis on individual rather than collective prayer, Lindvall found that one of the most remarkable aspects of prayers portrayed on screen is that in many movies, they “alter the very arc of the narrative,” often changing both “people and stories” (2017, 327).

See alsoTelevision

FOR REFERENCE Larsen, Josh. 2017. Movies Are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings. Downers Grove, IL: IVP

Books; Lindvall, Terry. 2019. God on the Big Screen: A History of Hollywood Prayer from the Silent Era to Today. New York: New York University Press.

Fosdick, Harry EmersonHarry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969), who was one of the leading liberal Protestant voices in the 20th

century, was a graduate of Colgate University and Seminary and of Union Theological Seminary. After being exonerated of charges of heresy by the General Assembly of the Old Presbyterian Church in the USA, he

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resigned from the First Presbyterian Church and accepted a pastorate of the Park Avenue Baptist Church and later the ecumenical Riverside Church, which had the support of John D. Rockefeller Jr.

Fosdick wrote two books directly related to prayer. In The Meaning of Prayer, he downplayed emphasis on petitionary prayers when they were understood as “an Aladdin’s lamp by rubbing which we summoned the angels of God to do our bidding” (1920, 28-29) and later compared prayers for changes in the physical world to “primitive magic” (Ostrander 2000, 153).

In another work, A Book of Public Prayers (1959), Fosdick noted how denominations that elevated sponta-neous prayers over liturgical prayers sometimes “too easily” end up “creating their own routine, week after week repeating themselves, using well-worn clichés, until the public prayer becomes to many a verbal formali-ty” (1959, 8).

In a prayer for “A National Anniversary,” Fosdick embraced the idea of America’s special mission and the aid of Providence. He thus observed that: “Our fathers have said that thou wert to them a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, that thou didst lead them, thy word a lamp unto their feet and a light unto their path. Be that to us. We too, are pilgrims and pioneers still launching out on stormy seas for lands unknown. Each day is an adventure. O God of the pilgrims and pioneers, lead us in paths of righteousness for thy name’s sake” (Fosdick 1959, 154). Similarly, in a prayer “In the Event of War,” Fosdick wrote: “Thanks be to thee for the rich heritage of our past, for the personalities who have inspired and led us, for the ideas of liberty and democracy that have gone before us, a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, and for the manifold bless-ings of our country made sacred by the sacrifices of our sires. We pray for her with full hearts and for our sons and daughters who represent her near and far. God make America a blessing in the midst of the earth” (Fos-dick 1959, 158).

In “A Litany of the Nation,” Fosdick asked God to deliver the nation “From the ravages of crime, the disgrace of political corruption, and all malicious designs of lawless men.” He also asked for God’s deliverance “from prejudice of race and color, making schism in the commonwealth; from all inequity that, causing a few to be rich and many poor, begets ill will and spoils fraternity; from loss of liberties bequeathed us by our sires and from careless acceptance of our heritage and neglect of its responsibilities” (Fosdict 1959, 176). Near the end of this same litany, he further asked that God would “save our national loyalty from narrowness and our flag from selfish shame; by our love for our land may we measure the love of others for their lands, honoring their devo-tion as we honor our own; and acknowledging thee one God, may we see all mankind one family and so govern our national affairs that the whole world may become one brotherhood of peoples” (Fosdick 1959, 177).

See alsoLiturgical versus Spontaneous Prayers ; Petitionary Prayers; Weather

FOR REFERENCE Fosdick, Harry Emerson. 1959. A Book of Public Prayers. New York: Harper & Brothers; Fosdick, Harry

Emerson. 1920. The Meaning of Prayer. New York: Association Press; Ostrander, Rick. 2000. The Life of Prayer in a World of Science: Protestants, Prayer, and American Culture 1870-1930. New York: Oxford University Press; Vecsey, Christopher. April 17, 2018. “Harry Emerson Fosdick: Colgate’s most distinguished graduate, now unknown.” https://200.colgate.edu/looking-back/people/harry-emerson-fosdick-colgates-most-distin-guished-graduate-now-unknown

Foxhole PrayersOne of the most memorable sayings that emerged from World War II was the statement, which has been

ascribed to a Roman Catholic chaplain, William T. Cummings (1903-1945), that “there are no atheists in foxholes” (Snape 2015, 322). Such faith was presumed to be especially evident in the prayers of believers in combat—though, interestingly, a poll reported by The Washington Post in 2012 notes that 11 percent of atheists pray, six percent of whom pray on a daily basis (Clanton 2014, 108, n. 2). An accompanying saying from Douglas E. Leach, who had served on the destroyer Elden, reported that “there were few atheists among those Americans who went down to the sea in ships,” while a book by Col. Robert L. Scott popularized the idea among American pilots that “God Is My Co-Pilot” (Snape 2014, 323-24).

One problem with such reports of widespread prayers in combat is that, at the time, few Americans, in civilian or military life, identified as atheists (Clanton 2014, 324). Although American chaplains reported throughout World War II that battles and preparations for battles often led to increased prayer and religious devotion among their men, they were sometimes divided as to whether the prayers necessarily signaled real devotion or whether they were simple products of fear. In an account of the war in Italy, war correspondent Richard Tregaskis reported in his Diary that when one foul-mouthed GI had cried out to God during a barrage, a soldier in an adjacent foxhole yelled, “Hey, Joe, why don’t you knock off that cryin’ for help, and talk to somebody you know?” (Snape 2014, 328).

Chaplain Oscar A. Withee published an article, “Foxhole Religion,” in the April 1945 issue of The Link in which he observed that soldiers who prayed in foxholes tended to fall into three categories. As summarized by Michael Snape, some were devout believers “who prayed for moral support and that God’s will be done.” Others, who were “essentially indifferent to religion,” nonetheless kept their “foxhole religion as a life-preserver for emergencies.” Yet a third group, while asking for deliverance, was also prompted to think about the wider role of prayer in life and contemplate the possible purposes for which God had spared them (Snape 2014, 331).

Prayer and religious observances were also prominent among individuals who were held in captivity, al-though this effect may have stemmed in part from the lack of other activities.

Popular books like Margaret Lee Runbeck’s The Great Answer promoted stories of how soldiers’ prayers had led to God’s deliverance, while theologians sometimes cautioned that God sometimes allowed pious men to suffer and die. There seems to be rather compelling evidence that prayer, and the presence of chaplains, strengthened the resolve of soldiers and increased their morale and their sense of companionship (Snape 2014, 343-44). Families and churches on the home front often prayed for the safety of such soldiers.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower issued a statement to invading troops on D-Day assuring them that “The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you,” and asking for “the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking” (Eisenhower 1944). Franklin D. Roosevelt offered a prayer that was broadcast shortly after the D-Day invasion for soldiers participating in the fight. Recognizing that many would die in the invasion, Roosevelt’s prayer included a plea that God would “embrace” and

“receive” those who so perished (Roosevelt 1944). Reliance upon prayer was often combined with or supplanted by steely fatalism, by reliance on various

good-luck charms, often of a religious nature, and even by soldiers’ placing New Testaments with metal covers in their shirt pockets where they might stop incoming bullets (Snape 2014, 361-62).

See alsoPetitionary Prayer; Roosevelt, Franklin D-Day Prayer

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FOR REFERENCE Clanton, J. Caleb. 2014. “George Santayana and the Problem of Petitionary Prayer.” American Journal of

Theology & Philosophy 35 (May): 108-128; Eisenhower, Dwight D. 1944. “Document for June 6th: D-day statement to soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force, 6/44.” America’s Historical Documents. https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/?dod-date=606; Roosevelt, Franklin D. 1944. “A ‘Mighty Endeavor:’ D-Day.” Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. https://www.fdrlibrary.org/d-day; Runbeck, Margaret Lee. 1944. The Great Answer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin; Snape, Michael. 2015. God and Uncle Sam: Religion and America’s Armed Forces in World War II. Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, Boydell Press. See especially chapter 4, “Foxhole Religion and Wartime Faith,” pp. 317-395.

Franklin, BenjaminBenjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was one of America’s most revered Founding Fathers, having both signed,

and served on the committee that helped to write, the Declaration of Independence, and attended the Con-stitutional Convention of 1787, where he unsuccessfully called for the sessions to begin in prayer.

A printer, scientist, journalist, inventor, and diplomat, he devoted much of his long life to public service, and generally sought to mediate conflict. Although he is often identified as a Deist, Franklin was good friends with the evangelist George Whitefield, whose works he published, and a scholar has recently argued that Franklin could better be described as a “Christian Deist,” who privileged reason over revelation but remained convinced that God sometimes intervened in human affairs and that prayer could thus be helpful (Waligore 2016, 9).

One among many of Franklin’s more fascinating projects was that of revising the Lord’s Prayer, which he appears to have done sometime between September 1768 and well before 1773, perhaps in emulation of John Wilkin’s efforts to create a “philosophical language” (Notes accompanying Franklin, “A New Version of the Lord’s Prayer,” Founders Online) This revised prayer was first printed in Franklin’s Works by Jared Sparks in 1840, although some subsequent printings have been inaccurate (Phillips 1950, 338-339).

Franklin offered explanations for his revisions, most of which centered on making the prayer more concise and eliminating outdated language. His prayer was as follows: “Heavenly Father, may all revere thee, and become thy dutiful Children and faithful Subjects; may the Laws be obeyed on Earth as perfectly as they are in Heaven: Provide for us this Day as thou hast hitherto daily done: Forgive us our Trespasses, and enable us likewise to forgive those that offend us. Keep us out of Temptation, and deliver us from Evil” (Franklin, Founders Online).

In a much earlier writing dated Nov. 20, 1728, Franklin had written out both his Articles of Belief, which were fairly heterodox. He also wrote a prayer, which is perhaps most remarkable for its focus on the natural world and for not mentioning Jesus:

“O Creator, O Father, I believe that thou are God, and that thou art Good, and that thou art pleas’d with the Pleasure of thy Children.

“Praised be thy Name for Ever.“By thy Power hast thou made the glorious Sun, with his attending Worlds; from the Energy of thy mighty

Will they first received their prodigious Motion, and by thy Wisdom hast thou prescribed the wondrous Laws by which they move.

“Praised be thy Name for ever.“By thy Wisdom hast thou formed all Things, Thou hast created Man, bestowing Life and Reason, and

plac’d him in Dignity superior to thy other earthly Creatures.

“Praised be thy Name for ever.“Thy Wisdom, thy Power, and they GOODNESS are every where clearly seen; in the Air and in the Water,

in the Heavens and on the Earth; Thou providest for the various winged Fowl, and the innumerable Inhabi-tants of the Water: Thou givest Cold and Heat, Rain and Sunshine in their Season, and to the Fruits of the Earth increase.

“Praised be thy Name for Ever.“Thou abhorrest thy Creatures Treachery and Deceit, Malice, Revenge, Intemperance and every other

hurtful Vice; but Thou art a Lover of Justice and Sincerity, of Friendship, Benevolence and every Virtue. Thou art my Friend, my Father, and my Benefactor.

“Praised be thy Name, O God, for Ever. “Amen” (Franklin 1728, “Articles of Belief ”). Franklin, the master of epigrams, published at least two that are associated with prayer. One, often incorrectly

thought to be from the Bible, is the phrase, “God helps those who help themselves.” Another is the admonition to “Work as if you were to live a hundred years, pray as if you were to die tomorrow” (Moore 2005, 71).

See alsoLord’s Prayer; U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787

FURTHER READING Franklin, Benjamin. “A New Version of the Lord’s Prayer,” Founders Online. https://founders.archives.gov/

documents/Franklin/01-15-02-0170 ; Franklin, Benjamin. 1728. “Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion.” Nov. 20. Founders Online. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/-1-01-02-0032; Hoffer, Charles. 2011. When Benjamin Franklin Met the Reverend Whitefield. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univer-sity Press; Moore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleday; Phillips, William L. 1950. “Franklin’s Version of the ‘Lord’s Prayer’: A Restoration of the Text.” American Literature 22 (November): 338-341; Waligore, Joseph. 2016. “The Christian Deist Writings of Ben-jamin Franklin.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 140 ( January): 7-29.

Freedom from Religion Foundation v. ObamaIn a case originally directed at President George W. Bush and his press secretary, President Barack Obama

was challenged by the Freedom from Religion Foundation for following a congressional law adopted in 1988 calling for him to designate the first Thursday in May as a National Day of Prayer. A U.S. district court in Wisconsin had issued a summary judgment indicating that the proclamation conflicted with the establish-ment clause of the First Amendment. The case was appealed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in an opinion issued by Judge Frank H. Easterbrook overturned this decision on the basis that the Freedom from Religion Foundation did not have proper standing to challenge the order.

Easterbrook noted that presidents typically issue proclamations calling for prayer on Memorial Day and Thanksgiving Day, and for a National Day of Prayer. Easterbrook observed, however, that in order to chal-lenge such proclamations individuals must have standing, a legal principle that calls for “injury, causation, and redressability” (2011, 805), none of which he thought were present in this case. He said the law “imposes duties on the President alone. It does not require any private person to do anything—or for that matter to take any action in response to whatever the President proclaims” (2011, 805). He further observed that “If

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anyone suffers injury, therefore, that person is the President, who is not complaining” (2011, 805). Noting that Obama had invited individuals of all faiths to participate, Easterbrook further opined that “no one is obliged to pray, any more than a person would be obliged to hand over his money if the President asked all citizens to support the Red Cross and other charities. It is not just that there are no penalties for noncompliance; it is that disdaining the President’s proclamation is not a ‘wrong.’ The President has made a request; he has not issued a command. No one is injured by a request that can be declined” (2011, 806). Noting that Abraham Lincoln had made seven references to God and three to prayer in his Second Inaugural Address, Easterbrook observed that “The Judicial Branch does not censor a President’s speech” and that those who disagree with a president’s speech “are not entitled to silence the speech of which they disapprove” (2011 806).

In response to arguments that such proclamations make individuals “feel excluded, or made unwelcome, when a President asks them to engage in a religious observance that is contrary to their own principles” (2011, 806-807), Easterbrook argued that “hurt feelings differ from legal injury” (2011, 807). He cited the decision in United States v. SCRAP (1973), in which the Supreme Court concluded that the “value interest of con-cerned bystanders” was insufficient to establish standing; the decision in Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc. (1983) denying standing to a group that had heard of a government transfer of church property to a religious organization through the news; and the decision denying standing in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow (2004) to an individual who had attempted to challenge the words “under God” in the pledge to the American flag that his daughter heard at school. Quoting from the Valley Forge decision, Easterbrook concluded that “the ‘psychological consequence presum-ably produced by observation of conduct with which one disagrees’ is not an ‘injury for the purpose of stand-ing’” (2011, 808). He included George Washington’s first Thanksgiving Proclamation and the challenged Obama proclamation in an appendix.

In a concurring opinion, Judge Ann Claire Williams argued that the Elk Grove decision was inapplicable because its decision on standing rested on the fact that Newdow was a noncustodial parent. She agreed, however, that the alleged psychological consequences or asserted feelings of exclusion on the part of members of the Freedom from Religion Foundation were “too attenuated to confer standing” on the foundation (2011, 812).

See alsoMemorial Day; National Day of Prayer; Presidential Proclamations of Prayer and Thanksgiving

FOR REFERENCE Eisenberg, Gail Schnitzer. 2011. “Turn to the Constitution in Prayer: Freedom from Religion Foundation v.

Obama, the Constitutionality and the Politics of the National Day of Prayer.” National Lawyer Guild Review 68: 193-214; Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1 (2004); Freedom from Religion Founda-tion v. Obama, 641 F.3d 803 (2011); United States v. SCRAP, 412 U.S. 669 (1973); Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 454 U.S. 464 (1982).

G

“God Bless America”Congress did not officially adopt “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which Francis Scott Key authored in 1814

and which suggests that the nation’s motto should be “In God Is Our Trust,” as the nation’s official anthem until 1931. Both before and after this designation, numerous other songs have been used to celebrate America. They include: “America the Beautiful,” which Katharine Lee Bates wrote in 1895 and published in 1910; “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” which Samuel Francis Smith wrote in 1831; “God Bless America,” which Irving Berlin, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, wrote during World War I, but which was not popularized until Kate Smith sang it over the radio in 1938; and “This Land Is Your Land,” which Woody Guth-rie wrote in 1940 and first recorded in 1944.

In a number of places, Bates’s song appears to contain prayers. The end of the first stanza asks that “God shed his grace on thee / And crown thy good with brotherhood”; the end of the second stanza asks that “God mend thine

every flaw”; the end of the third implores “May God thy gold refine”; and the fourth reverts to the prayer of the first stanza.

By contrast, Berlin’s entire composition appears to be an extended prayer for the nation, which, when the composition was first published, was viewing the “storm clouds” of World War II gathering across the ocean. Like Bates, Berlin emphasizes the physical landscape (mountains, prairies, mountains, and oceans) in and around the nation, but repeatedly requests that “God bless America.”

One might interpret the lyrics as either requesting God’s blessings or as assuming that they are the nation’s due. In thus contrasting “God Bless America” with “America the Beautiful,” Mark Pedelty notes that “Berlin’s song puts more emphasis on a heavenly presence and divine blessing. We, the people, are exceptional. ‘Ameri-ca the Beautiful’ humbly asks for God’s ‘grace,’ whereas ‘God Bless America’ has a palpable sense of Manifest Destiny [America’s right to expand from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast] and a triumphant tone from title to final refrain. It is American exceptionalism made manifest in song” (2012, 51).

The title and the final lines of three stanzas of a song by Lee Greenwood (b. 1942), which was first released in 1984 and has become increasingly popular, asks, or prays, that “God bless the U.S.A.” It is common for politicians, especially presidents, to end their speeches with the words “God bless America” almost as though they were using it as a benediction.

In Great Britain, which uses “God Save the Queen [King]” as its anthem, the entire song is an extended prayer for the monarch.

See also God Bless America as Benediction

FOR REFERENCE Pedelty, Mark. 2012. Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk, and the Environment. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University

Press; Vile, John R. 2020. America’s National Anthem: “The Star-Spangled Banner” In U.S. History, Culture, and Law. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

God Bless America as Benediction

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One of the most common phrases in modern political discourse is the phrase “God bless America.” It is a kind of prayer, or benediction, typically used to close a speech. Two scholars have observed that the phrase

“succinctly combines an explicit reference to a supreme being with the term America, the most symbolically charged invocation of the nation” (Domke and Coe 2010, 61). The term has, of course, been made popular by the eponymous song by Irving Berlin that he wrote and set aside during World War I but that became popular after first being sung on the radio by Kate Smith in 1938.

Although presidents currently use this phrase, usually as a type of benediction, in nine of 10 speeches that they give, this is a relatively new development. President Richard M. Nixon used the phrase in a speech related to the Watergate scandal in 1973, and a number of presidents have used variants—like Nixon’s “May God’s grace be with you in all the days ahead”—but Ronald Reagan, who also called upon audiences to utter a silent prayer, was the modern president who brought the expression into use, initially using the phrase “God bless you” (Domke and Coe 2010, 62-63).

The increasing use of this specific phrase is part of a larger trend requesting divine favor upon the nation. Two scholars thus noted that: “Through 1980, the president who most commonly closed his addresses with a request for divine favor upon America or Americans was Gerald Ford, who did so 46% of the time. Five of the eight presidents from Roosevelt to Carter did so less than 30% of the time. Beginning in 1982, the relationship between God and country became much more intimate. Reagan and George H.W. Bush each closed their national addresses with a request for divine favor more than 90% of the time, and Bill Clinton and George W. Bush followed suit 89% and 87% of the time respectively” (Domke and Coe 2010, 62).

Professor Marie-Louise Steyn observes that George W. Bush, who often resorted to religious language, used the phrase “May God Continue to Bless America” as a “trademark line,” praying not only for future blessing but expressing the conviction that God has been with America in the past (2007, 85).

See also“God Bless America”

FOR FURTHER READING Domke, David and Kevin Coe. 2010. The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America.

New York: Oxford University Press; Kruse, Kevin M. 2015. One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America. New York: Basic Books; Steyn, Marie-Louise. 2007. “May God Continue to Bless America: Religion and Politics in Post-9/11 America through the Lens of Buddhist Philosophy.” Journal for the Study of Religion 20, 2: 77-100.

“God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hand”Pilgrims and others who came to America identified America as a new promised land, like that promised to

the Jews in Hebrew Scriptures, and themselves as a covenant people with a special mission and destiny. In the analogy that John Winthrop borrowed from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, he said that the Massachusetts Bay Colony would be like a city upon a hill that could not be hid. Other nations would judge the colony by the degree to which it adhered to its ancient covenant, which the Old Testament had outlined.

A common mode that Jews have used to address God in prayer is to refer to him as “God of our fathers.” This is sometimes expressed in the phrase “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” the fathers of the Jewish

race. Jewish Christians who believe that their own faith expression is a continuation of this tradition could use the same phrase, as could non-Jewish Christians who interpreted the phrase as a form of spiritual rather than physical descent (Katzoff 2009).

One hymn, written in the form of a prayer, that expresses both the religious and political dimensions of this history is the hymn, “God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hand.” It was written by Daniel D. Roberts, rector of the St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Brandon, Vt., to help celebrate the centennial of U.S. Indepen-dence in 1876. Originally sung to the tune of the Russian Hymn, it was later reset to a new tune written by George W. Warren in 1892 and dubbed “The National Hymn.” It is distinguished in part by its trumpet fanfare (“God of Our Fathers”), which makes it particularly appropriate for state events.

The first verse of the hymn is probably the best known. It opens by referring to God and praising him for Creation:

“God of our fathers, whose almighty hand Leads forth in beauty all the starry band Of shining worlds in splendor through the skies, Our grateful songs before thy throne arise.” The second verse focuses on the nation’s freedom, and God’s loving superintending power on its behalf: “Thy love divine hath led us in the past; In this free land by thee our lot is cast. Be thou our Ruler, Guardian, Guide, and Stay, Thy word our law, thy paths our chosen way.” The third verse highlights specific evils, including war and pestilence, from which the people hope to be spared: “From war’s alarms, from deadly pestilence, Be thy strong arm our ever-sure defense. Thy true religion in our hearts increase. Thy bounteous goodness nourish us in peace.” The fourth verse, which might seem more appropriate to a people wandering in the wilderness than to one

that has reached the Promised Land, focuses more on blessing the people of God than those of the nation, though, in the hymn, the two have been clearly merged:

“Refresh thy people on their toilsome way, Lead us from night to never-ending day; Fill all our lives with love and grace divine, And glory, laud, and praise be ever thine.” (“The History of ‘God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hand’”) This hymn was the first of two songs sung by the United States Navy Sea Chanters at the National Cathe-

dral as part of the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance on Sept. 14, 2001, memorializing those who had been killed in the terrorist attacks on the United States three days earlier (Sanders 2016, 69). Noting that that song “does not contain a glorification of the nation, a sense of resolve, or militaristic attitudes,” one historian has observed that it does draw “on the idea of the United States as a special nation, covenanted with—and therefore protected by -- God,” which she identifies as “a key example of American civil religious

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thought” (Sanders 2016, 69). Interestingly, Ethel Boyce wrote “An English Hymn,” also identified by its opening line, “God of our

fathers, and Lord of the deep,” in 1917. It similarly evokes the “God of our fathers,” to guide the people of England (Boyce 2017).

See alsoPresidential Proclamations of Days of Prayer and Thanksgiving; Puritans

FOR REFERENCE Boyce, Ethel. 1917. “An English Hymn (“God of our Fathers, and Lord of the Deep”). London: Novello

and Co; New York: H.W. Gray Co. “God of Our Fathers.” The Center for Church Music. https://songsand-hymns.org/hymns/detail/god-of-our-fathers; “The History of ‘God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hand.’” 2014. The Tabernacle Choir Blog. https://www.thetabernaclechoir.org/articles/god-of-our-fathers-whose-al-mighty-hand.html; Katzoff, Binyamin. “’God of our Fathers’: Rabbinic Liturgy and Jewish-Christian En-gagement.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 99 (Summer): 303-322; Sanders, Mary. 2016. “A Mighty Fortress is Our Battle Hymn of the Republic: Episcopal Liturgy and American Civil Religion in the National Prayer Service on 14 September 2001.” Anglican and Episcopal History 85 (March): 63-86.

God Save the United States and This Honorable CourtOne quaint tradition of the United States Supreme Court is that the marshal of the Court begins each day

of oral arguments by announcing the seating the justices, saying, “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are now admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court in now sitting. God save the United States and this Honorable Court!”

Most questions about this opening focus on the meaning of the first word. “Oyez” traces back to 15th century England and France, and meant “Hear ye,” and may in turn have originated in the 13th century French word “oiez,” which would have preceded messages by the town crier (Amlen 2018). In the early years of English jurisprudence, Anglo-Norman, also known as “law French,” provided the language for judicial proceedings (Amlen 2018).

The words that evoke God constitute a prayer, and probably derive from the English expression “God Save the Queen [King]” (Forte 2015, 73). Opponents of Court decisions, such as Engel v. Vitale limiting public prayer in public schools, often point out the seeming incongruity of permitting this form of prayer in court while banning it elsewhere, but the opening words are generally understood to be a form of “ceremonial deism” that is permissible under the First Amendment and that is not directed to impressionable children.

See alsoEngel v. Vitale

FOR REFERENCE Amlen, Deb. 2018. “What the Heck Is That?” The New York Times. Sept. 4. https://www.nytimes.

com/2018/09/04/crosswords/what-the-heck-is-that-oyez.html; Forte, David F. 2015. “Religion and the Republic.” The Journal of the Federalist Society Practice Group 16: 73-75.

Government Petitions as PrayersThe First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution recognizes a right to petition the government for a redress

of grievances, and it has long been common for individuals to sign petitions on behalf of various causes and send them to public officials. A recent study has revealed that petitioning Congress was particularly prevalent in the United States during the first century of its existence and before 1946, when Congress adopted the Administrative Procedure Act and the Legislative Reorganization Act (McKinley 2018, 1548), which provide for other means of redress.

Petitions to Congress were often designated as “prayers for relief,” and were typically phrased as one might phrase prayers to God. Moreover, effective petitions were expected to state specific requests that Congress could grant, and to be phrased, much as most prayers, in deferential language. A scholar has observed that

“the petition’s text was expected to be respectful, and the failure to frame the petition in sufficiently deferential language was often a means to challenge receipt of the petition” (McKinley 2018, 1562, note 106).

A good example of such a petition is one that Sen. Charles Sumner (1811-1874) of Massachusetts, one of the so-called Radical Republicans, introduced on Feb. 9, 1863, on behalf of the Women’s National League. It had been signed by more than 100,000 people, many of whom were women without the right to vote, illus-trating the manner in which the right to petition could be used by minority groups. The petition was in the form of rolls, each representing a different state.

In speaking on behalf of the petition, which called, in language similar to that which would be embodied in the 13th Amendment, for “emancipating all persons of African descent held to involuntary service or labor in the United States,” Sumner observed that the signatures were “from the families of the educated and unedu-cated, rich and poor, of every profession, business, and calling in life, representing every sentiment, thought, hope, passion, activity, intelligence which inspires, strengthens and adorns our social system” (Sumner 1863). In language that might evoke typical prayers, Sumner observed that “So far as it proceeds from the women of the country, it is naturally a petition, and not an argument” (Sumner 1863).

A letter filed by the Women’s League on April 7, 1864, and signed by its secretary, Susan B. Anthony, who anticipated an eventual 1 million signatures, contained other elements, namely repentance and references to Scriptures that one often associates with prayer. Observing that “the war-chariot still rolls onward, its iron-wheels deep in human blood,” the letter noted that “The God, at whose justice Jefferson long ago trembled, has awaked to the woes of the bondmen, ‘For the sighing of the oppressed, and for the crying of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord,’” a quotation from Psalm 12:5. After referencing the “dread Apocalypse of war,” the letter continued in language similar to that of both “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address: “Nor should we expect or hope the calamity will cease while the fearful cause of it remains. Slavery has long been our national sin. War is its natural and just retribution” (1864).

Further echoing the language of James 5:16, “The effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much,” the letter rhetorically asked, “Shall we not all join then in one loud, earnest, effectual prayer to Congress, which will swell on its ear like the voice of many waters, that this bloody, desolating war shall be arrested and ended, by the immediate and final removal, by Statute Law and amended Constitution, of that crime and curse which alone has brought it upon us?” Further echoing the language of 2 Corinthians 6:2, the letter observes that “Now surely is our accepted time” (1864).

See alsoAnglo-American Judicial Procedures; Petitionary Prayer

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FOR REFERENCE McKinley, Maggie. 2018. “Petitioning and the Making of the Administrative State.” The Yale Law Journal

127: 1538 1637; [Sumner, Charles and Susan B. Anthony]. 1864. “The prayer of one hundred thousand. Speech of Hon. Chas. Sumner on the presentation of the first installment of the emancipation petition of the women’s national league … [New York}. Note: this document also contains the letter from the Office of the Women’s Loyal National League, dated New York, April 7, 1864, and signed by its secretary, Susan B. Anthony].

Grace Before MealsPrayers before meals remain among the most common prayers of thanksgiving, especially in private homes,

but sometimes also in public places. One of Norman Rockwell’s most famous paintings is an oil on canvas that he painted in 1951 called “Saying Grace.” It depicts an elderly woman praying with a boy (perhaps a grandson) in a crowded restaurant where others are observing them.

Prayers uttered before meals and with children before bedtime probably remain among the most commonly repeated in the United States, with Roman Catholics generally being more likely to have a set prayer and Protestants a more spontaneous one. Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus, a Catholic bishop, actually recom-mended prayers both before and after meals. The prayer recommended before meals was, “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord, Amen.” After meals, he recommended, “We give thee thanks, almighty God, for all thy benefits, who liveth and reignest world without end. Amen” (Wangler 1997-1998, 13). As routinely portrayed in the CBS police show “Blue Bloods,” which is designed to depict a Roman Catholic family in New York, family members typically make the sign of the cross with the first prayer.

Among early American feminists, one of the most religiously unconventional was Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), who participated in the historic Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention in New York in 1848, which had called for women’s suffrage. A partisan of many progressive causes including abolitionism, she had cut out passages from the Bible involving women and created the Woman’s Bible with either her own com-mentary or that of other women scholars. Although she sometimes blamed chauvinistic understandings of biblical passages on poor translations by men, she also believed that many of the original writings were themselves patriarchal and biased against women.

It is still common to hear prayers thanking not only God but also the household “breadwinner,” who in the past was almost always the male, who often worked outside of the home, at a time when women performed most household chores, including cooking and otherwise preparing the table. When Stanton was asked to say grace before a meal, however, she is reported to have commonly said, “Heavenly Father, Mother [she believed that, as Creator, God was a combination of masculine and feminine qualities], make us thankful for all the blessings of this life & make us ever mindful of the patient hands that often in weariness spread our tables & prepare our daily food: for humanity’s sake, Amen” (Ginzberg 2010, 3). It remains common to include those who prepare food in many modern versions of grace.

See alsoLiturgical Versus Spontaneous Prayer

FOR REFERENCE Ginzberg, Lori D. 2010. Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life. New York: Hill and Wang; Mace,

Emily R. 2009. “2009 Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza New Scholar Award Winner: Feminist Forerunners and a Usable Past: A Historiography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s The Woman’s Bible. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 25 (Fall): 5-23; Mouw, Richard J. 2007. Praying at Burger King. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerd-mans Publishing Co; Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. [1895]. The Woman’s Bible. Lexington, KY: n.p; Wangler, Thomas E. 1997-1998. “Daily Religious Exercises of the American Catholic Laity in the Late Eighteenth Century.” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia 108 (Fall-Winter): 1-21.

Graham, BillyWilliam Franklin Graham (1918-2018), popularly known as “Billy,” was probably the most widely known

evangelist of the 20th century. Born in North Carolina and earning an undergraduate degree at Wheaton College in Illinois, Graham served briefly as president of Northwestern Bible College in Minneapolis, but made his reputation through a series of evangelistic “crusades.” William Randolph Hearst decided to “puff ” one of Graham’s crusades in Los Angeles in 1949, and from then on, Graham was a household name.

Although he took the step of racially integrating his crusades, Graham was a strong patriot who held fairly conventional conservative views of both morality and politics. He was especially concerned about the threat that he believed communism posed to the Western world, and he supported strong military responses against it. Often known as “the court preacher and White House chaplain,” Graham developed close relationships with presidents before developing a bit more distance after being shocked by Nixon’s conduct in the Water-gate crisis (Pierard 1980, 107). George W. Bush credited a meeting with Graham as helping him to break his dependence on alcohol, and Graham offered prayers at a number of presidential inaugurations.

Graham’s encounter with his first president, Harry S. Truman, however, was so embarrassing that Graham chose to address it in the introduction to his autobiography. During a short meeting with Truman, a fellow Baptist, at the White House, Graham had put his arm around the president’s shoulder and prayed with him. As they left the meeting, reporters asked him to recount what happened. In the process of doing do and with the encouragement of reporters, he got down on bended knee to reenact the prayer of thanksgiving that he had offered.

Truman felt that Graham had exploited the meeting by turning it into a show and refused to endorse Graham’s crusade in Washington, D.C. Graham nonetheless held an impressive crusade that included a call for establishing a National Day of Prayer that Truman later endorsed. Years later, Graham arranged to meet Truman at his home in Independence, Mo., where he offered an apology that Truman apparently accepted, having come to realize that the youthful Graham had not been briefed on proper protocol (Graham 1997, xxi). Graham recounted that after visiting President Kim Il-sung of North Korea in 1992 during the George H.W. Bush administration, he remembered the lesson that he had learned from his encounter with Truman and refused to divulge the details to the media (Graham 1997, xxiii).

Graham preached a sermon that President Lyndon Johnson attended at the National City Christian Church in Washington, D.C., on the day of his inauguration and spent the last day of Johnson’s presidency with him in the White House as he would later do for George H.W. Bush. He also gave a sermon at the White House while Nixon was president on Jan. 20, 1973. He prayed at the private service at St. John Episco-pal Church for President Ronald Reagan’s first inauguration and delivered a sermon at Washington Cathedral

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on the occasion of his second. He gave both the invocation and benediction at the inauguration of President George H.W. Bush, the invocation at President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration, and a prayer at his second. He also gave an opening prayer at the National Prayer service at the National Cathedral on Jan. 21, 2005 (“Presidential Inaugural Prayers and Sermons of Billy and Franklin Graham”).

When Graham died, he was honored by having his body lie in state at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Billy’s son, Franklin Graham, who has headed the charity Samaritan’s Purse, has been less politically cautious than his father, openly endorsing President Donald J. Trump and being perceived as less politically sophisti-cated and more partisan than his father. Franklin Graham filled in for his father to give the invocation at the first inauguration of George W. Bush, and one of the benediction Scripture readings at Trump’s inauguration.

See AlsoCommunism and Anti-Communism; National Day of Prayer

FOR REFERENCE Graham, Billy. 1997. Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham. San Francisco: Harper; Pierard,

Richard V. 1980. “Billy Graham and the U.S. Presidency.” Journal of Church and State 22 (Winter): 107-127; “Presidential Inaugural Prayers and Sermons of Billy and Franklin Graham.” Billy Graham Center Archives. https://www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/inaugural01.htm

H

Haystack Prayer MeetingFrom time to time, both religious and social movements have begun with

prayer. One such example occurred in 1806 when a group of five students from Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., who had met to debate theological issues, were driven by a rainstorm to shelter under a haystack and laid the foundation for the American missionary movement.

The students were Samuel J. Mills Jr. (1783-1818), James Richards (1784-1822), Francis LeBaron Robbins (1787-1850), Harvey Loomis, and Bryam Green (1786-1865). Mills has subsequently been recognized as “the ‘father’ of American foreign missions” (Kling 1995, 195) largely because of his role in participating in a group at Williams known as the Brethren and for his role founding the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

(ABCFM) in 1810. By 1812 it had sent five missionaries—Adoniram Judson Jr., Samuel Nott, Samuel Newell, Luther Rice, and Gordon Hall, three of whom were accompanied by their wives—to India. Such missionaries often influenced the perceptions that foreigners had of the nation as a whole.

These individuals were associated with what is called the “New Divinity” movement, which took particular hold at Williams. This movement, largely consisting of Congregational and Presbyterian churches, was based on the modifications that Jonathan Edwards had made to Calvinistic theology. Professor Kling has identified this movement with two distinctive beliefs, namely, a distinction “between the natural and moral ability to obey God,” which Edwards outlined in his Freedom of the Will, and an insistence on the need for “immediate repentance”; these were in turn linked to the belief that the revival movement was about to bring the dawn of the millennium (Kling 2003, 799-800). These ideas were further tied to “the absolute necessity of the new birth”; an emphasis on missions as a “‘means of grace’ or ‘means of salvation’”; an “advocacy of Christ’s unlim-ited atonement” for people of all nations and races; an emphasis on the need for “disinterested benevolence,” and “millennial fervor” to reach others (Kling 2003, 801-806). Members of the movement were deeply influenced by Edwards’s Life of Brainerd, first published in 1749, which described the missionary endeavors of David Brainerd (1718-1747) to Native Americans.

By 1850, the ABCFM had sent out 157 ordained missionaries, or 40 percent of all such missionaries from the United States (Kling 2002, 808). Many were educated at Andover Theological Seminary.

See alsoPrayer Meeting Revivals; Puritans

FOR REFERENCE Kling, David W. 2003. “The New Divinity and the Origins of the American Board of Commissioners for

Foreign Missions.” Church History 72 (December); 791-819; Kling, David W. 1996. “The New Divinity and Williams College, 1793-1836.” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 6 (Summer): 195-223.

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HealingAmong the most common petitionary prayers are those that call for physical healing. In Christian thought

and practice, such prayers go back to miracles recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures (the Christian Old Testa-ment) and in the ministry of Jesus and his disciples. Professor Candy Gunther Brown says that prayers for healing were common in the early church, although some Christians, especially during the Reformation, later advocated a “‘cessionist’ stance that held that spiritual gifts had ceased in the postapostolic era” (Brown 2012, 32). This view was sometimes combined with the thought that God uses human suffering as tests of faith and as a way of building human character.

Some religions like Christian Science, which was founded by Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), suggest that all sickness can be controlled through the mind and prayer, and therefore resist traditional medicine. Through-out the course of history, however, there has often been a complementary relationship between those who seek to cure through medicine and those who employ prayer. Many hospitals have been founded, and indeed bear the name, of religious denominations. Medical chaplains, who may often pray with patients, are increasingly accepted not only in religiously named but also in other hospitals (Levin 2020, 54-59).

Although prayers for healing have continued in most Christian denominations, Pentecostals and other charismatic religious groups, like earlier revivalists before them, continue to make both physical and spiritual healing an essential part of their ministries, which sometimes also include speaking in tongues and other perceived evidences of the Holy Spirit. In America, Pentecostalism has been associated primarily with three different movements—the Azusa Street revival that began in Los Angeles in 1906, “the ecumenical Protes-tant and Catholic Charismatic renewals of the 1960s and the 1970s,” and the “Toronto Blessings revivals that began in 1994” and subsequently diffused throughout charismatic congregations throughout the globe (Brown 2012, 30). Leading American evangelists who have stressed prayers for healing have included A.J. Gordon (1836-1895), Maria Woodworth Etter (1844-1924), Carrie Judd Montgomery (1858-1946), Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944), Oral Roberts (1918-2009), and Pat Robertson (1930- ).

In an insight that might help account for frequent references to “prayer warriors,” Brown observes that “These outgrowth movements came to reject the Calvinist ‘blueprint model’ (that everything that happens must by definition reflect God’s will) for a ‘warfare model’ of a clash between kingdoms in which humans (alongside angels and demons) actively participate” (2012, 34). Just as the Bible records unusual physical symptoms among individuals from whom Jesus and his disciples commanded demons to depart, so too, prayers for the sick can be particularly conspicuous when televised, with individuals giving dramatic testimo-nies, falling out in the spirit, tossing their crutches, speaking in tongues, and the like. Radio listeners are often encouraged to touch their radios to receive healing powers while individuals are praying for them, while some charismatic ministries routinely send out prayer cloths that have been anointed and that are believed to have healing power, especially among people of faith.

Brown notes that even among Pentecostals, “the distinction between divine and natural healing can easily blur” (2012, 25). She thus observes that “Pentecostals may pray for God to guide the hands of surgeons, make medicines efficacious, or work through psychological counseling, and then [credit] God for any healing achieved” (2012, 25). Most Christians further believe that all prayers must be predicated on God’s will, although some seem more resigned to this will’s including physical suffering than others.

See alsoMass Media and Other Technologies; Military Language ; Petitionary Prayers; Prayer Cloths; Prosperity

Gospel; Roberts, Oral

FOR REFERENCE Brown, Candy Gunther. 2012. Testing Prayer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; Levin, Jeff. 2020.

Religion and Medicine: A History of the Encounter Between Humanity’s Two Greatest Institutions. New York: Oxford University Press; Patterson, James T. 1987. The Dread Disease. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. See especially “Hymns to Science and Prayers to God,” pp. 137-170; Rogers, Kristen. 2020. “The psychological benefits of prayer: What science says about the mind-soul connection.” CNN. June 17. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/17/health/benefits-of-prayer-wellness/index.html; Winner, Lauren F. 2018. The Dangers of Christian Practice: On Wayward Gifts, Characteristic Damage, and Sin. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. See especially chapter on “Prayer,” pp. 57-93.

Hero’s Valor PrayerSince 2017, a firm known as Traylor Enterprise has marketed a line of colorful coins for members of the

respective branches of the U.S. military, police officers, emergency medical service workers, and firefighters that are available for sale on amazon.com. The coins portray symbols of the respective service and occupation on one side and what is described as the “Hero’s Valor Prayer” on the other.

This unattributed prayer, which is printed in capital letters, calls upon God, addressed as “Lord,” for protec-tion and for attributes of character that may be needed to carry out careers that often put its members in danger. The words of the prayer are as follows: “Lord, Watch over me as I perform my duties and serve my country. Please grant me the courage, strength and determination to face my responsibilities with a hero’s valor. Amen.”

A similar “Excellence in Education” coin for teachers has a separate “hero’s valor prayer” that says: “Lord, please help me touch the hearts and minds of my students. Help us to learn and grow so we can make the world and better place and face life’s challenges with a hero’s valor. Amen.”

The prayer for members of the armed forces and other security forces somewhat resembles the Serenity Prayer in that it chiefly asks God for qualities of character that are needed to serve.

See alsoSerenity Prayer

FOR REFERENCE “Hero’s Valor” coins. https://www.amazon.com/Heros-Valor-United-States-Challenge/dp/B076HJ2SBX

Hilton, Conrad See America on Its Knees

Hindu Legislative PrayersOne way for legislatures to recognize members of minority religious groups is for them to extend an

invitation to one of their religious leaders to lead the proceedings in prayer. Although both the U.S. House and Senate have a paid chaplain, they also make provision for prayers by others on special occasions.

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The first such occasion on which a Hindu leader was invited was on Sept. 14, 2000, which corresponded with an address that Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Prime Minister of India, was scheduled to present before a joint session of Congress. The invitation was arranged by then-Rep. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and was extend-ed to Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala, a priest from the Shiva Hindu Temple in Parma, Ohio.

His prayer was as follows: “O God, You are Omnipresent, Omnipotent, and Omniscient. You are in everything and nothing is beyond

You. You are our Mother and Father and we are all Your children. Whatever You do is for our good. You are the ocean of mercy and You forgive our errors. You are our teacher and You guide us into righteousness.

“Today, in this great Hall, are assembled the elected Representatives of the people of the Nation. They are ready to perform their duties. God, please guide them in their thoughts and actions so they can achieve the greatest good of all.

We end this invocation with a prayer from the ancient scriptures of India. May all be happy May all be free from disease May all realize what is good May none be subject to misery Peace, peace, peace be unto all.” (Congressional Record, 2000) Observing that “today is a great day for Indian-American relations,” Rep. Brown said the prayer was “a

testimony to the religious diversity that is the hallmark of our great Nation” and a reminder that “while we may differ in culture and tradition, we are all alike in the most basic aspiration of peace and righteousness” (Congressional Record, 2000).

When Rajan Zed, a Hindu priest from Reno, Nev., offered the first prayer before the U.S. Senate in 2007, he was interrupted by three protesters representing a group known as Operation Save America. Invoking the warning from the Ten Commandments that the people should have no other gods before God, they uttered their own prayer: “Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight” (Raighatta 2007).

After they were escorted out by the sergeant-at-arms, Zed prayed: “We meditate on the transcendental glory of the deity supreme, who is inside the heart of the earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of heaven. May he stimulate and illuminate our minds. Lead us from the unreal to real, from darkness to light, and from death to immortality. May we be protected together. May we be nourished together. May we work together with great vigor. May our study be enlightening” (Raighatta 2007).

Although Zed had hoped to deliver his mantras in Sanskrit, the rules of the Senate require that such prayers “be given exclusively and entirely in the English language” (Raighatta 2007).

Hindu priests have subsequently been invited to pray before a number of state legislatures (Krishnamoor-thy 2019).

See also Congress, Chaplains; Pluralism

FOR REFERENCE Congressional Record, Proceedings and Debates of the 106th Congress, Second Session. 146, Sept. 14, 2000,

H7579. https://www.congress.gov/crec/2000/09/14/CREC-2000-09-14.pdf; Krishnamoorthy, Arvind. 2019. “Hindu Prayers in US Legislatures.” October/November/December. https://www.hinduismtoday.com/mod-ules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=5971; Rajghatta, Chidanand. July 13, 2007. “Christian activists disrupt

Hindu prayer in US Senate.” Times of India. July 13. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Chris-tian-activists-disrupt-Hindu-prayer-in-US-Senate/articleshow/2199387.cms

Hymns, Songs, and PoemsThe leading book on the history of prayer in America includes numerous songs, hymns, and poems, some of

which are in the form of prayers and some of which are not (Moore 2005). Most are more likely to be sung in churches, mosques, and synagogues than at public events, although some might be featured at the funerals of public figures, celebrations of popular holidays, and the like. Some early American Puritans believed that the only songs that were appropriate for singing were those that paraphrased biblical psalms, but others either wrote or sang more-contemporary lyrics as part of their daily devotionals.

“God Bless America” is clearly an example of a song written in the form of a prayer, and suitable for public occasions, as is “God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hand,” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which is sometimes referred to as the Black National Anthem. The Navy Hymn, which is used by U.S., British, and French navies, is written as a prayer and addresses the “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.”

In addition to being written in the form of prayers, many popular religious songs also address the subject of prayer. A recent article singles out 15 such songs and hymns that are especially popular, each of which it pairs with an accompanying scripture to enhance its devotional use (West 2016).

The first two such songs on the list use a similar metaphor, probably based on the story of Eden, in which believers commune with God in a garden-like setting. They are the “Beautiful Garden of Prayer,” written by Eleanor A. Schroll and first published by James H. Fillmore in 1920, and “In the Garden,” which was written by C. Austin Miles and first published in 1912. The third song, “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” which was written by Anthony J. Showalter and Elisha Hoffman, set to music by Showalter, and first published in 1887, does not actually mention prayer but does express a prayerful relationship with God. A similar song of devotion, which is directed to God, is “My Faith Looks Up to Thee.” It was written by a Congregationalist minister, Ray Palmer, set to music by Lowell Mason, and first published in 1832.

“Pass Me Not” was one of the early songs (1868) written by the prolific songwriter Frances (Fanny) J. Crosby and is often used—like “Just As I Am,” written by Charlotte Elliott in 1835—during times of invita-tion (often known as altar calls) in Protestant churches and evangelistic meetings. Thomas Salmon, who like Crosby was blind, composed “Sweet Hour of Prayer,” which was first published in 1845, and exalts spending extended times with God. “Tell It to Jesus,” which seems almost like an African-American spiritual, was written by Jeremiah Eames Rankin, an abolitionist pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and first published in 1876. Joseph Medcott Scriven, an Irish poet who suffered the loss of a fiancée, wrote a tune called “Pray Without Ceasing” in about 1855 that was later renamed “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and set to music by Charles Crozat Converse in 1868.

Recent songs of prayer include Tanya Riches’ “Hear our Prayer,” Charlie Hall’s “Clean Hands,” and “Lord I Need You,” by multiple composers. “The Lord’s Prayer” which is based on a prayer of Jesus that was set to music by Albert Hay Malotte in 1935, is often sung in formal settings. The American gospel singer composed

“Make My Life a Prayer for You” was composed in 1987 while “Take My Life,” is another song of dedication written by the English poet and hymn writer Frances Ridley Havergal and first published in 1874. Dan Moen’s contemporary “Thank You Lord” makes a nice complement to the older “Thank You, Lord” written by evangelists Seth and Bessie Sykes.

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As a child, the author of this book enjoyed singing “The Wise Man and the Foolish Man,” written by Ann Omley in 1948, which, in describing Jesus’s parable of the wise and foolish builders, exhorts in one stanza that “The blessings come down as the prayers go up.” I also enjoyed “Whisper a Prayer,” which stresses that God answers prayer at morning, noon, and night, but instead of simply focusing on heavenly blessings, notes that praying throughout the day will “keep your heart in tune.”

Some contemporary songs, like Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz,” which was released in 1970, parody the use of prayer for selfish desires.

See also African-American Spirituals; God Bless America; God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hand; Lift Up

Your Voice and Sing; Navy Hymn; The Lord’s Prayer; Puritans

FOR REFERENCE Moore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleday;

Water, Mark, ed. 2004. The Encyclopedia of Prayer and Praise. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc; West, Aaron. 2016. “15 Worship Songs about Prayer.” Aug. 23. Mediashout. https://www.mediashout.com/worship-songs-about-prayer/

I

In Jesus’s NameBecause Christians consider Jesus to be the Son of God and the mediator

between God and man, it is common for their prayers to end either in the name of Jesus or, in some traditions, in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Because Christianity is the only religion that recognizes Jesus as the unique Son of God, what is routine to Christians may seem blasphemous to those who are not. This may be particularly true of some Jewish faith tradi-tions that do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

Because invoking the name of Jesus could thus be considered sectarian, there are some who believe that those who are invited to pray at public occasions should use more-generic prayers. Similarly, some say military chaplains, who are hired to meet the needs of all faith persuasions, should

refrain from using the name of Jesus in such prayers. Such a dispute arose in 1965 at a training conference where Chaplain Francis Sampson, who was a Roman

Catholic (and who is represented by an actor in Saving Private Ryan), invoked the name of Jesus at a bene-diction before dinner. Chaplain Reeve Brenner, who was Jewish, complained that this was inappropriate for an interfaith space. Sampson responded that “every non-Christian certainly knows that a Christian has the right to pray publicly or privately (as the Jew or member of any other creed has the same right) according to his beliefs” (Stahl 2017, 194). He further compared the invocation to the cross that he wore on his uniform, which was not designed to denigrate other faiths (Stahl 2017, 194). Brenner, in turn, argued that a prayer was a more active provocation than a symbol worn on a uniform.

Although praying in Jesus’s name may sometimes be used as a type of Christian triumphalism, in situations (as in many contemporary presidential inaugurations) where multiple individuals are called upon to pray, all may pray according to their faith traditions, arguably mitigating a seeming preference for one faith over another (Waldman 2009). Legislatures or other public bodies might alternatively give members of various Christian and non-Christian denominations the opportunity to pray, again with a view to showing that the government is not giving its specific endorsement to any particular one. A number of rabbis who have deliv-ered inaugural prayers have included some Hebrew within their prayers.

To date, at least, the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled that public prayers are unconstitutional simply because they invoke the name of Jesus.

See alsoMarsh v. Chambers; Pluralism; Presidential Inaugural Prayers; Town of Greece v. Galloway

FOR REFERENCE Waldman, Steven. 2009. “The Power of Prayer.” The Wall Street Journal. Updated Jan. 17. https://www.wsj.

com/articles/SB123215076308292139; Stahl, Ronit Y. 2017. Enlisting Faith: How the Military Chaplaincy Shaped Religion and State in Modern America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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J

Jabez, Prayer ofArguably one of the unlikeliest prayers to capture the American public

imagination is the Prayer of Jabez. It is found in I Chronicles 4:10, which otherwise consists of a fairly uninspiring list of various descendants of the tribe of Judah. Described as more “honorable,” or “honored,” than his broth-ers, Jabez (a name signifying the pain of his mother in bearing him) is reported to have called upon the God of Israel, asking: “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain,” and been blessed for doing so.

This otherwise obscure prayer was the subject of a short eponymous book by Bruce Wilkinson, a graduating seminarian who became an evangelist with Walk Thru the Bible Ministries. The book was first published in 2000 and

has sold over 10 million copies as well fostering a number of spinoffs. Much of its success is derived from the testimonies of individuals who claim that the prayer has worked miracles in their lives (Weeks 2001).

Joseph Loconte, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, notes that the prayer has been particularly popular at the seat of government power in Washington, D.C., and among members of the White House staff of several administrations, where it has been interpreted as sanctioning “accumulating political power.” He further notes, however, that “Wilkinson intends a broader application: the idea that our relationships, our experiences, and our work can, and should, be caught up in the larger purposes of God” (Loconte 2001).

Many believe the prayer appeals less to such spiritual ideals than to the increase of wealth, which is often considered to be at the heart of the Prosperity Gospel. One such critic is James Mulholland, a Baptist preach-er, who contrasts the prayer of Jabez with the Lord’s Prayer and ties it to the Prosperity Gospel (2001). An article in the National Catholic Register quotes James Akin, a senior apologist with Catholic Answers, as observing (perhaps condescendingly) that the book succeeded because of “an absence of ritual prayer in Protestantism.” He further describes it as “an attempt to manufacture blessing and spirituality through a form of ritual prayer that Protestants are typically deprived of ” (Drake 2001).

Iain Duguid, a professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, draws parallels between the prayer of Jabez and the admonition in 2 Chronicles 7:14 that “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” He observes that God chose to answer the prayers of Jesus, another descendant of Judah, to be delivered from death on the cross, not by granting that wish but by turning what would otherwise be the curse of such a death into ultimate victory (Duguid 2018).

See alsoAnswered Prayer Narratives; Liturgical Versus Spontaneous Prayers; The Lord’s Prayer; Petitionary Prayer;

Prosperity Gospel

FOR REFERENCE Clapp, Rodney and John Wright. 2002. “God as Santa: misreading the prayer of Jabez. The Christian

Century Vol. 119, Issue 22. Pp. 29-31; Drake, Tim. 2001. “Catholic Critics Question Evangelical ‘Prayer of Jabez’ Phenomenon. National Catholic Register. Oct. 28. https://www.ncregister.com/site/article/catholic_critics_question_evangelical_prayer_of_jabez_phenomenon; Duguid, Iain. 2018. “The Real Prayer of Jabez.” Table Talk Magazine. Jan. 8. https://tabletalkmagazine.com/posts/the-real-prayer-of-jabez/; Loconte, Joseph. 2001. “The Prayer of Jabez.” The Heritage Foundation. May 3. https://www.heritage.org/civil-society/com-mentary/the-prayer-jabez; Mulholland James. 2001. Praying Like Jesus: The Lord’s Prayer in a Culture of Prosperity. San Francisco: Harper Collins; Weeks, Linton. 2001. “Unbelievable Success of ‘Prayer of Jabez.’” The Washington Post. May 17. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2001/05/17/unbelievable-success-of-prayer-of-jabez/1b9440f6-2fe3-4953-8ebb-296e731e4e3f/; Wilkinson, Bruce. 2000. The Prayer of Jabez. Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Press.

Jain, First to Pray in CongressThe Jains are an ancient religion that began in India. They trace their faith to 24 leaders known as tirthankaras. It was not until May 22, 2001, that a Jain was invited to give the opening prayer at the U.S. House of

Representatives. It was uttered by Gurudev Shree Chitrabhanuji, a Jain priest from New York, who had been invited and was introduced by Rep. Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey. The invitation was signifi-cant because 2001 was believed to be the 2,600th birthday of Lord Mahavere, the last of the tirthankaras. Dr. Mahendra Pandya, national president of the Jain Associations in North America, observed that “We should be proud about this event that the Jain religion, the Jain culture and the philosophy is also being recognized, not only in India, but now also throughout out the world through this national prayer in the U.S. Congress” (“Jain Prayer at U.S. House of Representatives”).

Jains do not pray to please the gods or seek favors from them, but concentrate on the virtues of pure souls (“Jain worship”). Accordingly, Chitrabhanujui began his prayer by saying, “Let us all join our hands, heads and hearts together and bow to all perfect and liberated souls, and to all spiritual teachers” (“Opening Prayer”). The prayer contained a fairly standard invocation for the elected representatives and for blessings on “our country, our government, our elected leaders in this House of Congress, and on all living beings of the world,” and ended with the hope that “May people be happy everywhere” (“Opening Prayer”).

The prayer concluded with “Om Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!” This is a chant for peace of body, speech and mind.

See alsoPluralism

FOR REFERENCE “Jain Prayer at U.S. House of Representatives.” 2001. Hinduism Today. May 27. https://www.hinduismtoday.

com/blogs-news/hindu-press-international/jain-prayer-at-u-s-house-of-representatives/653.html; “Jain worship.” 2009. BBC. Sept. 14. https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/Jainism/worship/worship_1.shtml;

“Opening Prayer Given by the Guest Chaplain.” May 22, 2001. The Office of the Chaplain, United States House of Representatives. https://chaplain.house.gov/chaplaincy/display_gc.html?id=997

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Jefferson, Thomas Although raised in the Episcopal Church, Thomas Jefferson is often classified as a Deist, albeit one who had

a sense that God was working on behalf of liberty and justice. While serving quite early in his life in the Virginia Legislature, Jefferson was among those who called for a day of fasting and prayer to mobilize the colony against Great Britain. Later called to serve in the Second Continental Congress, he was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, to which Congress added a number of references to God. Before accepting a diplomatic post in France during the Revolutionary War, Jefferson authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (passage of which through the Virginia Legislature James Madison helped to secure) and remains known as a strong advocate of separation of church and state.

With Madison, Jefferson helped found the Democratic-Republican Party, which sought to minimize federal powers in favor of states’ rights, opposed what it perceived to be monarchical tendencies within the new govern-ment (and thus tended to favor France over England in international affairs), and sought frugality in govern-ment. Through a quirk in the Electoral College, Jefferson was vice president during the administration of John Adams, whom he successfully challenged in the election of 1800. The contest between Jefferson and Adams stirred intense partisanship, with many of Jefferson’s critics labeling his religious heterodoxy (which does not appear to have differed significantly from that of Adams) as atheism and identifying it with the ideology of the French Revolution (Hall 2010, 142-143). Moreover, the House of Representatives ultimately had to resolve a tie in the Electoral College between Jefferson and Aaron Burr, who was his presumptive vice president.

Jefferson’s inauguration in 1801 marked the first successful American transfer of power from one party (Federalist) to another (Democratic-Republican). The practice of having a chaplain deliver a prayer at the inauguration had been discarded after Washington’s first inauguration and was not resumed until 1937, but citizens paid close attention to the wording of inaugural addresses, which sometimes included prayers for God’s assistance.

In this context, Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address is a model of diplomacy, best known for the statement that “every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans; we are all federalists” ( Jefferson 1801). The speech remains one of the most articulate descriptions of Jefferson’s philosophy of government. Less noticed is that Jefferson ended the speech with the prayer that the “infinite power, which rules the destinies of the universe, lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity” ( Jefferson 1801).

Committed to winning as many members of the Federalist Party as he could, Jefferson faced a dilemma when, early in his first administration, Federalists called upon him to declare a national day of prayer and thanksgiving for the Treaty of Amiens between Britain and France, which was designed so that the United States would not be drawn into the wars between them (Hutson 1999, 781). Unlike his presidential predeces-sors, Jefferson did not believe it appropriate for officials of the national government to make recommenda-tions regarding spiritual affairs; indeed, he believed such proclamations were remnants of monarchism, associ-ated with nations with an established church. Taking advantage of a congratulatory letter he had received from the Danbury Baptist association in Connecticut, Jefferson used this letter to affirm that, given “that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contem-plate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State” ( Jefferson 1802). Jefferson’s metaphor, which has been

a constant source of discussion, especially in Supreme Court decisions on prayer in school and related topics, provided a strong rationale for not issuing a presidential proclamation calling for prayer, but Jefferson coun-tered charges that he was antireligious by attending a sermon by John Leland, a pastor known for his advoca-cy of religious liberty, to the U.S. House of Representatives as well as other services held in the Capitol Building on Sundays (Hutson 1999, 786).

Jefferson’s second presidential inauguration ended with an even more elaborate benediction than his first. It employed biblical imagery that would have been acceptable to both American Christians and Jews and suggested that America resembled ancient Israel: “I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old, from their native land, and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with his providence, and our riper years with his wisdom and power; and to whose goodness I ask you to join with me in supplications, that he will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures, that whatsoever they do, shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations” ( Jefferson 1805).

Jefferson twice sought to construct a version of the Bible that separated what he believed to have been Jesus’s original words and teachings, which Jefferson admired, from subsequent doctrines that Jefferson believed Jesus’s disciples had added. Jefferson’s Bible did include the Lord’s Prayer, which is attributed to Jesus.

See alsoLord’s Prayer; Presidential Inaugural Prayers; Presidential Inaugural Prayer of 1937; Presidential Proclama-

tions of Prayer and Thanksgiving; Washington, George First Inaugural Address

FOR REFERENCE Buckley, Thomas E. 2010. “Placing Thomas Jefferson and Religion in Context, Then and Now.” Seeing

Jefferson Anew: In His Time and Ours, ed. John B. Boles and Randal L. Hall. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, pp. 126-151; Hutson, James H. 1999. “Thomas Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptists: A Controversy Rejoined.” The William and Mary Quarterly 56 (October): 775-790; Jefferson, Thomas. 1801.

“First Inaugural Address.” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 33: 148-52. https://jeffersonpapers.princeton.edu/selected-documents/first-inaugural-address-0; Jefferson, Thomas. 1989 [c. 1820]. The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Boston: Beacon Press; Jefferson, Thomas. 1802. “Jefferson’s Letter to Danbury Baptists.” Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html; Jefferson, Thomas. 1805. Second Inaugural Address. The Avalon Project. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau2.asp

Jewish Rabbi, First to Pray in Congress Although the practice of opening daily deliberations in Congress with prayer dates to the First Continental

Congress in 1774, the first rabbi to deliver such a prayer did so on Feb. 1, 1860. He was Dr. Morris J. Raphall (1798-1868) of the Congregation B’nai Jeshurum in New York City. He was born in Sweden, educated in Denmark and Germany, and established his reputation as a scholar in England before coming to New York in 1849 (Korn 1950-1951, 96).

His prayer took place on a momentous day in U.S. history, which followed eight weeks of congressional deadlock over whom it would select as its speaker. On this day, the House of Representatives selected William

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Pennington of New Jersey over the more radical John Sherman of Ohio on the 44th ballot, making Penning-ton the first member of the Republican Party (formed in 1854) to hold this post.

As he would have done in a synagogue, Rabbi Raphall wore a tallit (prayer shawl) over his shoulder and a yarmulke (prayer cap) on his head, and his prayer was fairly lengthy. It began by calling on “Almighty and most merciful God,” continued by praising Him for His manifold blessings on “a Commonwealth after the model of that which Thou, Thyself, didst bestow on the tribes of Israel, in their best and purest days,” and praised the way that Americans had been able “to combine civil liberty with ready obedience to the laws, religious liberty with warm zeal for religion, absolute general equality with sincere respect for individual rights” (Korn 1950-1951, 97-98). Rabbi Raphall further praised God for defending the American Founders and compared their wisdom in establishing Congress to that of ancient Israel: “It was Thy wisdom that inspired them when they established this Congress, to be what Thy tabernacle, with the urim and thummin—right and equity—were intended to have been for the tribes of Israel—the ears of the entire nation” (Korn 1950-1951, 98).

With a view to the impasse in choosing a speaker, Rabbi Raphall asked for congressional agreement on a proper leader who could unify the respective regions of the nation. He quoted from, without specifically citing, Psalm 133:1: “How good and how pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity” before now addressing “Lord God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,” and repeating the blessing from Numbers 6:25, which he first repeated in Hebrew and then in English:

May the Lord bless ye and preserve ye. May the Lord cause his countenance to shine upon ye and be gracious unto ye. May the Lord raise his countenance unto ye and grant ye peace.

He ended with “May this blessing of the one who liveth and who reigneth forever rest upon your counsels and yourselves this day, and evermore. – Amen” (Korn 1950-1951, 99).

Although Rabbi Raphall’s prayer was generally well received, it was also subject to considerable jokes and criticisms. The former often centered on stereotypes that associated Jews with sharp business practices, while critics feared that the rabbi’s presence would lead to prayers by Quakers, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and others, or they expressed outrage that the prayer was not delivered by a Christian (Korn 1950-1951, 102-105).

Although Congress invited a rabbi before the English Parliament did so, the move might still seem late for a nation that had no established church and that had guaranteed religious liberty to all. The reason no rabbi had been previously invited to pray seems to be that Congress drew either from its chaplains or from mem-bers of the local clergy, which did not initially include a rabbi (Korn 1950-1951, 109-110). The prayer fol-lowed a request by Jews to be treated equally with other faiths.

The first rabbi believed to have prayed in an American state legislature was the Rev. Julius Eckman, of the Beth Shalome Congregation in Richmond, who prayed before the Virginia House of Delegates in 1850 (Korn 1950-1951, 118). His opening line used words from the Lord’s Prayer to “our Father who art in heaven”; he implored, “May truth be our guide, justice our rule, and the welfare of mankind our only aim”; and ended by hoping that the “tree of liberty, which has been planted here so early, and which has now taken root so deeply” would be like the tree in Psalm 1 “planted by the rivers of water, that bringing forth fruit in its seasons, whose leaves do not wither; but may its branches spread forth more and more, till all mankind may find shelter under its shadow” (Korn 1950-1951, 119). A rabbi had also given a prayer in the New York state Legislature, and other states extended the invitation to rabbis after the Civil War.

See alsoJewish Prayers for American Government

FURΩTHER READING Korn, Bertram W. 1950-1951. “Rabbis, Prayers, and Legislatures.” Hebrew Union College Annual 23:

95-125.

Jewish Prayers for American GovernmentAmerica has through almost all of its history been a haven for Jews, who have, especially before the establishment

of the state of Israel in 1948, been persecuted and treated as second-class residents in many other countries. Barry Schwartz has published a study surveying Jewish prayers for government in America. He has docu-

mented that they began in the colonial period among Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal in New York and hence named the Dutch rulers of the colony in Portuguese (1987, 334). Schwartz observes that “the traditional Jewish prayer for the government (called Ha-Noten Teshu’a, after the first two Hebrew words of the text) reflected the nondemocratic nature [they were often excluded from government decision-making] of Jewish existence among the nations. It implores the ruler to ‘have mercy’ upon the house of Israel and treat them kindly” (1987, 334).

Gershom Seixas, who led the Shearith Israel congregation in New York, was among those who prayed on a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer, May 17, 1776, for peace between the colonies and the British, and whose congregation disbanded during the Revolution rather than submit to continuing British rule. After moving to Philadelphia, he delivered a prayer urging God to fight on the side of the colonists and substituting references to Congress for those to the royal family (Schwartz 1987, 335). In another prayer in 1807, he concentrated on national unity at a time when the divisions between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans were particularly severe. Jonathan D. Sarna further notes that during and after the Revolution, Jewish prayers often named the office (the president or Congress) rather than individuals and that during the prayers many Jews began sitting rather than standing, the latter posture being considered more subservient (2005, 210).

As Reformed Jews became established, they replaced traditional prayer with a prayer that called for “bless-ing” rather than “exalting” the president, and omitting the prayer for Jewish redemption (Sarna 2005, 214). A prominent Jewish prayer book by Isaac Leeser, which was published in 1848, further prepared a “Prayer for Republican Government” that differed from “The Prayer for Royal Government” that was used in versions published elsewhere (Sarna 2005, 216). Sarna says that another prayer book by Rabbi Max Lilienthal, which was published in 1846, and appealed chiefly to German immigrants, “did much to signify to them that America was different—if not actually Zion, then the closest thing to it” (2005, 217).

Further Jewish public prayers concentrated on justice and on universalism, and (much as Puritans had done before them) began to describe America, like ancient Israel, as a land of destiny and a land of refuge for immigrants from many lands. In the process, they sometimes diminished the emphasis of prayers by Jews in other lands that called for the reestablishment of the Jewish homeland in Palestine (Schwartz 1987). Sarna observes that the prayer books thus tended to distinguish American from European Jews, focused more on blessing the nation than on blessing particular leaders, and tended to emphasize “the vulnerability of political leaders and their consequent need for divine guidance” rather than the “subservience” they had shown toward monarchs (2005, 218).

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Rabbi Morris J. Raphall, who gave the first prayer in the U.S. Congress in 1860, emphasized the need for wisdom and unity. In the late 19th century, Jews increasingly prayed for immigrants, sometimes mixing prophetic judgment against nativist tendencies with patriotic loyalty (Sarna 2005, 221). Even after the establishment of Israel, many American Jews prioritized prayers for blessings upon America rather than upon that new nation. Jewish prayers often serve as a barometer of larger attitudes, with some Jewish prayer books from the Vietnam War era forward omitting specific prayers for the nation altogether (Sarna 2005, 223-224).

See alsoJewish Rabbi, First to Pray in Congress; Washington’s Correspondence with Moses Seixas

REFERENCES Buck, Christopher. 2015. God & Apple Pie: Religious Myths and Visions of America. Kingston, NY: Educa-

tor’s International Press; Sarna, Jonathan D. 2005. “Jewish Prayers for the United States Government: A Study in the Liturgy of Politics and the Politics of Liturgy.” Liturgy in the Life of the Synagogue: Studies in the History of Jewish Prayer, ed. Ruth Langer and Steven Fine. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, pp. 205-224; Schwartz, Barry. 1987. “The Jewish Prayer for the Government in America.” American Jewish History 76 (March): 334-339.

K

Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2019)One continuing ambiguous issue relative to church-state issues involves

participation by teachers and students in voluntary student-led prayer activities in public schools.

The U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington v. Schempp (1963) make it clear that teachers cannot lead students in devo-tional prayer or Bible reading in public schools. However, just as students have some rights of free expression in public school (as Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District recognized when it permitted students to wear black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War), teachers do not necessarily forfeit their rights to religious exercise or expression on school property, especially when it comes to extracurricular activities.

Situations often arise in coaching where the rights of teachers to bow their heads or kneel during stu-dent-led prayer might be interpreted as improper endorsement of religion. One such case arose in the Bremerton (Wash.) School District, where an assistant football coach was fired for bowing in prayer at the end of football games despite having been warned not to do so. The coach, Joseph A. Kennedy, lost his appeal in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and filed a writ of certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Although the Court did not accept his appeal, Justice Samuel Alito filed a statement, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, all of whom are considered to be conservative justices. They indicated that they did not think the lower courts had provided an adequate discussion of the facts—as, for example, whether Kennedy was still considered to be on duty when he bowed for prayer and whether the prayer distracted from his continuing supervisory responsibilities over his players—for the Court to intervene in this case, they did not necessarily agree with these decisions. They also stressed that since the case before them only involved Kennedy’s claims under the free-speech clause, he might also have claims under the free-exercise clause of the First Amendment and/or under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Recognizing that the Court had in Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006) limited the speech of public employees when they are carrying out public duties, the justices were concerned that the lower courts had interpreted this opinion “in a highly tendentious way (Kennedy v. Bremerton 2019, 4). They observed that if teachers were considered to be acting publicly every time they were in view of students, they might be prevented from even folding their hands or bowing their heads at lunchtime. Citing Garcetti, the four justices observed that “a public employer cannot convert private speech into public speech ‘by creating excessively broad job descrip-tions” (2019, 5). The justices were further concerned that the 9th Circuit opinion might be interpreted “to mean that a coach’s duty to serve as a good role model requires the coach to refrain from any manifestation of religious faith—even when the coach is plainly not on duty” (2019, 5). They were especially troubled about part of the decision criticizing the coach’s prayer in the bleachers after his suspension, when he was no longer supervising players.

The four justices also suggested that they might be willing to reexamine the decision in Employment Div.,

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Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith (1990), in which the Supreme Court ruled that under the free-exer-cise clause, a state was no longer required to show a compelling interest when applying general laws that affected this exercise.

A number of states have adopted legislation designed to clarify what behavior is appropriate. Thus, in 2014, North Carolina adopted what is known as the Respect for Student Prayer/Religious Activity Law, but it remains unclear whether or not the Supreme Court would uphold it. One analysis suggests that the legality of teachers’ actions will often center on “the level of the teacher’s involvement and the activity’s proximity to students” (Gwyn 2015; 442; Geier and Blankenship 2016). In January 2022, the Supreme Court announced that it would review a number of related First Amendment cases including the Kennedy decision. In January 2022, the Supreme Court announced that it would review a number of related First Amendment cases including the Kennedy decision.

See alsoAbington v. Schempp; Engel v. Vitale

FOR REFERENCE Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990); Fried, Gil and Lisa

Bradley. 1994. “Applying the First Amendment to Prayer in a Public University Locker Room: An Athlete’s and Coach’s Perspective.” Marquette Sports Law Journal 4: 301-321; Geier, Brett A., and Annie Blankenship. 2016. “Praying for Touchdowns: Contemporary Law and Legislation for Prayer in Public School Athletics.” First Amendment Law Review 15:381-427; Gwyn, Brian S. 2015. “Adopting a Respectful Posture Toward Teacher Religious Expression: An Establishment Clause Analysis of North Carolina’s Respect for Student Prayer and Religious Activity Law.” First Amendment Law Review 12: 426-470; Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006); Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. Statement of Justice Alito. 486 U.S. ____ (2019); Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969).

Kennedy, Robert F.Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968) is generally considered to be the most religious of the children of

Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy, who were raised as Roman Catholics (Zimmerman 2018). He was a younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, and somewhat older than his brother Edward, who went on to be one of the longest-serving U.S. senators from Massachusetts. Educated at Harvard University and earning his law degree at the University of Virginia, Robert Kennedy served as a lawyer to committees in the U.S. Senate before his brother elevated him to the position of attorney general.

After his brother’s assassination, Kennedy, who grew increasingly estranged from President Lyndon B. Johnson, resigned from this office to run successfully as a U.S. senator from New York. He subsequently also ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1968. On April 4, Kennedy, who was known for his commitment to social justice and was forging a multiracial political coalition, was in Indianapolis when he got word of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis.

Set to speak to a group of supporters who had not yet heard the news, Kennedy gave an impromptu speech that is considered one of his best. Sharing the sad news of King’s death with his audience, Kennedy noted that King had “dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.” He further said that it was time for the nation, and members of the audience, to choose whether to move in that direction or to “be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge” (Kennedy 1968). Describing this latter path as a path toward “greater polarization,” Kennedy said it was possible “to

understand, and to comprehend, and to replace that violence … with an effort to understand, compassion, and love.” Noting that it was likely that King had been assassinated by a white man, Kennedy observed that he too had a member of his family who had been “killed by a white man” (Kennedy (1968).

In what came close to a paraphrase of the prayer that is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, Kennedy said that what the nation needed was “not division … not hatred … not violence and lawlessness, but … love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice.” To this end, Kennedy asked members of his audience to return to their homes “to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King … but more importantly to say a prayer for our country, which all of us love—a prayer for understanding and of that compassion of which I spoke” (Kennedy 1968).

Having previously quoted a poem by the Greek poet Aeschylus, Kennedy ended his remarks with a re-newed plea for prayer: “Let’s dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people” (Kennedy 1968).

In June, Kennedy managed to win the highly contested California Democratic primary over Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy. As he was celebrating this victory with supporters at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, he was shot by an individual displeased over the support of Israel that Kennedy had expressed in a debate with McCarthy before the primary election. Many supporters fell to their knees and prayed the rosary. A busboy, Juan Romero, whose hand Kennedy had just shaken, pressed a rosary into his hand. Kennedy died the next day and was buried near his brother in Arlington National Cemetery.

See alsoKing, Martin Luther Jr; Roman Catholics; Rosary; St. Francis of Assisi

FOR REFERENCE Jones, Kevin J. 2018. “When Robert F. Kennedy’s mourners found refuge in the rosary.” Catholic News

Agency. June 6. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/when-robert-f-kennedys-mourners-found-ref-uge-in-the-rosary-20314; Kennedy, Robert F. April 4. 1968. “Statement on Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 1968.” https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-fami-ly/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/statement-on-assassination-of-martin-luther-k..; Zimmer-man, Carol. 2018. “Robert Kennedy Catholicism was part of his personal life and politics.” Catholic News Service. June 8. https://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2018/robert-kennedys-catholi-cism-was-part-of-his-personal-life-and-politics.cfm

King, Martin Luther Jr.Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) was an African-American Baptist pastor who led the Montgomery

bus boycott, delivered the keynote address at the March on Washington in 1963 (his “I Have a Dream” speech), and was a leading member of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. The son and grand-son of pastors, King earned his undergraduate degree at Morehouse College in Atlanta, his bachelor’s of divinity at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pa., and his Ph.D. at Boston University. Born with the name of Michael, both he and his father changed their names (the son’s name change became official in 1957) after a visit to Europe in honor of the great German Protestant reformer.

King accepted a position as pastor of the Dexter Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., which led to his leadership in the bus boycott of 1957, which included his role as a founding member of the Southern Chris-

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tian Leadership Conference. In this capacity, King led a variety of marches, including the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington, D.C., in 1957 and other civil rights activity based on principles of nonviolence that he took from Jesus and from Mahatma Gandhi. King maintained his pastorate first at Dexter and later, with his father, at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. King received a Nobel Peace Prize for his work, and his birthday is currently honored by a national holiday. He was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis the day after giving a speech in which he suggested that, like the biblical Moses, he might not live to see the promised land of full equality.

Lewis V. Baldwin has argued that prayer was an important part of King’s life and that he considered the essence of prayer to be that of communicating with God. He was particularly influenced both by a long tradition of African-American prayer, by a prayer by St. Augustine which had observed that “Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee,” and by St. Francis of Assisi’s prayer for peace (Baldwin 2018, 146). He was also inspired by a work by Harry Emerson Fosdick of the New York Riverside Church, The Meaning of Prayer, published in 1915 (Baldwin 2018, 148).

Although King delivered many public prayers and encouraged prayer meetings in his churches, Baldwin says three specific prayers were especially important during his life. The first occurred in his study on Dec. 5, 1955, when he asked for God’s guidance after being called to give a speech with less than 20 minutes of preparation. The essence of this prayer was for guidance and balance in his life (Baldwin 2018, 156).

A second prayer occurred in his kitchen on Jan. 27, 1956, after he received an obscene and threatening phone call and experienced a deep feeling of fear. He reported a clear feeling of God’s presence after praying: “Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right. I think I’m right; I think the cause that we represent is right. But Lord, I must confess that I’m weak now; I’m faltering; I’m losing my courage. And I can’t let people see me like this because if they see me weak and losing my courage, they will begin to get weak” (Baldwin 2018, 158).

The third prayer was in mid-January 1957 after the bombing of a number of black churches, when, in a prayer circle, he had broken down and cried out. “Lord I hope no one will have to die as a result of our struggle for freedom in Montgomery. Certainly I don’t want to die. But if anyone has to die, let it be me” (Baldwin 2018, 160). King was the chief organizer of the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom to Washington, D.C., where he spoke as he would later do at the 1963 March on Washington. From time to time, King went on self-imposed prayer retreats, and he participated in numerous prayer-related events including days of prayer, weeks of prayer, prayer vigils, campaigns, marches, rallies and even kneel-ins (Baldwin 2018, 165). At the same time, he warned against what he understood to be shallow understandings of prayer that either viewed it as a substitute for other concrete actions or that portrayed prayer as a means of having God at one’s beck and call. Citing Matthew 5:44, King frequently called for prayers for those who were persecuting him and fellow members of his civil rights movement (Baldwin 2028, 165).

Those who opposed King, in turn, believed that he was using prayer for political purposes. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina (who had run for president as a Dixiecrat in 1948), charged that King had “made a mockery of religion in seeking publicity through use of publicly staged prayers in the manner of the Pharisees who, in the days of Jesus, erroneously thought that public prayer on the street corner for publicity purposes would win a better and quicker response than the sincere, humble prayer uttered in the quiet of a bedroom or other appropriate place” (Thurmond 1962, A5892).

See also

Enemies, Prayer for; Fosdick, Harry Emerson; Kneel-ins; Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom; Vigils

FOR REFERENCE Baldwin, Lewis V. 2018. Revives My Soul Again: The Spirituality of Martin Luther King Jr., ed. Lewis V.

Baldwin and Victor Anderson. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. See chapter 6, “The Attuning of the Spirit: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Circle of Prayer,” pp. 135-167; Thurmond, Strom. 1962. “Activities of Dr. Martin Luther King.” Congressional Record, Aug. 1, A5893; Washington, James Melvin. 1994. Conversations with God: Two Centuries of Prayers by African Americans. New York: HarperCollins.

Kneel-InsRace has often divided Americans. Most major denominations split into northern and southern branches

over the issue of slavery before the Civil War (1861-1865). Churches became largely racially segregated, especially in the South, during the years of segregation, under so-called Jim Crow laws, which the U.S. Supreme Court had approved in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and did not repudiate until Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Although there is evidence that African-Americans had attempted to attend all-white churches as early as 1954 (Quiros 2018, 143), the real efforts to do so began in the early 1960s.

The African-American church, which was often vital to the black community, provided both leaders and foot soldiers for the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s (Noll 2008). Many civil rights demonstra-tions were cultivated in prayer and originated from within black churches. The development of kneel-ins grew directly out of the sit-ins and other protest methods developed by civil rights leaders. The idea was for Afri-can-Americans to show up for Sunday worship at all-white churches, and, if refused, to kneel in prayer. The first such demonstration took place on Aug. 7, 1960, when several small groups of African-Americans visited a number of churches in Atlanta. Some churches seated them with their members, while others either barred their entrance or insisted that they sit in auxiliary areas. After this movement largely dissipated, a group in Albany, Ga., was barred from its First Baptist Church in 1962.

The kneel-ins that attracted the most attention took place at the First Baptist Church in Atlanta in 1963, whose services were televised. Although those staging the kneel-ins portrayed themselves as believers who simply wanted to join whites in worship and/or prompt them to reconsider their own behaviors, white churches and their leaders often regarded the visitors as outside agitators with no real desire to worship who were simply attempting to disrupt the services and gain publicity for their movement. Accounts of confronta-tions between whites and blacks varied widely depending on the perspective of the participants, with some of the demonstrators being jailed for trespassing.

Charles Westmoreland, who wrote a thesis on prayer in the South during the civil rights era, has observed that Southern evangelical Christians, who constituted the large majority, typically took the view that prayer was a private affair, whereas many civil rights activists “subscribed to a pervasive view of prayer” that tied it more directly to political action (2008, 19). To white segregationists, praying in public for desired political results simply amounted to “a tawdry public display” (2008, 22). In time, however, Westmoreland notes, many who had previously emphasized the private view supported prayer in school and other attempts at identifying Americans more closely with majority religious views.

The civil rights movement garnered national and even international publicity. Just as segregation had marred America’s image abroad during the Cold War, reports of churches barring their doors to blacks was

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detrimental to their missionary efforts in Africa and other areas. White churches that decided to permit black worshippers often lost members. Others split. As late as 1976, Jimmy Carter was embarrassed when his home church in Plains, Ga., turned away a black minister, Clennon King, and Carter ended up joining a different Baptist congregation.

Although many churches remain predominately white or black, in 1995 the largely white Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution apologizing for its stance on slavery and for its racism. In 2012, it actually elected an African-American as president (Kosek 2013, 52).

The kneel-ins reveal the manner in which prayer can be used not only to encourage individuals to unite in a common cause and give them courage, but also to dramatize racist behavior.

See alsoKing, Martin Luther Jr; Performative Prayers ; Prayer in Public Schools

FOR REFERENCE Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954); Haynes, Stephen R. 2012. The Last Segregated Hour: The

Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation. New York: Oxford University Press. Kosek, Joseph Kip. 2013. “‘Just a Bunch of Agitators’: Kneel-Ins and the Desegregation of Southern

;hurches.” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 23 (Summer): 232-261; Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). ; Noll, Mark A. 2008. God and Race in American Politics: A Short History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; Quiros, Ansley L. 2018. God with Us: Lived Theology and the Freedom Struggle in Americus, Georgia, 1942-1976. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press; Westmoreland, Charles Raymond Jr. May 2008. Southern Pharisees: Prayer, Public Life, and Politics in the South, 1955-1996. Disser-tation for doctor of philosophy Degree, University of Mississippi.

Kucinich, DennisDennis Kucinich was elected as mayor of Cleveland in 1977 at age 31, and was subsequently elected to the

U.S. House of Representatives, where he served from 1997 to 2013. He is a liberal Democrat who ran two fairly quixotic campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008 (Zengerie 2008).

In 2002, Kucinich delivered a “Prayer for America” at a meeting of the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action that was held in Los Angeles.

The “prayer,” which has subsequently been republished and has become the title of a book of book that Kucinich wrote, is perhaps as much of a lament, or an indictment (what biblical scholars call a jeremiad) as a prayer. Kucinich began by praying “that our nation will remember that the unfolding of the promise of democracy in our nation paralleled the striving for civil rights” (Kucinich 2011). He continued with rhetorical questions asking why the nation had violated constitutional provisions limiting military power and provisions in the Bill of Rights. Concerned that the nation was responding to crises in fear rather than with wisdom, Kucinich was especially troubled by America’s continuing participation in the War in Afghanistan and prayed “that our country will stop this war,” and reject the idea of invading Iran, North Korea, and other foes.

As he directed his prayer to “our children,” Kucinich prayed for a world “free of the terror of hunger, free of the terror of poor health care, free of the terror of homelessness, free of the terror of ignorance, free of the terror of hopelessness, free of the terror of policies which are committed to a world view which is not appro-

priate for the survival of a free people.” Further pleading for a return to the nation’s “democratic traditions,” he prayed for nuclear disarmament and for ending the pursuit of an axis of evil and replacing it with pursuit of an “axis of hope and faith and peace and freedom.” In obvious reference to “America the Beautiful,” Kucinich’s peroration sounds less like a prayerful appeal to God than as a call to action to the nation: “Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good with brotherhood, and sisterhood. And crown thy good with compassion and restraint and forbearance and a commitment to peace, to democracy, to economic justice here at home and throughout the world. Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good America. Crown thy good.”

In one indication that he had shifted from prayer to exhortation, he ended not with “Amen” but with “Thank you” (Kucinich 2011).

See also“America the Beautiful”

FOR REFERENCE Kucinich, Dennis. 2011. “A Prayer for America.” The Nation. Feb. 16. https://www.thenation.com/article/

archive/prayer-america-2/; Zengerie, Jason. 2007. “Dennis Kucinich On His Terms: Taking Dennis Kucinich Seriously.” Election 2008, ed. Franklin Foer. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 87-94.

“Kumbaya”As numerous hymns attest, some prayers are best expressed in song. One such prayer is expressed in the

song “Kumbaya,” which is generally translated as “Come By Here.” The Georgia Legislature adopted this song in February 2017 as its official state historical song (Winick 2018).

In multiple verses, the song portrays individuals crying, praying, singing, or otherwise petitioning God to come to their aid. The song became a staple of the folk revival movement that was popularized by such artists as Joan Baez, the Weavers, Pete Seeger, and others. In more recent times, commentators have sometimes viewed the song as somewhat childish, and as an expression for somehow naively expecting politicians with radically different principles to hold hands in unity around a campfire in a “Kumbaya moment” and forget their differences (Weeks 2012). Perhaps such unifying moments seem especially unlikely in a time of deep partisan divisions between so-called Red (conservative Republican) States and Blue (liberal Democratic) States.

The unusual language of the song has led to a number of explanations of its origins. One theory is tied to Marvin V. Frey (1918-1992), a New York City songwriter and evangelist who claimed a copyright for “Come By Here” in 1939, claiming to have heard the words in a prayer from a white Oregon evangelist. While he may well have heard a white evangelist saying such a prayer, the unusual words make it more likely that the evangelist was repeating something that he had heard rather than coming up with something new (Winick 2018). Another theory attributed the song to the Luvale language from Angola, which was thought to have been disseminated in America by missionaries who had served there. Yet a third theory attributed the words to the Gullah Beechee language on the Georgia coast (Winick 2018).

The first known transcription of a similar song, however, with the words “Come By Here,” came from a class project assigned by then-high school teacher Julian Parks Boyd (who later became an eminent historian), from Alliance, N.C., which is not particularly close to the area where Gullah is spoken. If this is true, it would suggest that the song was probably a widely circulated African-American spiritual, which began in the South

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and caught on elsewhere. A group of students from Oberlin College named The Folksmiths, who made the first folk-revival recording of the song, are known to have toured summer camps in 1957, which would further account for its reputation as a camp song (Winnick 1018).

See alsoPetitionary Prayer

FOR REFERENCE Weeks, Linton. 2012. “When Did ‘Kumbaya’ Become Such a Bad Thing?” NPR. Jan. 13. https://www.npr.

org/2012/01/13/145059502/when-did-kumbaya-become-such-a-bad-thing; Winick, Stephen. 2018. Kum-baya: History of an Old Song.” Feb. 6. Library of Congress. https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2018/02/kumbaya-history-of-an-old-song/

Kurtz v. Baker (1987)One of the more unusual issues that U.S. courts have had to decide with regard to prayer arose in a case

before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Kurtz v. Baker, in 1987. It began when Dr. Paul Kurtz, a professor of philosophy and a proponent of “secular humanism,” sued because both the Rev. Richard C. Halverson, chaplain of the U.S. Senate, and the Rev. James D. Ford, who held the corresponding position in the U.S. House, had refused his request to address Congress to open one of the sessions with a short speech reminding them of their moral responsibilities.

Kurtz complained that this denial violated the free-speech, free-exercise and the establishment clauses of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the due-process clause of the Fifth Amendment by arbitrarily discriminating against non-theists. The U.S. district court had ruled against Kurtz largely on the basis of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Marsh v. Chambers (1983), in which, chiefly drawing from the historic practice of prayer in Congress, the Court upheld a law in Nebraska providing for a chaplain to begin each day with prayer.

The decision by Judge James L. Buckley went against Kurtz. Although Buckley said Kurtz had suffered a concrete personal injury, namely that of being unable to present the views of secular humanism sympatheti-cally to Congress, thus giving him standing to bring his case, he did not believe that the injury could be traceable to the decision by the chaplains to exclude him from the time that Congress ordinarily devoted to prayer. Buckley further decided that Kurtz had not established standing as a taxpayer because he was not challenging the congressional expenditure of funds—a door partly opened in establishment-clause cases by the Supreme Court’s decision in Flast v. Cohen (1968)

Buckley argued that the only class of persons that Congress had authorized the chaplains to invite were those who were willing to pray: “As Kurtz will not pray and yet asks to participate in each house’s moment of prayer, it could be argued he has excluded himself ” (1142). Congress had expressed strong and explicit interest in opening its sessions in prayer, rather than with general remarks, and it was therefore not clear that the chaplains had power to invite someone for other purposes. Even if one of the chaplains tried to sneak Kurtz in to deliver something other than a prayer, any member of the house could stop the proceedings with an objection, leaving the causation at issue similar to that of tossing a coin into a wishing well (1143). Because the chaplains did not originate the policy at issue, “the cognizable injury he alleges is not fairly traceable to

them” (1145). Noting that she was following the lead of the Supreme Court in Marsh v. Chambers and that of the D.C.

Circuit in Murray v. Buchanan (1983), Judge (later Supreme Court Justice) Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a dissent to the majority’s emphasis on Kurtz’s standing in the case, choosing to emphasize that “The House and Senate rules Kurtz imaginatively reads to allow for ‘ceremonies’ and ‘guest speakers’ in fact authorize opening legislative sessions with prayer, nothing more and nothing less” (1147). She chose to continue to regard the Marsh decision as “carving out “a special nook—a narrow space tightly sealed off from otherwise applicable first amendment doctrine” (1147). Understanding this decision as settled law, Ginsburg argued that Kurtz “has stated no federal question of genuine substance,” and the court should simply dismiss his case (1152).

The same court issued a similar decision in the case of Barker v. Conroy in 2019 in which it rejected the appeal of a cleric who had become an atheist but wanted to offer a secular prayer before Congress.

See alsoBarker v. Conroy (2019) ; Congress, Chaplains; Marsh v. Chambers (1983); Murray v. Buchanan (1983)

FOR REFERENCE Barker v. Conroy, 921 F.3d 1118 (2019); Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83 (1968); Kurtz v. Baker, 829 F.2d 1133

(1987); Murray v. Buchanan, 720 F.2d 689 (1983).

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L

Lawrence, George, Speech in 1813Most contemporary commemorations and celebrations related to slavery

deal with Abraham Lincoln’s issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, with word of this emancipation reaching slaves in Texas on Juneteenth, or the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865 or the 14th Amendment in 1868. However, long before any of these documents were drafted, celebra-tions commemorated the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 1808.

For a number of years afterward, African-Americans held celebrations of this event and expressed hope that it was to be the harbinger of eventual emancipation. There are at least 11 such speeches in the years immediately following 1808. Indeed, one scholar has observed that “the orations on the

abolition of the slave trade constitute the most sustained generic tradition in black writing before the rise of emancipations movements in the United States” (Rezek 2010, 657). Speakers in New York included William Hamilton, who would later work with William Lloyd Garrison and other abolitionists; Peter Williams Jr., the first rector of the Episcopal Asbury Church; Henry Sipkins, a member of the New York Society for Mutual Relief; Joseph Sidney, an anti-Jeffersonian Federalist; and others including Henry Johnson, William Miller, Adam Carman, and George Lawrence, about whom less is known. Another set of African-American speakers also commemorated this event in Philadelphia (Rezek 2010, 658).

In one such speech at an African Episcopal church in New York, George Lawrence ended with a prayer that expressed hope that emancipation would spread throughout the United States. The speech, which was laden with colorful metaphors, celebrated the fifth anniversary of the law “as the birth day of justice and triumph over atrocious vice” that would eventually “bring forth the full fruits of emancipation, and divulge that bright genius so long smothered in slavery” (Lawrence 1813, 6). Vividly describing the horrors of the slave trade, Lawrence portrayed it as destroying an Eden-like Africa and subverting both natural rights and human flourishing. With emancipation, he believed that blacks would prove themselves to be the intellectual equals with whites. Lawrence said both reason and revelation affirmed “that man is but to be happy,” and that

“it is evident that the human being never was formed for slavery; for between no two things in existence does there exist so irreconcilable opposition, as between the human mind and slavery” (1813, 13).

Lawrence concluded his speech with the following heart-felt prayer: “And O! thou father of the universe and disposer of events, thou that called from a dark and formless mass

this fair system of nature, and created thy sons and daughters to bask in the golden streams and rivulets contained therein; this day we have convened under thy divine auspices, it’s not to celebrate in political festivi-ty, or the achievement of arms by which the blood of thousands were spilt, contaminating thy pure fields with human gore! But to commemorate a period [in which the slave trade was ended] brought to light by thy wise counsel, who stayed the hands of merciless power, and with hearts expanded with gratitude for they provi-dence, inundated in the sea of thy mercies we farther crave thy fostering care. O! wilt thou crush that power

that still holds thousands of our brethren in bondage, and let the sea of thy wisdom wash its very dust from off the face of the earth; let LIBERTY unfurl her banners, FREEDOM and JUSTICE reign triumphant in the world, universally.” (Lawrence 1813, 16)

See AlsoAfrican-American Spirituals

FOR REFERENCE Bacon, Jacqueline, and Glen McClish. 2006. “Descendants of Africa, Sons of ’76: Exploring Early Afri-

can-American Rhetoric.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 36:1-29; Lawrence, George. 1813. An Oration on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Delivered on the First Day of January, 1813, in the African Episcopal Church. New York: Hardcastle and Van Pelt; Rezek, Joseph. 2010. “The Orations on the Abolition of the Slave Trade and the Uses of Print in the Early Black Atlantic.” Early American Literature. Vol. 45, No. 3: 655-682.

Lee v. Weisman (1992)Although Supreme Court decisions in Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963)

ruled that public devotional prayer and Bible reading violated the First and 14th Amendments when they were included in public-school activities, many such schools continued to include invocations and benedic-tions at public graduation ceremonies. In Lee v. Weisman (1992), the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-to-4 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy that public schools were similarly forbidden from inviting a member of the clergy to pray at such graduation exercises. This opinion affirmed decisions both by the U.S. district and the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The case arose in public schools in Providence, R.I., where school officials included such prayers at both middle- and high school graduations. Although Deborah Weisman and her father, Daniel, had unsuccessfully sought to enjoin prayers at her middle-school graduation, they subsequently sought to forbid the practice at future graduation events including those at her high school.

At Weisman’s middle-school graduation, the principal, Robert E. Lee, had invited Rabbi Leslie Gutterman from Temple Beth El in Providence to deliver the invocation and benediction. He had also supplied the rabbi with a pamphlet, prepared by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, “Guidelines for Civic Occa-sions.” It included recommendations that such prayers should be prepared with “inclusiveness and sensitivity,” and that they should be “nonsectarian.” Both of the rabbi’s prayers followed this advice.

In writing his opinion, Kennedy decided against reconsidering the three-part test that the Court had estab-lished in Lemon v. Kurtzman for cases involving the establishment clause. He said this was unnecessary because “the government involvement with religious activity in this case is pervasive, to the point of creating a state-sponsored and state-directed religious exercise in a public school” (1992, 587). Drawing from earlier decisions involving prayer in schools, Kennedy concluded that “though the First Amendment does not allow the government to stifle prayers … neither does it permit the government to undertake that task for itself ” (1992, 589). He further observed that “The First Amendment’s Religion clauses mean that religious beliefs and religious expression are too precious to be either proscribed or prescribed by the State” (1992, 589). Citing James Madison and his stance toward religious establishments, Kennedy argued that “precedents do not permit school officials to assist in composing prayers as an incident to a formal exercise for their students” (1992, 590). He further contrasted free-speech cases, in which government seeks to ensure full participation

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by all, with establishment cases that require governments to keep its hands off. Much of Kennedy’s opinion rested on the argument that even though both parties had stipulated that

participation in graduation exercises was voluntary, graduations were unique milestones that few students would want to miss. Such ceremonies therefore exerted a form of “indirect coercion” (1992, 592) on students who objected to the prayers to stand respectfully, which others might interpret as their endorsement of such prayers. Moreover, in contrast to the legislative prayers, which the Court had upheld in Marsh v. Chambers (1983), students were far more impressionable than adult legislators and far less free to come and go during the prayers. Kennedy acknowledged “the profound belief of adherents to many faiths that there must be a place in the student’s life for precepts of a morality higher even than the law we today enforce. We express no hostility to those aspirations, nor would our oath permit us to do so” (1992, 598).

Justice Harry Blackmun authored a concurring opinion in which Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O’Connor joined. Relying strongly on Justice Hugo Black’s opinion in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), involving aid to parochial schools, and related cases, Blackmun pointed to the religious nature of prayer. He argued that even activities that did not involve coercion could violate the establishment clause, stressed that approving certain individuals to pray over others could convey “a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs” (1992, 606), and stressed the importance of “keeping religion in the hands of private groups” (1992, 608).

Another concurring opinion written by Justice David Souter and joined by Justices Stevens and O’Connor, emphasized that government entities can violate the establishment clause even when they do not favor one religion over another and denied that one needed to prove coercion in order for there to be a violation of the establishment clause. This opinion further distinguished between the accommodation of religion and its endorsement or establishment. Attempting to distinguish prayers at public-school graduations from those at other public events, Souter observed that “religious invocations in Thanksgiving Day addresses and the like, rarely noticed, ignored without effort, conveyed over an impersonal medium, and directed at no one in particular, inhabit a pallid zone worlds apart from official prayers delivered to a captive audience of public school students and their families” (1992, 631).

Justice Antonin Scalia delivered a strongly worded dissent that was joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and by Justices Byron White and Clarence Thomas. Using arguments similar to those in Marsh v. Chambers, Scalia pointed to the historical prominence of prayer both by public figures and in high school graduations, which he dated to the first such recorded ceremony in July 1868.

Scalia ridiculed the idea of “psychological coercion,” which he thought was “incoherent” (1992 636) and beyond the competence of judges and justices to measure. Scalia disputed the idea that standing respectfully at attention during a prayer could reasonably be understood as an endorsement of the content of the prayer, and said “maintaining respect for the religious observances of others is a fundamental civic virtue that govern-ment (including the public schools) can and should cultivate” (1992, 638). He noted that the invocation had been preceded by the pledge to the flag, with the words “under God,” even though the Court had prohibited schools from forcing students from participating in such ceremonies in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (1943).

Scalia said he did not believe that the directions that the principal had given to the rabbi could in any manner “be transformed into the charge that Principal Lee “directed and controlled the content of [Rabbi Gutterman’s] prayer” or otherwise implicate the state in their composition (1992, 640). Scalia further said the kind of coercion that the First Amendment prohibited was not psychological but involved “force of law and threat of penalty” (1992, 640).

Scalia accused the majority of relying “on formulaic abstractions that are not derived from, but positively

conflict with, our long-accepted constitutional traditions” (1992, 644). Indeed, he suggested, school officials could circumvent the decision simply by announcing that “while all are asked to rise for the invocation and benediction, none is compelled to join them, nor will be assumed, by rising, to have done so” (1992, 645). He further observed that “the Baptist or Catholic who heard and joined in the simple and inspiring prayers of Rabbi Gutterman on this official and patriotic occasion was inoculated from religious bigotry and prejudice in a manner than cannot be replicated. To deprive our society of that important unifying mechanism, in order to spare the nonbeliever what seems to me the minimal inconvenience of standing or even sitting in respectful nonparticipation, is as senseless in policy as it is unsupported in law” (1992, 646).

In Santa Fe School District v. Doe (2000), the Supreme Court further limited prayers at high school football games by students chosen by their classmates for this purpose.

See AlsoAbington School District v. Schempp; Engel v. Vitale; Marsh v. Chambers; Santa Fe School District v. Doe

FOR REFERENCE Cox, Kenneth Mitchell. 1984. “The Lemon Test Soured: The Supreme Court’s New Establishment Clause

Analysis.” Vanderbilt Law Review 37 (October): 1175-1203; Everson v. Board of Education 330 U.S. 1 (1947); Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992); Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971); Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983); Santa Fe School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000); West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).

Lee, Robert E., Prayer and Communion at St. Paul’sOf all the generals who served in the Confederate Army, none emerged from the Civil War (1861-1865)

with a better reputation than Robert E. Lee, who represented aristocratic values that had been associated with antebellum Virginia and the South as a whole. Indeed, for many years until 2020, Virginia celebrated an annual Lee-Jackson day to commemorate Lee and another Virginian, Gen. Stonewall Jackson.

Lee’s exemplary character was cited as the epitome of Southern values, and was even more idolized in the years following congressional Reconstruction (1865-1877) in which former Confederate leaders regained power and began to reassert their authority in the region and perpetrate what has become known as the myth of the Lost Cause. Lee was a staunch Episcopalian with a strong sense of duty, and rather than seeking to continue guerrilla operations against the Union and prolong bloodshed on both sides, he had surrendered gracefully to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse and had gone on to serve as president of Washington and Lee University (which, however, is considering renaming itself ).

One story that took particular hold on the public imagination in the mid-20th century during the civil rights movement is a story of Lee at prayer and worship at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in June 1865. Accord-ing to the story, as the Rev. Dr. Charles Minnegerode, the church’s rector, was administering the sacrament, a well-dressed black man walked to the altar and knelt at the railing to receive communion, leaving Minneg-erode and others in a quandary as to what to do. The story further relates that Lee rose from his pew and knelt beside the stranger therefore showing that he accepted what one writer describes as “a shared Christian identity” (Pierro 2006).

This account apparently originated in a small story that did not appear until April 1905 in the Richmond Times-Dispatch purporting to tell of the reminiscence of Thomas L. Broun, a former major in the Confederate

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Army who had known Lee and could well have worshipped with him. In the original telling, however, Broun had written that “General Robert E. Lee was present, and he, ignoring the action and very presence of the negro, immediately arose, in his usual dignified and self-possessed manner, walked up the aisle of the church to the chancel rail and reverently knelt down to partake of the communion and not far from where the negro was … . By this action of General Lee, the services were concluded, as if the negro had not been present. It was a grand exhibition of superiority shown by a true Christian and a great soldier under the most trying circumstances” (Pierro 2006). As one historian describes this version of the story, “Lee did not take Commu-nion with a black man, but in spite of him” (Pierro 2006).

This historian further suggests that if Broun’s story is true (and some characteristics of the church’s archi-tecture suggest at the least that some elements of the story are mistaken), “we cannot gain definitive knowl-edge of Lee’s attitudes or intentions on that day” in part because he never commented on them (Pierro 2006). The writer therefore suggests that the story may well tell us more about our own views at differing times in U.S. history than about Lee.

FOR REFERENCE Fishwick, Marshall W. 1961. “Robert E. Lee Churchman.” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal

Church 30 (December): 251-265; Pierro, Joseph. 2006. “Praying With Robert E. Lee.” Civil War Times 45: 38ff. http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=a9f79771-72ae-49d2-a4d7-5d30b9f7dd81%-40sessionmgr103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#AN=eds-gcl.143797772&db=edsgao

“Lift Every Voice and Sing”In 1899, James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) an African-American principal and lawyer who would

become a civil rights activist and diplomat, wrote a poem he called “Lift Every Voice and Sing” to help celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday in Jacksonville, Fla. His brother, John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954), subsequently converted this poem into a song, which was performed the next year by a group of 500 school-children. It was adopted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People as a theme song, and is often designated today as the Black National Anthem.

Although the first verse, which provides the title for the song, is probably the best known, the anthem has three stanzas. The first encourages song on behalf of liberty and hope. The second records the bitter years of slavery. The third and final stanza, like that of “The Star Spangled Banner,” which suggested that the national motto should be “In God is our trust,” is the most devout and is phrased as a prayer.

This stanza addresses God, asks for His direction, and urges participants to remain true to him and to the country:

God of our weary years God of our silent tears. Thou who has brought us thus far on the way; Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray. Lest our feet stray from the places, our God where we met Thee. Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;

Shadowed beneath Thy hand. May we forever stand, True to our God, True to our native land. The song is a reminder of the manner in which many African-Americans and their supporters used the

story of Moses, their faith in God, and the power of prayer to inspire their fight first for emancipation and later for equal treatment under the laws.

See alsoAfrican-American Spirituals

FOR REFERENCE Johnson, James Weldon. N.d. “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfounda-

tion.org/poems/46549/lift-every-voice-and-sing ; Perry, Imani. 2018. May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Lincoln, Abraham, Proclamation of ThanksgivingAlthough President Abraham Lincoln was not the first to issue a declaration of Thanksgiving, the holiday

that is so named is often traced back to a proclamation of thanksgiving that he issued on Oct. 3, 1863. It appears to have been prompted, at least in part, by a letter from Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879), a magazine editor, who had been pushing for a uniform national holiday for almost 15 years.

At a time when the outcome of the Civil War remained uncertain, Lincoln concentrated on “the blessings of fruitful fields and healthy skies,” and on other signs that pointed to “the ever watchful providence of Almighty God” (Lincoln 1863). Like some earlier New England petitions, and his own musing in his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln noted that God, “while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy” (Lincoln 1863).

In designating the last Thursday in November to be celebrated as a day of thanksgiving and praise, Lincoln ended with terminology similar to that of his Second Inaugural Address. He asked that, while offering thanksgiving, the people might also “with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore as may be consistent with the Divine purpos-es to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union” (Lincoln 1863).

See alsoLincoln, Abraham Second Inaugural Address; Presidential Proclamations of Prayer and Thanksgiving;

Washington, George, National Nations of Thanksgiving and Prayer

FOR REFERENCE. Lincoln, Abraham. 1863. “Proclamation of Thanksgiving.” Oct. 3. www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/

speeches/thanks.htm

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Lincoln, Abraham, Second Inaugural AddressThe Second Inaugural Address is one of the most notable speeches of one of America’s most profound presidents.Historians continue to explore Lincoln’s religious beliefs. After possibly embracing skepticism in his youth,

Lincoln appears to have edged closer to the central tenets of Christianity without ever joining a church. He further appears to have received comfort from the notion that his two young sons who had died might be in heaven. When reputedly asked whether God was on the Union side, Lincoln reputedly responded: “[M]y concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right” (Carter 2010).

Although Lincoln valued prayer, he could sometimes make light of his own prayers. On occasion, he would tell how a Quaker woman expected the South to win the Civil War because Jefferson Davis was a man of prayer. After she was informed that Lincoln also prayed, she reportedly replied, “Yes, but the Lord will think Abraham in only joking” (Noll 2004, 82).

In 1862, Lincoln wrote down deeply personal thoughts on God’s providence that are usually referred to as his “Meditation on the Divine Will.” Noting that God’s will prevails, Lincoln observed, “In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time.” By implication, God cannot fully answer prayers of individuals on both sides who are hoping for His help in securing victory. Lincoln further said, “In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party—and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.” Surmising that God was not yet ready for the war to end, Lincoln observed, “Yet the contest began. And, having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds” (Lincoln 1862).

Lincoln further applied these observations to prayer in his biblically saturated Second Inaugural Address. Contrasting the situation in 1865 with that which he confronted at the commencement of his first term, Lincoln identified slavery as the chief cause of the war. Observing that neither side had anticipated that the war would last as long as it did, Lincoln said, “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other” (Lincoln, 1865). Noting that “It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces,” Lincoln added that “let us not judge, that we be not judged,” and continued his thought on prayers: “The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes“ (Lin-coln 1865). Recognizing that it was therefore presumptuous to ask God to intervene on behalf of one or the other side, Lincoln added: “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass.” Whenever God chose to do so, Lincoln was convinced that Scripture was right in affirming that “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

In his concluding paragraph, he urged that “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations” (Lincoln 1865).

Most of the words of Lincoln’s address are engraved on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Early in the 20th century, the American novelist Mark Twain wrote a short story, “The War Prayer,” in

which he observed that prayers for victory by individuals on one side of a conflict would, if answered affirma-tively, require intense suffering on the other side.

See alsoTwain, Mark (“The War Prayer”)

FOR REFERENCE Carter, Joe. 1010. “Being on God’s Side: An Open Letter to the Religious Right.” First Things. Dec. 22.

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2010/12/being-on-gods-side-an-open-letter-to-the-religious-right ; Lincoln, Abraham. “Meditation on the Divine Will.” September 1862. Abraham Lincoln Online. www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/linsoln/speeches/meditat.htm ; Lincoln, Abraham. “Second Inaugural Ad-dress.” March 4, 1865. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln2.asp ; Noll, Mark. 2004. “Lincoln’s God.” The Journal of Presbyterian History 82 (Summer): 77-88; White, Ronald C. Jr. 2002. Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Liturgical Versus Spontaneous PrayerThere are two sometimes rival and sometimes complementary approaches to prayer that manifest them-

selves both within and across U.S. denominations. Historically, the Roman Catholic Church developed a series of liturgies that included written prayers and responsive readings, with the main part of a service consisting of a celebration of the Eucharist, or Mass, commemorating the death and anticipating the return of Christ through the sharing of bread and wine. As the Church of England, or Anglican Church, developed after King Henry VIII split from the Catholic Church, it also depended on a liturgy, including written prayers for all occasions, around the Book of Common Prayer. The Lutheran Church contains comparable liturgies.

Just as the pope was the head of the Roman Catholic Church, so too, English monarchs headed the Anglican Church and sought to exercise their authority over it. To this end, the Book of Common Prayer was especially effective because, in addition to including prayers for the continuing health of the monarchs, it provided uniformity among the churches that used it.

Because of its origins, the Anglican Church not only met in the ornate buildings (with statues, stained glass, and other such symbols) that had been once occupied by the Catholic Church, but its order of service also contained many of the formalities that had typified the Catholic Church. Those, like the Puritans, who wanted to further purify the church, and its houses of worship, of what they considered to be the residues of Catholic formalism put far greater emphasis on the sermon than on the liturgy, whereas British monarchs generally favored the latter in part because it provided greater uniformity. Protestant reformers believed that close adherence to written prayers and liturgy tended to stifle the work of the Holy Spirit. They thus criticized such liturgical prayer “as emotionally ‘cold’ or ‘lukewarm,’ mere ‘lip-labor’ born of ‘custom and formality,” in favor of “emotional authenticity and sincerity, to which spontaneous, unpremeditated verbal prayer testifies” (Branch 2005, 9). In A Discourse Touching Prayer, which he wrote in prison, John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, even questioned the use of the Lord’s Prayer, observing that the Bible itself contained two different versions of the prayer, and that there was no example of one of the apostles actually using it (Bunyan 1663, 20).

The Puritans who came to America brought such sentiments with them. Whereas Anglicans “called for the recitation of formal prayers at specific places in the order of worship,” American Puritans “tended to separate prayer from the body of the sermon instead of interspersing prayers throughout and therefore emphasized its distinctiveness as a rhetorical form” (Medhurst 1980, 42). Such an emphasis was further heightened in revivals known as the Great Awakenings, which particularly led to increased membership among Baptists and

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Methodists, the latter of which were an offshoot of Anglicanism. These and other evangelical denominations emphasized the so-called “sinner’s prayer,” by which individuals expressed their contrition and asked for salvation. Later charismatic Christians further associated speaking and praying in tongues, healings, and other such signs with the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Interestingly, when the Rev. Jacob Duché arrived at the Continental Congress to assume the role of chaplain, he matched the psalm prescribed for reading from the prayer book on that day while combining it with a fervent prayer of his own.

It is important to recognize that even denominations that eschew formal liturgies typically have an order of service that can, over time, become routinized. One scholar has observed that “it is not at all uncommon to hear American Baptists express their preference for a particular church by saying that it offers ‘a traditional Baptist service’ or to hear Methodists describe at length the distinctive character of ‘Methodist liturgy.’ Absent a central liturgical agency, liturgical norms can be established and enforced by local custom or the politics of a particular movement” ( Jordan 2006, 103).

See alsoBook of Common Prayer; Congress, First Prayer in; Lord’s Prayer; Sinner’s Prayer

REFERENCES Branch, Lori. 2005. “The Rejection of Liturgy, the Rise of Free Prayer, and Modern Religious Subjectivity.”

Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660-1700. 29 (Spring): 1-28; Bunyan, John. 1663. A Discourse Touching Prayer. http://truthinheart.com/EarlyOberlinCD/CD/Bunyan/text/Discourse.Touching.Prayer/Entire.Book.html ; Jordan, Mark D. 2006. “Arguing Liturgical Genealogies, or, the Ghosts of Weddings Past.” Authorizing Marriage? Canon, Tradition, and Critique in the Blessing of Same-Sex Unions, ed. Mark D. Jordan with Meghan T. Sweeney, and David M. Mellott. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 102-120; Medhurst, Martin Jay. 1980. ‘God Bless the President’: The Rhetoric of Inaugural Prayer. Thesis submitted for doctor of philosophy degree from the Graduate School in the Department of Speech Communication at Pennsylvania State University. August.

Lord’s PrayerBecause many American denominations have a preference for spontaneous rather than liturgical prayers,

Americans probably share fewer prayers in common that they might if they were all members of the Episcopal Church (with its Book of Common Prayer) or the Roman Catholic Church, with both a liturgy and generally the praying of the rosary. One exception, however, is the Lord’s Prayer (sometimes also called the Disciples’ Prayer), which is recorded in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4, and is widely used across denominations.

The passage in Luke reports that Jesus’s prayer came in answer to his disciples’ request for instruction on the subject. The version in Matthew, which is part of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, contains a doxology that is omitted in the Catholic Bible and hence in most Catholic prayers. The words to this prayer in the King James Version are as follows: “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, for ever. Amen.”

This prayer is notable for being phrased in the first person plural, for addressing God as Father, for focusing on God’s holiness, for consisting largely of a number of petitions including one for daily bread (reminiscent of God’s provision of manna for the Israelites during their wilderness wanderings), for its focus on God’s kingdom, for submission to His will, and for linking forgiveness from God to the pray-ers’ forgiveness of others. It clearly grows from Judaism and appears to have been largely the “creation of a particular individual” and “not simply a derivative from corporate prayers allegedly (but doubtfully) used in synagogue worship in the first century” (Gibson 2015, 62). The reference to a kingdom is perhaps more appropriate to a monarchy than to a democracy, but the kingdom being referred to is that of the perfect God rather than that of a flawed earthly monarch.

The Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Apostles’ Creed were often posted in early American Anglican (later Protestant Episcopal) Churches (Mullin 2001, 36), as in St. John’s Church in Richmond, Va., where Patrick Henry gave his famous speech saying that he would prefer to die than to live without liberty.

Reflecting the same kind of skepticism about liturgical prayers as the Puritans, John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, which was cherished by many early Americans, observed that he did not think that Jesus had intended for the Lord’s Prayer to be a set form, or the Gospels would not have recorded two versions. He further said the Bible did not record any examples of the apostles either offering this prayer or urging others to pray it (Bunyan 1663, 20).

Nonetheless, the prayer was prominent enough in America that Benjamin Franklin offered a revision. When Lincoln noted in his Second Inaugural Address that Americans in both North and South prayed to the same God, he might well have also noted that many of them also prayed the same prayer. Notably, when the U.S. Supreme Court had to decide on the constitutionality of devotional Bible reading and prayer in public schools in Abington v. Schempp, the prayer that children had been praying together was the Lord’s Prayer.

In 1969, Bill Safire, a speechwriter for President Nixon, prepared a speech for him to give in the event that astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin had been unable to return from the moon. The protocol established to precede the speech provided that when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) ended contact with the men, a clergyman would adopt procedures for burial at sea including com-mending their souls to “the deepest of the deep” and concluding with the Lord’s Prayer.

One of the most publicized uses of the Lord’s Prayer occurred during the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. Before Todd Beamer and other passengers aboard flight 93, which had been hijacked from Newark to San Francisco, rallied fellow passengers to attack the hijackers and bring the plane down in Pennsylvania rather than on its intended target in Washington, D.C. with the words “Let’s roll,” he had talked with a telephone operator with whom he had recited the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23 (Vulliamy 2001). Today there is a small chapel for prayer and meditation not far from the crash site that commemorates the story of Beamer and other passengers (Riley 2015, 111-155).

In February 2019, Melania Trump showed the continuing resonance of the Lord’s Prayer when she repeat-ed it before a Trump rally in Melbourne, Fla.

Several different tunes have set the Lord’s Prayer to music. The best known of these was composed by the American composer Albert Hay Malotte in 1935 (Deen 2015).

See alsoAbington v. Schempp; Book of Common Prayer; Franklin, Benjamin; Liturgical Versus Spontaneous Prayer;

Petitionary Prayer; Proposed Constitutional Amendments for Prayer in Schools

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FOR REFERENCE Bunyan, John. 1663. A Discourse Touching Prayer. http://truthinheart.com/EarlyOberlinCD/CD/Bunyan/

text/Discourse.Touching.Prayer/Entire.Book.html ; Deen, Ganns. 2015. “Our Father: Six Songs That Put the Lord’s Prayer to Music.” https://cbnasia.org/home/2015/04/our-father-six-songs-that-put-the-lords-prayer-to-music/ ; Gibson, Jeffrey B. 2015. The Disciples’ Prayer: The Prayer Jesus Taught in Its Historical Setting. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress; Griffing, Alexander. 2017. “Explained: Did Melania Trump’s Lord’s Prayer Violate Church-state Separation?” Haaretz. Feb. 19. https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/melania-trumps-prayer-did-not-violate-church-state-separation-1.5438310 ; Mulholland, James. 2001. Praying Like Jesus: The Lord’s Prayer in a Culture of Prosperity. San Francisco: Harper; Mullin, Robert Bruce. 2001. “The Book of Common Prayer and Eighteenth-Century Episcopalians.” Religions of the United States in Practice, Vol. 1, ed. Colleen McDannell. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 32-47; Riley, Alexander T. 2015. Angel Patriots: The Crash of United Flight 92 and the Myth of America. New York: NYU Press; Safire, Bill. 1969. “In the Event of Moon Disaster.” July 18. https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential-libraries/events/centenni-als/nixon/images/exhibit/rn100-6-1-2.pdf ; Vulliamy, Ed. 2001. “Let’s roll …” The Guardian. Dec. 1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/dec/02/september11.terrorism1

M

Madison, JamesFew Americans are more important to the writing and amending of the

U.S. Constitution than James Madison (1751-1836). Madison was born in Virginia and educated at the College of New Jersey (today’s Princeton), where he studied under President John Witherspoon, the only clergyman who signed the Declaration of Independence. Madison returned to Virginia, where he served on the committee responsible for adopting the Virginia Declaration of Rights and introduced a provision substituting protection for the “free exercise” of religion rather than for its mere “toleration.”

Madison was subsequently elected to the congress under the Articles of Confederation, and served in the Virginia Legislature. He was the putative author of the Virginia Plan, which served as the basis for the first two weeks

of deliberation at the Constitutional Convention that met in Philadelphia in 1787, and proposed a whole new form of government rather than simply revising the Articles of Confederation, and he took the most exten-sive notes at this gathering. Madison subsequently played a major role at the Virginia ratifying convention that met in Richmond in 1788. During debates over the ratification of the Constitution, he was a major contributor to The Federalist papers, and was elected to the First Congress, where he helped push for the adoption of the Bill of Rights as a way of placating Anti-Federalists who had feared that the new national government would be too powerful. Madison subsequently served as secretary of state during the administra-tion of his close friend Thomas Jefferson, with whom he had helped to found the Democratic-Republican Party. Madison then served as a U.S. president from 1809-1817, during which time the nation fought the War of 1812 against England, which many regarded as a second war for American independence.

Madison helped secure the adoption of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and wrote a Memorial and Remonstrance to aid this effort. In his First Inaugural Address, Madison proudly noted that part of the success of the nation rested on its decision “to avoid the slightest interference with the right of conscience or the functions of religion, so wisely exempted from civil jurisdiction” (1809).

Because he was wary of government involvement in religious affairs, it is notable that he ended this inau-gural address with a specific prayer. After citing “the well-tried intelligence and virtue of my fellow-citizens,” and members of the other departments of government, Madison remarked that: “In these my confidence will under every difficulty be placed, next to that which we have all been encouraged to feel in the guardianship and guidance of that Almighty Being whose power regulates the destiny of nations, whose blessings have been so conspicuously dispensed to this rising Republic, and to whom we are bound to address our devout gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent supplications and best hopes for the future” (Madison 1809).

Although Jefferson considered it inappropriate to do so, Madison issued two Thanksgiving Proclamations during his tenure, both during the War of 1812, and both at the request of Congress. He issued the first on Nov. 16, 1814, just months after the successful defense of Fort McHenry after the British had burned most public buildings in the nation’s capital. It declared that Jan. 12, 1815, “be recommended to be observed by the people of the United States as a day of public humiliation and fasting and of prayer to Almighty God for the

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safety and welfare of these States, His blessing on their arms, and a speedy restoration of Peace.” In addition to referring to “Almighty God,” the prayer also referred “to the Beneficent Parent of the Human Race” (Madi-son 1814).

After the war, Madison issued the second proclamation on March 4, 1815, for April 2 of that year. Again observing that he was responding to a congressional resolution, Madison called for “a day of thanksgiving and of devout acknowledgements to for His great goodness manifested in restoring to them the blessing of peace” (Madison 1815). In the proclamation, Madison further referred to God as “the Great Disposer of Events of the Destiny of Nations” and as the “Divine Author of Every Good and Perfect Gift.” He articulated a view of American providentialism when he observed that “His kind providence originally conducted them (Ameri-cans) to one of the best portions of the dwelling place allotted for the great family of the human race. He protected and cherished them under the difficulties and trials to which they were exposed in their early days. Under his fostering care their habits, their sentiments, and their pursuits prepared them for a transition in due time to a state of independence and self-government” (Madison 1815).

In retirement, Madison expressed reservations about such executive proclamations. Having long argued that the right to worship was an inalienable right that men never conceded to the state (Munoz 2003), he observed that although proclamations were “recommendations only, they imply a religious agency, making no part of the trust delegated to political rulers” (Fleet 1946, 560). He introduced five specific arguments against the practice. First he noted “that Govts ought not to interpose in relation to those subject to their authority but in cases where they can do it with effect. An advisory Govt is a contradiction in terms” (Fleet 1946, 560). Observing that members of government “cannot form an ecclesiastical Assembly, Convocation, Council, or Synod,” he next distinguished what leaders could do in their private rather than their public capacities. Third, he feared that such proclamations tended “to imply and certainly nourish the erroneous idea of a national religion,” which, while constituting “an imposing idea,” was unChristian (Fleet 1946, 500-501). Fourth, Madison observed that “the tendency of the practice” was “to narrow the recommendation to the standard of the predominant sect,” noting that John Adams’s proclamation had specifically referenced Christian worship. Finally, he expressed concern about “the liability of the practice to a subserviency to political views; to the scandal of religion, as well as the increase of party animosities” (Fleet 1946, 561). On this score, he observed that Washington had issued one of his proclamations immediately after suppressing the Whisky Rebellion.

In his “Detached Memoranda,” Madison also expressed concern that Congress had employed a chaplain using public funds (rather than paying him personally) and about the employment of chaplains in the military, which positions he doubted would ever go to individuals from minority sects (Fleet 1946, 558-560).

See alsoCongress, Chaplains; Presidential Proclamations of Prayer and Thanksgiving; Providentialism

FOR REFERENCE Fleet, Elizabeth. 1946. “Madison’s ‘Detached Memoranda.’” The William and Mary Quarterly 3 (October):

534-568; Madison, James. March 4, 1809. “First Inaugural Address.” Miller Center. https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-4-18-0-first-inaugural-address ; Madison, James. 1814. Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations. Pilgrim Hall Museum. https://pilgrimhall.org/pdf/TG_Presidential_Thanks-giving_Proclamations_1789_1815.pdf ; Madison, James. 1815. Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations; Pilgrim Hall Museum. https://pilgrimhall.org/pdf/TG_Presidential_Thanksgiving_Proclama-tions_1789_1815.pdf ; Munoz, Vincent Phillip. 2003. “James Madison’s Principle of Religious Liberty.” The American Political Science Review 97 (February): 17-32.

Marsh v. Chambers (1983)From time to time, chaplains or members of state legislatures garner headlines by delivering controversial

prayers at the beginning of legislative sessions. Although none of these cases appears to have reached the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1983 it did rule that the Nebraska Legislature had the constitutional right to hire a chaplain who delivered his prayers as part of his duties.

The Executive Board of the Legislative Council in Nebraska had hired a Presbyterian minister, Robert E. Palmer, and paid him $319.75 each month the Legislature was in session to open its daily sessions with prayer. He had been serving in this capacity since 1965. Ernest Chambers, who was both a Nebraska taxpayer and a member of the Legislature, challenged this practice as a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A district court had ruled that the prayers were not themselves uncon-stitutional but that paying a chaplain was, whereas the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it was impossible to distinguish one action constitutionally from the other and therefore issued a still wider decision ruling both practices unconstitutional.

The appeals court had chiefly rested this decision on its interpretation of Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). This case had ruled that practices violated the establishment clause when they lacked a secular legislative purpose, advanced or inhibited religion, or led to excessive entanglement between church and state. The 8th Circuit had concluded that the Nebraska practice of hiring a chaplain to deliver such prayers violated all three prongs of this test.

Chief Justice Warren Burger authored the majority decision for the U.S. Supreme Court that overruled the lower court decisions. In so doing, he largely ignored the Lemon test in preference for historical investigation. He wrote, “The opening of sessions of legislative and other deliberative public bodies with prayer is deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country,” (1983, 786), including the invocation “God save the United States and this Honorable Court” that begins each judicial session. He noted that the First Continen-tal Congress had opened its sessions with a prayer by a paid chaplain and that the first Congress under the new Constitution had followed suit. Moreover, the latter body had decided to hire chaplains just three days before proposing the Bill of Rights, which included today’s First Amendment. Nebraska had adopted a similar practice for its legislative body even before achieving statehood.

Recognizing that “standing alone, historical patterns cannot justify contemporary violations of constitu-tional principles” (1983, 790), Burger said the actions of the early congress shed light on what its members intended for the First Amendment to mean. The fact that the Continental Congress had settled on this practice after objections from two of its members further indicated that they did not take the action thought-lessly. Governments were not required to discontinue practices simply because they harmonized with religious sentiments. The fact that the Nebraska Legislature had maintained a single chaplain for 12 years was not a sign that it was attempting to favor one religion over another but simply an indication that “his performance and personal qualities were acceptable to the body appointing him” (1983, 793). Burger concluded, “The content of the prayer is not of concern to judges where, as here, there is no indication that prayer opportunity has been exploited to proselytize or advance any one or to disparage any other, faith or belief ” (1983, 794-795). Allowing for the continuation of this practice thus posed no threat to the establishment clause.

Justice William Brennan authored a fairly lengthy dissent joined by Justice John Paul Stevens. Indicating that he had given passing approval to this practice in Abington v. Schempp (1963), where he had distinguished such prayers from those in public schools, Brennan said the test established in Lemon v. Kurtzman was relevant, and that the practice of the Nebraska Legislature violated all three prongs of the test. Even beyond

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this test, however, Brennan believed that the Nebraska practice was in tension with “the underlying function of the Establishment Clause” (1983, 801). Brennan argued that the Framers had designed the clause to provide both “separation” and “neutrality” (1983, 803). He focused on its role in guaranteeing individual rights of conscience, in preventing state interference with the autonomy of religious life, with preventing “the trivialization and degradation of religion” (1983, 804), and avoiding political divisiveness. Articulating a high view of prayer, Brennan observed that it is a religious action and a form of worship.

As to the majority’s arguments from history, Brennan suggested that Congress sometimes paid more attention to political pressures than to constitutional arguments, that the Court should also consider the views of those at the state level who ratified the First Amendment, and that, in any event, “The Constitution is not a static document whose meaning in every detail is fixed for all time by the life experience of the Framers” (1983, 816). Brennan thought that the practice of beginning legislative sessions with prayer went far beyond such “de minimis” practices as recognizing the words “In God We Trust” or the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. He pointed to the many controversies among individuals of different faiths as to the kinds of prayers that should be offered.

In a much shorter dissent, which would have upheld the decision by the 8th Circuit, Justice Stevens opined that the prayers of state legislative chaplains tended “to reflect the faith of the majority of the lawmakers’ constituents” (1983, 822) and rarely provided opportunities for those of minority faiths.

The decision in Marsh was the primary precedent that the majority of the Court used to uphold the practice of public prayer at town meetings in Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit cited the Marsh precedent in Murray v. Buchanan to dismiss a complaint challenging the House chaplaincy in 1983, and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia used it in Newdow v. Eagen in 2004 to dismiss a case challenging congressional chaplains and prayer (Brudnick 2004, 5).

See alsoAbington v. Schempp; Congress, First Prayer in; God Save the United States and this Honorable Court;

Military Chaplains; Town of Greece v. Galloway

FOR REFERENCE Abington v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 202 (1963); Brougher, Cynthia. 2014. “Prayer and Religious Expression in

Public Institutions: A Constitutional Analysis.” Congressional Research Service. June 23; Brudnick, Ida A. May 26, 2011. “House and Senate Chaplains: An Overview.” Congressional Research Service. 7-5700, www.crs.gov, R41807; Cox, Kenneth Mitchell. 1984. “The Lemon Test Soured: The Supreme Court’s New Estab-lishment Clause Analysis.” Vanderbilt Law Review 37 (October): 1175-1203; Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971); Mallory, Jeremy G. 2004. If There Be a God Who Hears Prayer: An Ethical Account of the United States Chaplain. Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in divinity. University of Chicago; Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983); Murray v. Buchanan, 729 F. 2d 689 (D.C. Cir. 1983); Newdow v. Eagen, 309 F. Supp. 2d 29 (D.D.C. 2004); Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565 (2014).

Marshall, PeterOf all the individuals who have held the position of chaplain of the U.S. Senate, few were more beloved that

Peter Marshall (1902-1949). The Scottish-born naturalized immigrant who served from January 1947 until his untimely death from a heart attack in 1948 was commemorated through his wife’s writings, including her biography, A Man Called Peter.

A graduate of the Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga., Marshall pastored a number of churches including the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., before becoming the Senate’s chaplain.

Marshall was a moral absolutist who early on recognized the threat that Adolf Hitler posed to world peace (Hale 2017, 14). Believing that America had a providential destiny, Marshall was particularly fond of the passage in 2 Chronicles 7:14 that said: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” In a prayer “For World Peace,” Marshall asked “Wilt Thou reveal Thy will for America, that she may now realize her destiny and place in Thy plan for the world?” (Marshall 1982, 111).

Marshall’s prayers were typically succinct and often included metaphors. They frequently cited Scripture, and spoke of the “God of our Fathers,” but almost always ended in Jesus’s name. Marshall was firmly con-vinced that the American Founders had established a Christian nation built on biblical principles, and that it had been established by God’s providence. In a “Prayer for America,” Marshall asked, “May we begin to see that all true Americanism begins in being Christian; that it can have no other foundations, as it has no other roots” (Marshall 1982, 101). In another “Prayer for the Leaders of the Nation,” he asked that “As Thou hast made and preserved us a nation, so now mold us into a people more worthy of a great heritage” (1982, 100). In a prayer before the Senate on Jan. 22, 1947, he implored, “May we remember that it takes time to build the nation that can truly be called God’s own country” (1982, 134).

As Secretary of State George C. Marshall was urging that America help reunify Western Europe, Peter Marshall prayed, “if it be Thy will that America should assume world leadership, as history demands and the hopes of so many nations desire, make us good enough to undertake it” (1982, 176). Peter Marshall lauded representative government and the protection of individual rights and asked that God would help senators

“remember how bitterly our freedom was won, the down payment that was made for it, the installments that have been made since the Republic was born, and the price that must yet be paid for our liberty” (1982, 186). Marshall asked God to deliver senators “from the God-helps-those-who-help-themselves philosophy, which is really a cloak for sheer unbelief in Thy ability and willingness to take care of us and our affairs” (1982, 161). He lamented that “we have improved means, but not improved ends” and reminded senators “that ‘I’ is in the middle of sin” (1982, 200, 202). He prayed that other nations would imitate “not the America of loud jazz music, self-seeking indulgence, and love of money, but the America that loves fair play, honest dealing, straight talk, real freedom, and faith in God” (1982, 233). After noting that “We know that we cannot do everything,” his final prayer before the Senate, which was delivered by a fellow pastor, he asked God to “help us to do something” (1982, 243).

See alsoCongress, Chaplains; Providentialism

FOR REFERENCE Hale, Frederick. 2017. “Fighting the Good Fight from the ‘Church of the Presidents’: Peter Marshall’s

Homiletics during the Second World War.” The Journal of Presbyterian History 95 (Spring/Summer): 18-31; Marshall, Peter. 1982. The Prayers of Peter Marshall. Compiled and edited by Catherine Marshall. Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen Books.

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MasonsThe Masons, or Freemasons, are a secret fraternal organization that promote the brotherhood of man and

the fatherhood of God and character development without otherwise dictating individual religious beliefs (Eidsmoe 1987, 45). Although members have to believe in God, this belief is broad enough to encompass a Deist God who created the universe and is largely remote from it, or the Christian God as revealed in Jesus. Masons do specifically identify with John the Baptist and John the Apostle and often participate in St. John’s Day processions (Hackett 2016, 57).

Masons trace their origins to medieval guilds of stonemasons, many of which in turn claimed that they had originated during the time of King Solomon and the building of the first Jewish temple. In early American society, participation in the Masons often allowed tradesmen without much formal education to join in frater-nal fellowship and share ideas of enlightenment (Hackett 2014, 58). Many of America’s leading Founders were Masons, including Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and George Washington, and numerous officers in the Revolutionary War who often found support in fraternal lodges when away from home.

Masonic symbols include the seeing eye of God, which is incorporated on the Great Seal of the United States, a plumb and a level to assure proper foundations, a square and a compass, and an open Bible. Other symbols include an hourglass and a scythe, symbolizing the transience of human life, and a handshake symbolizing friendship (Ruli 2019, 84). Members progress through various stages, each of which is designed to mark a new level of enlightenment. Although the organization remains open only to males, it has a female complement in the Order of the Eastern Star.

Initiation ceremonies include prayer. A typical prayer was: “Vouchsafe thine aid, Almighty Father of the Universe, to this our present convention, and grant that this candidate for Masonry may dedicate and devote his life to thy service, and become a true and faithful brother among us. Endure [Endow?] him with a compe-tency of thy Divine Wisdom, that, by the influence of the pure principles of our Order, he may the better be enabled to display the beauties of holiness to the honor of thy holy name. Amen” (Dumenil 2016, 35).

In early America, Masons often participated in laying foundation stones not only for their own lodges and temples, but also for public buildings. One of the most notable of these ceremonies took place when President Washington, wearing an apron that identified him as a member of the organization, participated in laying the cornerstone of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. (Ruli 2019). Such dedications included prayer, often addressed to the Great Architect of the Universe. Masons participated in similar ceremonies for the capitol buildings in Virginia and Massachusetts, bridges, ceremonies at the Universities of Virginia and North Carolina, the dedication of Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Bunker Hill Memorial (Hack-ett 2016, 66-67). A modern Masonic prayer for laying foundation stones includes the following: “May the Master, Fellow Crafts, and Apprentices be directed by Thy most gracious favor, and furthered with Thy continual help. May the structure of which this is typical be cemented and adorned, completed and preserved, by those good offices and kind affections which He requires who will lay judgment to the line and righteous-ness to the plummet. From this corner stone, ‘well tried, true, and trusty,’ may the good work advance in peace and harmony, till all worthy brethren shall bring forth the head stone with shouting, crying, ‘Grace and peace be unto it.’” (Tennessee Craftsman 2003, 149). Although there were later periods during which churches were wary of Masons, in the early republic Masons participated in laying foundation stones for many of them, and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was common for members of the clergy, who believed Masonic beliefs complemented Christianity, to join the organization (Dumenil 2016, 53).

Masons believe in immortality and put particular emphasis on funerals, which like initiations, are consid-

ered to be a rite of passage (Dumenil 2016, 39). Although they are held in public, the rituals have particular meaning for their members.

One unique feature of Masonic prayers is that while they do not generally end by invoking the name of Jesus, they do often end with the phrase, “So mote it be.” This is an early Scottish expression meaning “So may it be,” or “So be it,” which is essentially the equivalent of the more widely used ending of “Amen.”

Puritans and many of the Protestant descendants have eschewed formalism and liturgy for sermons and spontaneous prayer. One scholar suggests that “for many traditionally religious men, Masonry, containing the pageantry and ritual largely absent from Protestant churches, could serve as a dramatic addition to traditional religious expression” (Dumenil 2016, 42).

See alsoLiturgical Versus Spontaneous Prayer

FOR REFERENCE Dumenil, Lynn. 2016. Freemasonry and American Culture, 1880-1930. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Universi-

ty Press; Eidsmoe, John. 1987. Christianity and the Constitution: The Faith of the Founding Fathers. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker House Books; Hackett, David G. 2014. That Religion in Which All Men Agree: Freemasonry in American Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press; Myers, Justin. 2010. “‘A Secret Band of Broth-ers:’ Shining Light on the Truth of Illinois Freemasonry.” Feb. 28. Fourteen East Magazine. http://fourteene-astmag.com/index.php/2020/02/28/a-secret-band-of-brothers-shining-light-on-the-truth-of-illinois-freemasonry/ ; Ruli, Chris Besmir. “Cornerstone Men.” Washington History 31 (Fall): 82-92; Tennessee Craftsman. 2003. 25th ed. Nashville: Grand Lodge of the State of Tennessee; “Why do Freemasons end their prayers with the phrase ‘So mote it be’?” Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. https://scottishrite.org/scottish-rite-myths-and-facts/qo-so-mote-it-be/

McGuffey ReadersFor all the attention that has been paid to devotional prayer in public schools in the aftermath of Engel v.

Vitale (1962) and other U.S. Supreme Court decisions, far less has been paid to teaching about prayer prior to these decisions.

In the early years of the Republic, many individuals learned to read through the New England Primer, which was based on New England Congregational doctrine and included a number of prayers. In the mid- to late 19th century, this primer was largely replaced by the McGuffey Readers, the first four of which were written and edited by William H. McGuffey (1800-1873), who taught at Miami University of Ohio and became president of the University of Cincinnati and Ohio University before being named chair of moral philosophy at the University of Virginia. The last two were written by his brother Alexander Hamilton McGuffey (Cram 1988, 242).

McGuffey’s three main goals were to foster “Knowledge, public and private enjoyment and productivity, and the development of character.” The readers also stressed the importance of “individual rights,” human agency,” and the “relationship of public and private” life (Cram 1988, 242-243), as well as the values of honesty, the idea that virtue pays, an emphasis on hard work, and patriotic appeals (Saunders 1941, 582-588). Although McGuffey was an ordained Presbyterian minister, his stories did not put the same emphasis on original sin, death, and eternal punishment as did the New England Primer, and McGuffey appears to have

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rejected the idea of predestination (Saunders 1941, 588-589). One scholar has noted that “Schoolbooks of the nineteenth century are permeated with a sense of God, and McGuffey’s are no exception” (Kolmer 1976, 312).

The original editions were published in 1836, and they were continually published throughout the 19th and into the 20th centuries. Total sales are believed to have numbered more than 120 million copies, many of which were probably read by multiple family members (Saunders 1941, 580). Recent years have witnessed renewed interest in the McGuffey Readers, especially among home school advocates. Working through a printing of a revised edition listing copyrights from 1881 to 1909, the author has discovered at least some reference to prayer in each volume.

The final lesson of McGuffey’s Primer ends with a poem about the end of the day that concludes with the lines, “When to him you tell your woes, Know the Lord will hear” (Primer 80). This same poem is printed out in longhand in the First Eclectic Reader (83). The Second Eclectic Reader includes a poem, “God is Great and Good,” with five stanzas, the last of which ends with the words, “For great and good is He” (120). The Third Eclectic Reader includes a poetic version of “The Lord’s Prayer” (90), and the last entry in the volume, “Good Night,” ends with the line “And say our evening prayer” (208). The Fourth Eclectic Reader includes Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, which includes the admonition to seek out God in prayer (106). The Fifth Eclectic Reader includes James Henry Lee Hunt’s “Abou Ben Adhem,” which exalts an individual who loves his fellow man (95-96), selections from the Bible under the title “The Goodness of God” that include psalms and petitions (167-169), and a poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans, “The Hour of Prayer” (171). The Sixth Eclectic Reader ends with Samuel Coleridge’s “Ode to Mt. Blanc,” which concludes with “And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sin, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God” (464).

See alsoEngel v. Vitale; New England Primer

FOR REFERENCE Cram, Ronald H. 1988. “‘Eclectic Readers,’ by William H. McGuffey. American Presbyterians 66 (Winter):

241-244; Kolmer, Elizabeth. 1976. “The McGuffey Readers: Exponents of American Classical Liberalism. The Journal of General Education (Winter): 309-316; [McGuffey, William H.] 1909. Revised edition. McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers, Primer through the Sixth, Revised Editions. New York: American Book Co; Saunders, D.A. 1941. “Social Ideas in McGuffey Readers.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 5 (Winter): 579-589.

McKinley, William William McKinley (1843-1901), who served as president from 1897 until dying from an assassin’s bullet,

was a devout Methodist. He fought on the Union side in the Civil War before practicing law, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, and occupying the governor’s office in Ohio.

Like many of his presidential predecessors, McKinley believed that America had a special destiny. Nowhere was this sense of destiny more evident than during the Spanish-American War, which McKinley entered after clamor from leading American newspapers who deplored the treatment of Spanish colonies in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines and whose thirst for war reached a crescendo after the American battleship Maine sank in the harbor in Havana, Cuba.

Two years after McKinley’s death, Gen. James Rusling published an “interview” in the Christian Advocate with McKinley that took place on Nov. 21, 1899, when he met with a number of Methodist leaders and

bishops including Rusling. According to Rusling, McKinley expressed concern that Methodist chaplains were not as well vetted as those supplied by the Roman Catholics, and he asked the assembled group to help him to improve the quality of Methodist chaplains.

McKinley then began defending his decision to take the Philippines as a colony. Somewhat strangely for one who was conversing with bishops who were monotheists, Rusling reported (probably using a figure of speech) that “The truth is I didn’t want the Philippines, and when they came to us, as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them” (Rusling 1903). After seeking counsel from both fellow Republicans and Democrats, McKinley said that he walked the floor at nights and “I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, [It’s not clear why the president would be ashamed to say this in front of church leaders] that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night” (Rusling 1903). McKinley then reported that, presumably in answer to his prayers, “one night late it came to me this way—I don’t know how it was, but it came” (Rusling 1903).

McKinley said that he considered four choices. The first, to give the Phillipines back to Spain, seemed “cowardly and dishonorable”; the possibility of turning them over to France or Germany seemed like “bad business and discreditable”; and the thought of allowing them to govern themselves at a time when “they were unfit for self-government” seemed to invite “anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was.” McKinley had therefore concluded that “there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died” (Rusling 1903). According to Rusling, McKin-ley further reported that he slept soundly after making this decision and that the next morning he instructed the chief engineer in the War Department to put the Philippines on a U.S. map.

As the conversation continued, Rusling reported that McKinley proclaimed, “I am a Methodist, and nothing but a Methodist—a Christian, and nothing but a Christian” (Rusling 1903). McKinley further referenced the times that his mother had taken him to Methodist prayer meetings, and added that “by the blessing of heaven, I mean to live and die, please God, in the faith of my mother!” (Rusling 1903).

Although some question the accuracy of the report of a meeting that took place two years previously, it seems quite credible both to believe that McKinley had prayed for divine guidance over a matter of such importance, and that he associated what others considered to be imperialism as a way of furthering God’s purposes. In expressing the hope to Christianize the Filipinos, McKinley ignored the fact that most had already converted to Roman Catholicism.

When he was shot, McKinley urged the crowd not to hurt his attacker, and numerous commemorative items that expressed the nation’s grief included McKinley’s reputed last words, which, in a seeming echo of the Lord’s Prayer, were, “It is God’s way. His will, not ours, be done” (Smith 2015, 189). McKinley’s subse-quent death from his gunshot wound, like that of James Garfield before him, led many Americans, who had prayed for his recovery, to question the efficacy of petitionary prayer (Ostrander 2000, 3-4).

See alsoCongress, Chaplains; Deaths of U.S. Presidents; Petitionary Prayer; Providentialism

FOR REFERENCE McDougall, Walter A. 2019. The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy: How America’s Civil Religion Betrayed the

National Interest. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; Ostrander, Rick. 2000. The Life of Prayer in a World

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of Science: Protestants, Prayer, and American Culture 1870-1930. New York: Oxford University Press; Rusling, James. 1903. “Interview with President William McKinley.” Jan. 22. https://ksassessments.org/sites/default/files/HGSS_Preview_Texts/Grade_11/Interview%20with%20President%20William%20McKinley.pdf ; Smith, Gary Scott. 2015. Religion in the Oval Office: The Religious Lives of American Presidents. New York: Oxford University Press.

Mass Media and Other TechnologiesA number of contemporary preachers and evangelists are better known for their presence in the media than

for their work within their own churches. Sister Aimee McPherson, Father Charles Coughlin, Billy Graham, Father Fulton J. Sheen, Oral Roberts, Rex Humbard, T.D. Jakes, Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Pat Robertson, Carl McIntyre, Robert Schuller, and Joel Osteen are just a few of the individuals who are or were known for their broadcasts. Some, like Bakker and Robertson, have founded their own radio or televi-sion networks. Such broadcasts often feature prayers, with charismatic broadcasters putting special emphasis on intercessory prayers for those with illnesses.

Like prayer, electronic broadcasting allows individuals to reach out to those whom they cannot see. During the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, it became common for families to gather around a radio to listen to his so-called “fireside chats.” In a similar way, it is apparently still common for people in rural areas to gather around the radio to hear Gospel preachers.

A study by Anderson Blanton, who is a postdoctoral associate at Yale Divinity School, observes that in southern Appalachia, production crews often gather round their microphones in prayer as they broadcast radio programs, just as members of the listening public often lay their hands on the radio set as they listen. He points out that “The phenomenon of healing radio tactility is a preeminent example of an interfacing of techniques of divine communication and the technology of the radio apparatus” (Blanton 2015, 28). Televised Pentecostal services often portray individuals falling out or being slain in the Spirit as the pastor places his hand on their forehead and prays over them and/or commands evil spirits to depart from their bodies.

It might be noteworthy that the first words transmitted over the telegraph, which was the first known means of electronic communication, on May 24, 1844, were the words of its inventor Samuel Morse from the U.S. Capitol to Alfred Vail at a railroad station in Baltimore, taken from Numbers 23:23, asking, “What Hath God Wrought?” (“Samuel Morse”). Moreover, a study of Southern rural churches noted that a visiting evan-gelist at a Church of God revival meeting used a technological reference to explain prayer:

“We certainly know that there’s a channel of prayer where everyone goes to contact God and a lot of times you can call on the telephone and the line is busy, and they’ll say, ‘I’ll call you back later,’ and something of that nature, but God’s line is never busy. His ear is ever open to the cry of the righteous for which I’m very thankful. It doesn’t matter how hard it’s raining or how hard it’s storming, the glory of God can fill our souls just anytime that we call up Heaven over this wonderful royal telephone that the Lord has given us the privilege to talk over in that prayer.” (Zimmerman, Seibert, Billings, and Houghland 1990, 305-306).

Ministries often use other technologies as a way of aiding their prayers. Thus, Father Gervan Menezes, a priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nashville who wanted to pray more effectively for fellow Tennesse-ans who had been devastated by tornadoes and by the coronavirus, hopped into an airplane and flew over the affected areas as he prayed. He also brought along the Blessed Sacrament, which for Catholics is the body of Christ, for his journey (Meyer 2020).

Some individuals travel to areas of the world that are not open to public preaching and pray for God to work there. Clearly, it would be possible to make the same prayers from a distance, but perhaps without the same sense of immediacy that being on the spot brings.

See also Television

FOR REFERENCE Blanton, Anderson. 2015. Hittin’ the Prayer Bones: Materiality of Spirit in the Pentecostal South. Chapel Hill:

University of North Carolina Press. See especially Chapter 1, “Radio as ‘Point of Contact’ Prayer and the Prosthesis of the Holy Ghost,” pp. 11-35; Meyer, Holly. 2020. “Priest uses airplane to pray over Nashville.” The Tennessean, March 28, p. 6A; “Samuel Morse demonstrates the telegraph with the message, ‘What hath God wrought?’” History. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history-what-hath-god-wrought ; Zimmer-mann, Stephanie, and Joy Hart Siebert, Dwight B. Billings, and James G. Houghland Jr. “‘God’s Line is Never Busy’: An analysis of Symbolic Discourse in Two Southern Appalachian Denominations.” Sociological Analysis 51 (Autumn): 197-306.

Memorial DayThose who die in defense of a nation are revered much like religious martyrs who die on behalf of their faith.

This was particularly true of those who died defending the Union in the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865), which became linked to the emancipation of American slaves.

In 1868, John A. Logan, who headed a veterans organization known as the Grand Army of the Republic, established May 30 as Decoration Day as a way of honoring Union dead (Rauch 1947). In 1888, Congress recognized this day as a holiday for federal employees (Stathis 1999, 3). In time, this holiday was largely merged into Memorial Day, which since 1971 has been celebrated on the last Monday in May (it was previ-ously celebrated on May 30).

Although the holiday is today more often known for parades and picnics (Albanese 1974), in adopting this law, Congress specifically urged the president to issue an annual proclamation related to prayer. It thus asked for a resolution:

(1) calling on the people of the United States to observe Memorial Day by praying, according to their individual religious faith, for permanent peace.

(2) designating a period of time on Memorial Day during which the people may unite in prayer for perma-nent peace;

(3) calling on the people of the United States to unite in prayer at that time; and (4) calling on the media to join in observing Memorial Day and the period of prayer. (Pub. L. 105-225, 1998).Although the president thus calls upon people to pray for peace, the president does not prescribe specific

words for the prayer, specify whether the prayer is given in Jesus’s name, or other particulars. Congress did further adopt “The National Moment of Remembrance Act,” encouraging citizens to pause at 3 p.m. local time in a moment of silence to honor war dead.

Congress has also requested that the president acknowledge a national day of prayer each May. In recent years, presidents have increasingly also declared special days of prayer, often connected either to offer thanks-

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giving for military victories (as in the Gulf War) or to commemorate tragedies like the terrorist attacks of September 2001 (Domke and Coe 2010, 81-83).

The president typically places a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, Va. on Memorial Day.

See alsoMoments of Silence; Presidential Proclamations of Prayer and Thanksgiving

FOR REFERENCE Albanese, Catherine. 1974. “Requiem for Memorial Day: Dissent in the Redeemer Nation.” American

Quarterly 26 (October): 386-398; Domke, David, and Kevin Coe. 2010. The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America. Updated edition. New York: Oxford University Press; Rauch, Mabel Thompson. 1947. “The First Memorial Day.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 40 ( June): 213-216; Stathis, Stephen. 1999. Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application. Feb. 8. Congressional Research Service. The Library of Congress.” CRS Report for Congress received through CRS Web; 36 U.S. code Section 116. Memorial Day. Pub. L. 105-225, Aug. 12, 1998, 112 Stat. 1257.

Military ChaplainsMost prayers at formal occasions in the military are delivered by chaplains, who are paid by the government.

On the surface, such chaplaincy might be thought to violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment because it provides for direct expenditures on the salaries and worship materials for chaplains. Indeed, in his so-called “Detached Memoranda,” none other than James Madison questioned the constitutionality of both congressional and military chaplains, although he was writing at a time when few Americas would have served abroad, and he observed that “The case of navies with insulated crews may be less within the scope of these reflections” (Fleet 1947, 560).

In Katcoff v. Marsh (1985), the leading case on the subject, however, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against an establishment-clause challenge to the institution. In so doing it cited both congressional powers to govern the military and what it considered to be the religious free-exercise issues in play.

Consistent with the decision in Marsh v. Chambers (1983), which dealt with prayer by state legislative chaplains, the high court pointed out that military chaplains had a long history going all the way back to the Revolutionary War. In accord with dicta in Abington v. Schempp (1963) and related cases, the Court further observed that in providing chaplains, the government was attempting to mitigate conditions that it created as it moved soldiers (and often their dependents) to remote areas of the world with differing cultures and languages and without access to spiritual counsel from someone within their own faith tradition. The Court further thought that it would be impractical to expect denominations, especially those with relatively few members, to provide this support on their own.

A study of the chaplaincy by two law professors at George Washington University, which is in basic agreement with the decision in Katcoff, outlines a number of principles that it says this and other decisions have created and that the professors believe are consistent with religious free-exercise rights. These include: the need to relieve significant burdens and stresses (including injury and death) that military service would

otherwise impose on its members; assurances that the worship being facilitated is private, voluntary, and denominationally neutral; and making sure that such accommodations did not impose significant burdens on third parties (Lupu and Tuttle 2007, 113-116).

In examining the chaplaincy of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, the professors further note that “chaplains are commissioned to provide religious services in accordance with the tenets of the religious com-munity that endorsed them for the chaplaincy” and that “they also provide commanders with advice and assistance in meeting the religious needs of all those for whom the commander has responsibility, regardless of religious affiliations,” which provides balance between what they refer to as “particularism” and “pluralism” (116). They point out that the military requires chaplains to be endorsed by their respective denominations and to have graduate degrees. Although the services try accommodate diverse religious needs, they are not required to apportion chaplains according to the proportion of members that each denomination has either within the population as a whole or within the military population in particular. Chaplains are subject to military discipline and are required to be willing to provide for the spiritual needs of those outside their own denominations.

Chaplains are also expected to further harmony by refraining from direct criticism of those of other faiths. Acknowledging that the decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006) recognized that the scope of speech on behalf of government was less than that of ordinary personal speech, the authors observed that “A chaplain’s speech in faith group worship ... falls in a unique netherworld between a government employee’s job-related speech (restrictable under Garcetti) and the expression of a private individual” (Lupu and Tuttle 2007, 139). They thus observed that “the military may not attempt to regulate the recitation of creeds, liturgy or scripture verses that contain exclusivist claims, but might have a different attitude toward chaplains that overtly and specifically condemn the faith traditions of others” (Lupu and Tuttle 2007, 142).

Noting that the military has issued regulations providing that ceremonial prayers should be nonsectarian, which would typically exclude prayers in Jesus’s name or otherwise unique to a particular religious belief, the law professors further observed that if chaplains thought that this compromised their faith, they were free to decline such a duty without prejudice (Lupu and Tuttle 2007, 151). They further said that in seeking to provide responsive care to members of different faiths, who might have to turn to a chaplain outside their own religious denomination, the military could rightfully restrict religious proselytizing by chaplains, much as was done in public hospitals as described in the case of Carter v. Broadlawns Medical Center (1988) (Lupu and Tuttle 2007, 161).

See alsoCongress, Chaplains; In Jesus’s Name; Madison, James; Marsh v. Chambers

FOR REFERENCE Carter v. Broadlawns Medical Center, 857 F.2d 488 (1988); Conyngham, David Power. 2019. Soldiers of the

Cross, the Authoritative Text: The Heroism of Catholic Chaplains and Sisters in the American Civil War, ed. David J. Endres and William B. Kurtz. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press; Draft, Emilie S. “Chap-lains.” The First Amendment Encyclopedia. https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/909/chaplains ; Fleet, Elizabeth. 1946. “Madison’s ‘Detatched Memoranda.’” The William and Mary Quarterly 3 (October): 534-568; Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006); Greenwalt, Kent. 2008. “Chaplains in the Military and in Prison.” Religion and the Constitution. Vol. 2: Establishment and Fairness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 207-220; Katcoff v. Marsh, 755 F.2d 223 (1985); Lupu, Ira C., and Robert W. Tuttle. 2007. “Instruments of

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Accommodation: The Military Chaplaincy and the Constitution.” West Virginia Law Review 1110: 89-165; Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983); Romero, Sidney J. 1955. “The Confederate Chaplain.” Civil War History 1 ( June): 127-140; Stahl, Ronit Y. 2017. Enlisting Faith: How the Military Chaplaincy Shaped Religion and State in Modern America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Military Language When Muslims refer to jihad, they may be referring to an inner struggle or they may be referring to a holy

war (Cook 2005), but such ambiguity is hardly confined to that religion. The Bible, especially the Old Testa-ment, contains numerous military metaphors, which are often applied to prayer. These include the imprecato-ry prayers in the biblical book of Psalms, which were directed to the destruction of the psalmist’s enemies (LeMon 2011).

The catechism used by the Roman Catholic Church states that “Prayer is both a gift of grace and a deter-mined response on our part. It always presupposes effort. The great figures of prayer of the Old Covenant before Christ, as well as the Mother of God, the saints, and he himself, all teach us this: prayer is a battle. Against whom? Against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer, away from union with God” (Gohn 2017). In a sermon that Samuel Davies, the future president of Princeton University, preached in Hanover, Va., at the beginning of the French and Indian War, he ob-served that followers of Jesus “fight most successfully upon their knees” (Sandoz 1991, 196).

Christians continue to utilize military language, which is reflected in such hymns as “Onward Christian Soldiers,” “The Son of Man Goes Forth to War,” and “A Mighty Fortress.” Evangelist Billy Graham designat-ed the mass meetings that he conducted as “crusades” (a term that would likely stir negative feelings among most Muslims), and prominent religious groups are known as the Salvation Army and the Knights of Colum-bus. Christians often apply similar language to prayer. A group of individuals praying may thus either gather in a prayer room or a war room; prayer is sometimes likened to “a secret weapon” (Marshall 1982, 209); people participate in prayer marches; individuals believed to be especially good at praying are often designated as

“prayer warriors”; prayer gatherings may be designated as “prayer vigils”; those who pray are said to be “stand-ing in the gap” or serving as a “watchman on the wall”; and the World Prayer Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., which is connected to the New Life Church, has even been described as “a spiritual norad” (a reference to the nearby North American Aerospace Defense Command). C. Peter Wagner, a co-founder of the World Prayer Center, wrote a book called Warfare Prayer: What the Bible Says about Spiritual Warfare. In 2015, a fairly successful Christian drama film was released, called War Room, which emphasized the power of prayer in restoring family relationships.

This language meshes with that of Christian embattlement and “military masculinity” (Du Mez 2020 187). A scholar who has examined evangelical sports ministry has described “the feeling of being constantly under threat; it is a sensation of being vulnerable to harm that triggers an urgent desire to protect oneself or to fight back” (Blazer 2015, 81). A study of citywide prayer movements observes that those who seek to evangelize cities often see them as “especially susceptible to negative moral and spiritual influences, including what spiritual warriors call ‘demonic strongholds,’ which hinder the mission of the church and effectively disorient, deceive, and oppress urban populations, alienating them further from God” (Elisha 2013, 316-317).

A group of missiologists and theologians who gathered at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.,

in June 2000 further observed that the language of Christian missions often included words like “’target,’ ‘conquer,’ ‘army,’ ‘crusade,’ mobilize,’ ‘beachhead,’ ‘advance,’ ‘enemy,” [and] ‘battle” and concluded that such language was often misunderstood and off-putting. The groups noted that Christian “warfare” is “spiritual in nature, “‘not against flesh and blood’ but against the unseen rulers of spiritual darkness (Eph. 6:12)” (“Consul-tation on Mission Language and Metaphors,” 2000). Indeed, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus urged his followers to pray for their enemies rather than to wage war against them. Moreover in the description of the armor of God in Ephesians, the only weapon that Paul cites is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (verse 17).

Some religious groups interpret the language of warfare quite literally as prayers against demonic powers connected to witchcraft, the worship of Satan, and other occult practices, which they consider to be sources of non-Christian religion (Howard 2009, 163). One of America’s best-known prayers, St. Patrick’s Prayer, portrays prayer not as a weapon but as a breastplate or form of protection.

See alsoEnemies, Prayers for; Prayer Vigils; St. Patrick’s Prayer; World Prayer Center

FOR REFERENCE Blazer, Annie. 2015. Playing for God: Evangelical Women and the Unintended Consequences of Sports Ministry.

New York University Press; “Consultation on Mission Language and Metaphors.” Held at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, Calif., June 1-3, 2000. Evangelism and Mission Information Service. https://ricklove.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Biblical-Language-and-Military-Metaphors-web-copy.pdf ; Cook, David. 2005. Understanding Jihad. Berkeley: University of California Press; Du Mez, Kristin Kobes. 2020. Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. New York: Liveright Publish-ing Corporation; Elisha, Omri. 2013. “The time and place for prayer: evangelical urbanism and citywide prayer movements.” Religion 43, 3:312-330; Gohn, Pat. 2017. “Prayer is a Battle.” Sept. 28. Catholic Digest. www.catholicdigest.com/from-the-magazine/from-the-catechism/prayer-is-a-battle/ ; Howard, Robert Glenn. 2009. “Crusading on the Vernacular Web: The Folk Beliefs and Practices of Online Spiritual Warfare.” Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World. Ed. Trevor J. Blank. University Press of Colorado/Utah State University Press, pp. 159-174; LeMon, Joel M. 2011. “Saying Amen to Violent Psalms: Patterns of Prayer, Belief, and action in the Psalter.” Soundings in the Theology of Psalms: Perspectives and Methods in Contemporary Scholarship.” Ed. Rolf A. Jacobson. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, pp. 95-109; Love, Rick. “Muslims and military metaphors.” [Originally appeared in January 2001 issue of Evan-gelical Mission Quarterly]. https://ricklove.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Biblical-Language-and-Mili-tary-Metaphors-web-copy.pdf ; Marshall, Peter. 1982. The Prayers of Peter Marshall. Compiled and edited by Catharine Marshall. Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen Books; Preston, Andrew. 2012. Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf; Sandoz, Ellis, ed. 1991. Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund; Wagner, C. Peter. 2009. Warfare Prayer: What the Bible Says About Spiritual Warfare. Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image Publishers, Inc.

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Missouri Public Prayer AmendmentSometimes political actions are not only substantive but also symbolic. It is therefore not surprising that a

proposal that was dubbed the Missouri Prayer Amendment, and adopted by popular referendum in August 2012, was both criticized for attempting to prefer Christian religion over others and for simply being redun-dant with existing constitutional protections in both the state and national constitutions.

The actual title of the proposal was the “Religious Freedom in Public Places” Amendment. It included several provisions. In addition to reiterating that the state could not establish any official religion or “coerce any person to participate in any prayer or other religious activity,” the amendment sought to “ensure that any person shall have the right to pray individually or corporately in a private or public setting so long as such prayer does not result in disturbance of the peace or disruption of a public meeting or assembly” (“Missouri Prayer Amendment”). It also provided that “the General Assembly and the governing bodies of political subdivisions may extend to ministers, clergypersons, and other individuals the privilege to offer invocations or other prayers at meetings or sessions of the General Assembly or governing bodies,” which appears consistent with a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014).

A more controversial set of provisions specified “that students may express their beliefs about religion in written and oral assignments free from discrimination based on the religious content of their work” and “that no student shall be compelled to perform or participate in academic assignments or educational presentations that violate his or her religious beliefs” (“Missouri Prayer Amendment”). Less controversial was a provision that “to emphasize the right to free exercise of religious expression ... all free public schools receiving state appropriations shall display, in a conspicuous and legible manner, the text of the Bill of Rights of the Consti-tution of the United States.”

The provision against religious discrimination in school classrooms appears to have grown out of two reports. One involved a Christian student at a state university whose professor apparently required him to sign a letter, in opposition to his own beliefs, supporting adoption for gay couples. Another involved a kindergartner whose teacher reputedly stopped him from singing “Jesus Loves Me” on a public-school playground (Schlacter 2014, 295). The provision generated controversy because it raised the possibility that students or their parents might seek to exempt them from classes that taught about evolution, sex education, or other ideas with which they disagreed, and thus interfere with the authority of schools to establish their own curricula.

The amendment, which was overwhelmingly proposed by both houses of the state Legislature, was sup-ported by both Protestant and Catholic leaders but opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the state Libertarian Party, and some members of minority religions who feared that the law might put them at a disadvantage. The law sponsored by Mike McGhee, a Baptist, whose pastor, Terry Hodges, reflected a sense of Christian persecution and probably raised red flags among members of minority religious groups when he observed that “For [the] first 150 years in this country Christianity enjoyed home-field advantage. That’s changed and now there’s a hostility toward Christians” (“Missouri Prayer Amendment”).

Although the statement of the amendment was challenged for being insufficient and unfair, both a trial court and the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District dismissed the challenge in Coburn v. Mayer (2012). Members of the Congressional Prayer Caucus endorsed the proposed amendment, and the voters of Missouri adopted it by a percentage of 82.8% to 17.2% (“Missouri Prayer Amendment”).

See alsoCongressional Prayer Caucus; Town of Greece v. Galloway

FOR REFERENCE Coburn v. Mayer, 368 S.W.3d 320 (Mo. Ct. App. 2012); “Missouri Public Prayer Amendment, Amend-

ment 2 (August 2012).” Ballotpedia. https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_Public_Prayer-Amendment,_Amend-ment_2_(August_2012) ; Schlacter, Meredith. 2014. “A Prayer for Relief: Assessing the Constitutionality of Missouri’s Right to Pray Amendment.” Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 45:293-321; Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565 (2014).

Murray v. Buchanan (1983)In Marsh v. Chambers (1983), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the practice by the Nebraska Legislature of

hiring a chaplain to begin each day’s session in prayer. In Murray v. Buchanan (1983), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit relied upon that decision to dispose of another case in which federal taxpayers had questioned the congressional payment of the salaries of its chaplains. The D.C. Circuit’s per curiam opinion said the decision in Marsh v. Chambers had shown with “unmistakable clarity” that the complaint against Congress “retains no vitality” (690).

The decision, however, did elicit two separate concurrences. Instead of simply dismissing the case on the basis of Marsh v. Chambers, Judge George MacKinnon would have relied on two elements of the politi-cal-questions doctrine, which the Supreme Court had outlined in the case of Baker v. Carr (1962). He thus argued both that Article I, Section 2, vested Congress with the sole authority to choose their officers and determine their rule of proceedings, which MacKinnon believed they had done in selecting and paying chaplains. Considering this a matter of internal congressional administration, he further argued that overturn-ing such a decision would violate the doctrine of separation of powers by failing to show respect for a coordi-nate branch of government. In making his arguments, MacKinnon cited numerous other cases where the U.S. Constitution and agencies of government had recognized God, putting special emphasis on provisions in the U.S. Constitution for oaths, which MacKinnon said necessarily called upon God as a witness.

Judge (later U.S. Supreme Court Justice) Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have relied more firmly on the decision in Marsh without evoking the political-questions doctrine, the continuing application of which she appeared to question.

See alsoCongress, Chaplains; Marsh v. Chambers

FOR REFERENCE Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S.186 (1962); Murray v. Buchanan, 720 F.2d 689 (1983).

Muslim, First Imam to Pray in CongressAlthough both houses of Congress employ their own chaplains, they also allow for guest prayers by invited

guests. There have been an increasing number of firsts, as representatives of minority religions have been given this opportunity in recent years. The first two Muslims to offer such prayers were Imman Siraj Wahaj, who prayed before the U.S. House of Representatives on June 25, 1991, and Imam Wallace Deen Mohammed, who prayed before the U.S. Senate on Feb. 6, 1992.

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Imman Siraj Wahaj, who headed the Masjid al-Taqwa, Siraj Wahaj, of Brooklyn, N.Y., and was a member of the American Muslim Council in Washington, D.C., was praised by West Virginia Rep. Nick J. Rahall for working with New York City police in establishing a drug-free zone in Brooklyn and for weekly radio broad-casts that were popular among Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Wahaj began his prayer, “In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful,” continued with praise, and noted that God had “shaped us and colored us in the wombs of our mothers: colored us black and white, brown, red, and yellow” (Abdal-Haqq 1998, 200). Further observing that God had “created us from males and females and made us into nations and tribes that we may know each other,” he asked Him to “guide the leaders of the nation” and “guide them and grant them righteousness and wisdom” as they followed in “the path of Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad” (Abdal-Haqq 1998, 200).

Imam Mohammed, who headed the American Muslim Mission, which broke off from the Nation of Islam, was praised by three senators. Sen. Paul M. Simon of Illinois noted that “it is important that we reach out to one another, whether we are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, whatever our belief or lack of belief ” (Abdal-Haqq 1998, 203). Sen. Alan J. Dixon of Illinois praised the imam as “an outstanding leader in inter-faith development,” and Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah observed that he was “a great man,” “a kind man,” “a compassionate man,” and “a decent man” (Abdal-haqq 1998, 204).

Mohammed’s prayer in the Senate was longer than Wahaj’s. Addressing “Our Creator, the Merciful Benefactor, the Merciful Redeemer,” Mohammed prayed that Americans would “continue to live as a prosper-ous nation of ‘many in one’ and as a people of faith taking pride in human decency, industry, and service” (Abdah-Haqq 1998, 202). He further prayed for the following: that the nation would inspire others “to move toward social and economic justice for all”; that a “heart for charity, compassion, repentance, and mercy” would “continue to beat strongly within all of us”; that America would “reject unsuitable national pride for a global community of brotherhood and peace”; that Americans would appreciate “our Nation’s solemn pledge of liberty, peace, and justice for all”; that God would bless the nation’s homes, schools, inner cities, marriages, and families; and that God would increase the intellect of the president and members of Congress “so that they may build a better America for us all” (Abdal-Haqq 1998, 202-203).

Seven imams have prayed before the U.S. House of Representatives from 9/11 through October 2017. One, Abdullah Antepli, the first Muslim chaplain to be appointed at Duke University, did so twice. In his first such prayer, he observed: “As the Creator of all, you made us different. Enable us to understand, appreciate, and celebrate our differences” (Shimron 2017).

See alsoCongress, Chaplains; Marsh v. Chambers

FOR REFERENCE Abdal-Haqq, Irshad. 1998. “The Muslim Invocation on Capitol Hill: Revisiting the Legality of Prayer in

Congress.” Journal of Islamic Law 3 (Fall/Winter): 197-204; Harrington, Linda M. 1992. “Mohammed Marks a First for Senate.” Chicago Tribune. Feb. 7. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-02-07-9201120340-story.html ; Shimron, Yonat. 2017. “Meet the Only Imam to Pray Before Congress Twice.” Sojourners. Oct. 5. https://sojo.net/articles/meet-only-imam-pray-congress-twice

“My Country 'Tis of Thee” (“America”)One of America’s best-known songs is “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” which is also designated more simply as

“America.” Samuel Francis Smith (1808-1895), a Harvard graduate who was at the time a student at Andover Theological Seminary studying to be a Baptist minister, composed the song in 1831. Asked by the school superintendent of music in Boston to look through a book of German songs, Smith found a tune that he liked (not knowing it was the same melody as Britain’s “God Save the Queen”) and rewrote the words. He drew in part from an earlier song, “The Children’s Independence Day,” which he had composed for Fourth of July celebrations the previous year.

The song has four stanzas that extol the nation and its liberty with specific reference to the Pilgrims. The first is the most commonly sung:

My country! ‘Tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty— Of thee I sing; Land, where my fathers died; Land of the pilgrim’s pride; From every mountain-side Let freedom ring.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. effectively used the last line of this stanza in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech for civil rights in Washington, D.C., in 1963.

The last stanza is phrased in terms of a prayer. Instead of conferring glory upon the monarch, like the song’s predecessor, Smith focused on God Himself, whom he further identified with American forbears, and whom he petitioned in prayer.

Our father’s God! To Thee— Author of liberty, To thee we sing: Long may our land be bright With freedom’s holy light— Protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King!

In 1969 Rabbi Edgar Magnin quoted this verse at the inauguration of President Richard M. Nixon (Med-hurst 1980, 549).

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow added a fifth verse, also addressed to God as king, with an even more universalistic theme:

Lord, let war’s tempest cease, Fold the whole world in peace Under Thy wings. Make all the nations one, All hearts beneath the sun, Till Thou shalt reign alone, Great King of Kings. (Moore 2005, 152-153).

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Although the hymn is much easier to sing than the “Star-Spangled Banner,” which Congress declared to be the national anthem in 1931, it suffered from being set to the tune of the nation from whom Americans had declared their independence. This sometimes created confusion. When the novelist Charles Dickens visited Philadelphia in 1863, he apparently stood during the playing of “America” in the belief that the band was complimenting his country. The audience, in turn, thought he was complementing them (Scholes 1954, 198).

See alsoHymns, Songs, and Prayers; King, Martin Luther Jr.

FOR REFERENCE Branham, Robert James, and Stephen J. Hartnestt. 2002. Sweet Freedom’s Song: “My Country “Tis of Thee”

and Democracy in America. New York: Oxford University Press; Medhurst, Martin Jay. 1980. ‘God Bless the President’: The Rhetoric of Inaugural Prayer. Thesis submitted for doctor of philosophy degree from the Graduate School in the Department of Speech Communication at Pennsylvania State University; Moore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleday. Scholes, Percy A. 1954. God Save the Queen! The History and Romance of the World’s First National Anthem. New York: Oxford University Press; Vile, John R. 2020. America’s National Anthem: “The Star-Spangled Banner” in U.S. History, Culture, and Law. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

N

National Cathedral as a House of PrayerOne of America’s grandest religious structures is the National Cathedral,

which is located on Mount Saint Alban in northwest Washington, D.C. A cathedral is distinguished from other churches by being the parish of the bishop and thus containing a special bishop’s seat (Stone 1950, 324). Cathe-drals are especially prominent in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and England, where Gothic architecture dominates.

A cathedral, like the biblical temple in Jerusalem, is designed to be “a house of prayer for all people” (Isaiah 56:7). In many European nations, cathedrals are associated with the established state church, which receives state support and which (like Westminster Abbey in England) are often associated with coronations, marriages, and funerals of members of the royal

family, and as a place of repose and/or commemorations for departed luminaries. Many American religions are congregational in nature, and do not have a hierarchy consisting of bishops

and archbishops. Indeed, one concern among American Revolutionaries was that the British government intended to appoint a bishop to preside over the Anglican Church, which was the established church in a number of Southern states, and whose priests had taken oaths to support the king. Over time, many began questioning the authority both of bishops and monarchs, and the First Amendment to the Constitution clearly prohibited the establishment of a national church.

Although Pierre L’Enfant, who originally designed the nation’s capital, had selected a site for “a great church for national purposes,” (Crosby 2013, 140), it took over 100 years for American Episcopalians to reconsider construction of a national cathedral. Its three central purposes were to serve as “a house of prayer for all people,” as “the “chief mission church of the diocese,” and as “a great church for national purposes” (Hewlett 1992, 3). The cathedral further cemented the idea that, even though not officially established, the Episcopal Church had a special place in American affairs. Although it is a Protestant church, it can lay at least some claim to bridging the lines between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

The cathedral is filled with statues, plaques, and stained-glass windows, mixing figures both from the Bible and American history. The floor of the cathedral’s entry contains the seals of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and state flags flank the vaulted ceiling (Crosby 2013, 147). Windows contain images from each of the three branches of the U.S. government. Although he was a Presbyterian, the cathedral also contains the remains of President Woodrow Wilson (Williams 2016, 106). One of the most iconic stained-glass windows in the cathedral is the Space Window, which contains a piece of a rock that American astronauts brought back from the moon (Williams 2016, 108).

The church has served as the place for the funerals of a number of U.S. presidents as well as for the Nation-al Prayer Service of Sept. 14, 2001, to commemorate the dead from the 9/ll attacks. A study of this event observes that the prayers were limited to the three Abrahamic religions ( Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), but that the Protestant Episcopal ethos appeared to dominate, with those leading the prayers following acolytes

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carrying a cross as they entered the sanctuary, and following the basic outline for services of the Book of Common Prayer (Sanders 2016, 63). The ceremony included a sermon by evangelist Billy Graham, a speech by President George W. Bush, and such hymns as “God of Our Fathers” and “Amazing Grace” (Sanders 2016, 70).

Other services, noted on the cathedral’s website, that it has conducted have included: the dedication of the Peace Cross at the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898; the Allied efforts throughout World War II (1941-1945); a memorial service for King George VI of England in 1952; a service for peace in Vietnam in 1973; a prayer vigil and a service of thanksgiving for the release of American hostages held in Iran in 1979; a prayer vigil for the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in 1987; a celebration led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 1994 for the birth of democracy in South Africa; a memorial service for victims of the bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; a memorial service for victims of the Columbia Space Shuttle explosion in 2003; a service by the Dalai Lama in 2003; the dedication of the World War II Memorial in 2004; a funeral for astronaut Neil Armstrong in 2012; a pealing of the bells for the U.S. Supreme Court decision recognizing gay marriage in 2013; and a memorial service for former South African President Nelson Mandela in 2013. This site notes that the cathedral opened for the first time in November 2014 for Muslim Friday prayers. The cathedral temporarily closed during the coronavirus outbreak in 2020.

In addition to the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., is home to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which is on the campus of Catholic University; the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle; and the Saint Sophia Cathedral (Greek Orthodox). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also completed a temple in Washington, D.C., in 1974.

See alsoBook of Common Prayer; God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hand; Wilson, Woodrow

FOR REFERENCE Crosby, Richard Benjamin. 2013. “Cathedral of Kairos: Rhetoric and Revelation in the ‘National House of

Prayer,’” Philosophy & Rhetoric 16, 2: 132-155; Hewlett, Richard G. 1992. Washington Cathedral and Its National Purpose: The Emergence of an Ideal, 1867-1990. Washington, DC: Washington National Cathedral; National Cathedral Website. “National Services.” https://cathedral.org/history/prominent-services/nation-al-services/ ; Nelson, David Hart. 2010. “Worshipping in the National House of Prayer: Washington Nation-al Cathedral.” Anglican and Episcopal History 79 (March): 70-76; Quinn, Frederick. 2014. A House of Prayer for All People: A History of the Washington National Cathedral. New York: Morehouse Publishing; Sanders, Mary. 2016. “A Mighty Fortress is Our Battle Hymn of the Republic: Episcopal Liturgy and American Civil Religion in the National Prayer Service on 14 September 2001.” Anglican and Episcopal History 85 (March): 63-96; Stone, William H. 1950. “The Cathedral in America.” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episco-pal Church 19 (December): 324-339; Williams, Peter W. 2016. Religion, Art, and Money: Episcopalians and American Culture from the Civil War to the Great Depression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

National Day of PrayerThe National Day of Prayer is one of two days each year (the other is Memorial Day) in which the president

regularly calls upon the American people to pray. The idea of national days of contrition, thanksgiving, and prayer go back to colonial days and even to

England, where such special days replaced liturgical days of prayer that had been specified on the Roman

Catholic calendar. The last time, however, that England has declared such a day was in 1947 (Williamson 2013, 359).

The push for designating a specific day each year for prayer originated during the Cold War, when the nation’s leaders sought ways to distinguish America from its atheistic communist foes. The evangelist Billy Graham was a major force in designating a particular day each year. On Feb. 14, 1951, as he was holding an evangelistic crusade at the National Guard Armory in Washington, D.C., Rep. A. Willis Robertson of Virginia (the father of Pat Robertson, who later founded the Christian Broadcasting Network) succeeded in getting Congress to allow Graham to use the steps on the east side of the U.S. Capitol Building that Sunday to hold a peace rally in which he reiterated his call for Congress to declare a National Day of Prayer. Robert-son also persuaded Congress to encourage people to pray “that God may guide and protect our nation and preserve the peace of the world” (“Senate Urges Prayer Day,” 1952).

Even though it rained, Graham drew a crowd estimated at 20,000 to 40,000 people. Proclaiming that “This is the hour of decision [the name of his popular radio program],” Graham noted: “To freedom-loving peoples of the world, we are re-affirming our faith in the God of our Fathers—confessing our need of a Savior from sin ... and in humiliation and repentance beseeching Him to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (“Billy Graham, A Peace Rally & the National Day of Prayer, 2019). He further said, “What a thrilling, glorious thing it would be to see the leaders of our country today kneeling before Almighty God in prayer” (Allen 2015).

Although President Truman had originally been tepid toward the proposed day of prayer, he indicated that he would support it, and Congress adopted a law in April specifying “that the President shall set aside and proclaim a day each year, other than a Sunday, as a National Day of Prayer, on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation” (Kruse 2015, 56). Historian Kevin Kruse notes that the resolution varied from earlier petitions that had “requested” the president to call such a day by providing that the president was now “required” to do so (Kruse 2015, 56). Truman selected July 4 for the first of these, although in part because of pressure from the National Day of Prayer Task Force, which is typically headed by evangelical Christians (Benen 2002). Congress has subsequently standardized this date to be the first Thurs-day in May.

In 2011, a decision from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a suit questioning the constitu-tionality of this day in Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Obama, on the basis that the only duty the law imposed fell on the president, who had not objected to it. The Court further suggested that it was unlikely that anyone else had proper legal standing to challenge the law. The Court noted that “It does not require any private person to do anything—or for that matter to take any action in response to whatever the President proclaims” (2011, 805).

See alsoCommunism and Anti-Communism; Freedom from Religious Foundation v. Obama (2011); Graham, Billy;

Presidential Proclamations of Prayer and Thanksgiving

FOR REFERENCE Allen, Bob. 2015. “Critics say National Day of Prayer divides Americans by faith.” Baptist News. https://

rb.gy/qvgjir ; Benen, Steve. 2002. “Prayer, piety and politics: how the National Day of Prayer became a Religious Right platform for opposing church-state separation.” June. Church and State, vol. 55. https://rb.gy/9gw3fy ; “Billy Graham, a Peace Rally & the National Day of Prayer.” Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. https://

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billygraham.org/author/admin/ ; Eisenberg, Gail Schnitzer. 2011. “Turn to the Constitution in Prayer: Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Obama, the Constitutionality and the Politics of the National Day of Prayer.” National Lawyer Guild Review 768: 193-214; Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Obama, 641 F.3d 803 (2011); Kruse, Kevin M. 2015. One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian Ameri-ca. New York: Basic Books; “Senate Urges Prayer Day.” 1952. The New York Times. Feb. 15. https://timesma-chine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1952/02/15/84302949.html?pageNumber=27 ; Williamson, Philip. 2013.

“National Days of Prayer: The Churches, the State and Public Worship in Britain, 1899-1957. The English Historical Review 128 (April): 323-366.

National Prayer BreakfastEach year, the National Prayer Breakfast is held in Washington, D.C., typically on the Thursday of the first

week of February. It gathers U.S. and foreign leaders together over breakfast to hear a speaker and to offer prayer. The first such breakfast, initially called the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, was held on Feb. 5, 1953. It was

largely the brainchild of Methodist minister and entrepreneur (he founded Goodwill Industries in Seattle) Abraham Vereide (1886-1969), who had sponsored a number of similar events at the state level, and Sen. Frank Carlson (1893-1987) of Kansas. Vereide’s understudy, Douglas Coe, who developed personal relation-ships with a number of U.S. presidents, and Dr. Richard Halverson, a chaplain of the U.S. Senate, subsequent-ly played important roles (Lindsay 2006, 391-392).

After inviting newly elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower to come to a Senate prayer breakfast, Vereide realized that the room that had been reserved would not be large enough to hold all who now wanted to attend. Carlson, in turn, called Conrad Hilton, the hotel magnate who had sponsored an ad, “America on Its Knees,” and asked him not only to offer up a ballroom at the Mayflower Hotel to host the event, but also to finance it. Hilton, who had been wanting to meet the new president, gladly complied (Kruse 2015, 76-77).

The theme of the first prayer breakfast was “Government Under God.” It fit particularly well with Eisen-hower’s conviction, later embodied in the addition of the words “under God” to the pledge to the U.S. flag, that belief in God strengthened the nation, particularly in its resolve against international communism (Winston 2017).

In recent years, critics have charged that lobbyists have been selling access to the breakfast to foreign dignitaries who are hoping to meet influential American leaders. Many are apparently under the impression that the event is actually sponsored by Congress. Maria Butina, a Russian who was later accused of seeking to infiltrate the National Rifle Association, was among individuals on recent guest lists (Vogel and Dias 2018). Jeff Sharlet has claimed (2009) that the event has been largely captured by the fundamentalist right and a group calling itself the Family, a fairly secret group also known as the Fellowship (Lindsay 2006).

Sometimes the featured speaker captures the headlines. In 1973, Sen. Mark Hatfield of Oregon, an evan-gelical Christian, warned about the dangers of “misplaced allegiance, if not outright idolatry” and told the audience that it was important “to distinguish between the god of an American civil religion and the God who reveals Himself in the Holy Scriptures and in Jesus Christ” (Swartz 2019). In 1995, Mother Teresa spoke out against abortion as President Clinton, who favored abortion rights, sat quietly. In 1998, Clinton used the occasion to confess that he had sinned but to indicate that he still planned to resist the effort to impeach and remove him from office. In 2013, Ben Carson, an African American neurosurfgeon who would serve as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Trump, spoke out against moral decay as President Obama sat in the audience (Winston 2017).

In 2020, President Donald J. Trump used the breakfast to gloat over being exonerated over impeachment charges and to question the sincerity of Sen. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, and of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Roman Catholic, who had claimed that she was praying for him (Samuels 2020). Not surprisingly, an article by Americans United, a group that advocates for separation of church and state, suggested it was time for these breakfasts to end (Boston 2020).

In addition to the National Prayer Breakfast, each house of Congress holds its own bipartisan weekly prayer breakfast. They have been credited with “helping to bridge the political chasm in Congress” at a time when most members no longer live in Washington, D.C., and rarely attend other cross-party socializing events (Kiefer 2016). Meetings are open only to members of Congress. Members share mutual prayer requests and either their own personal testimonies or those of a guest.

See AlsoAmerica on Its Knees; Trump, Donald, and Nancy Pelosi

FOR REFERENCE Boston, Rob. 2020. “After This Year’s Embarrassment, It’s Time to End the National Prayer Breakfast.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Feb. 7. https://www.au.org/blogs/prayer-break-fast-fallout ; Burton, Tara Isabella. 2018. “How the National Prayer Breakfast offers foreign lobbyists a chance to ‘pay to play.’” Vox. https://www.vox.com/2018/7/18/17586516/jeff-sharlet-maria-butrina-nation-al-prayer-breakfast-the-family ; Kiefer, Francine. 2016. “Prayer and politics in Congress.” Sept. 17. The Christian Science Monitor. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/0917/Prayer-and-politics-in-Congress; Kruse, Kevin M. 2015. One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America. New York: Basic Books; Lindsay, Michael. 2006. “Is the National Prayer Breakfast Surrounded by a ‘Christian Mafia’? Religious Publicity and Secrecy within the Corridors of Power.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 74 ( June): 390-419; Samuels, Brett. 2020. “Trump hits Romney, Pelosi for invoking religion during impeachment.” The Hill. Feb. 6. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/481800-trump-hits-rom-ney-pelosi-for-invoking-religion-during-impeachment; Sharlet, Jeff. 2009. The Family: The Secret Funda-mentalism at the Heart of American Power. New York: Harper Perennial; Swartz, David. Jan. 30, 2019. “The National Prayer Breakfast and Evangelical Prophetic Witness.” Pantheos. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2019/01/the-national-prayer-breakfast-and-evangelical-prophetic-witness/ ; Vogel, Kenneth P., and Elizabeth Dias. 2018. “A Prayer Breakfast, Guests Week Access to a Different Higher Power.” The New York Times. July 27. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/us/politics/national-prayer-breakfast.html ; Winston, Diane. 2017. “The History of the National Prayer Breakfast.” Smithsonian Magazine. Feb. 2. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/national-prayer-breakfast-what-does-its-history-reveal-180962017/

Native American Legislative PrayersAlthough some European immigrants initially held out the hope, later shared by members of the Church of

Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that Native Americans might be members of the Lost Tribes of Israel, most eventually regarded them as pagans who did not worship the true God but the sun, the stars, the Earth, or other elements within nature. Much Native American culture was obliterated as settlers not only established themselves in eastern colonies but eventually pushed to the Pacific Ocean, often moving Natives to reserva-

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tions and taking their children and educating them in Christian beliefs. Native Americans had their own cosmology that often referred to America as Turtle Island, and despite

some conversions, most notably that of Pocahontas, the majority of Native Americans initially retained their native religions. Remarkably, it was not until 2019 that a Native American offered a prayer before the U.S. House of Representatives. Deb Haaland of New Mexico’s first congressional district invited Isleta Pueblo Chief Judge Verna Teller, the first woman to hold this post, to give this prayer on Nov. 13, 2019, as a way of celebrating Native American History Month.

Teller’s prayer, which emphasized Native American regard for nature, was as follows: “Oh Creator and Great Mother. “Having asked and received your permission to invoke your blessings today to all directions: East, North,

West, South and the Center. “We thank you for the life you give to all your children: the two legged ones, the four legged, those who

live in the waters, and those who watch over us from the skies above. “Sacred Pollen, sacred Earth Mother, sacred Water that manifest your desires, oh Creator and Great

Mother, we thank them for the nourishment they give us equally with no regard to face color or creed. “Creator and Great Mother bless those standing before you, who carry a sacred trust to all of us who inhabit

Turtle Island, our homeland, and I pray today that you will give them the wisdom and the courage to carry out their sacred trust with the same equality that we receive from the Sun and Rain" (Isleta Pueblo Chief . . ., 2019).

The next year, the New Mexico Legislature invited Lee Moquino, a Santa Clara and Zia Pueblo Native American known for his strident advocacy of Native American causes, to deliver a prayer before the State House. After he obliged by informing Members of the State House of Representatives in his prayer that they were standing in “occupied indigenous space” and that they should be protecting Chaco Canyon in the state from oil-and-gas drilling, the Senate chaplain, who said that he was motivated by the desire to tamp down partisan division and spare Moquino from further criticism, withdrew his invitation to pray in the state Senate (Chacon 2020).

See alsoColonial Interactions with Native Americans; Providentialism; State Legislative Prayers

FOR REFERENCE Anderson, Chad L. 2020. The Storied Landscape of Iroquoia: History, Conquest, and Memory in the Native

Northeast. Omaha: University of Nebraska Press; Chacon, Daniel J. 2020. “Native Activist whose prayer sparked ire in the House is disinvited from Senate.” Santa Fe New Mexican. Feb. 3. https://nmpoliticalreport.com/2020/02/03/native-activist-whose-prayer-sparked-ire-in-the-house-is-disinvited-from-senate/ ; “Isleta Pueblo Chief Judge Verna Teller Makes History, Becomes First Native American to Deliver the Opening Prayer in the U.S. House.” Nov. 13, 2019. Press release. https://haaland.house.gov/media/press-releases/isleta-pueblo-chief-judge-verna-teller-makes-history-becomes-first-native ; Lowie, Robert H. 1933. “Crow Prayers.” American Anthropologist 35 ( July-September); 433-442.

Navy HymnOne of the most majestic hymns associated with the U.S., British, and French navies, and which has been

adopted as the official hymn of the U.S. Naval Academy, is often known by its first line, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” The Rev. William Whiting (1825-1878) of the Anglican Church in England, whose faith had calmed his nerves during a violent storm in the Mediterranean Sea, wrote the song to console a student he was teaching in Winchester, England, who was fearful of an anticipated sea journey to America (Metaxis 2017). The tune, originally called “Melita,” an ancient name for Malta, was composed by the Rev. John B. Dykes (1823-1876), who is known for setting many other famous hymns to music.

In 1879, Rear Adm. Charles Jackson Train, who led the Midshipman Choir at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., began the practice of ending each Sunday worship service at the academy with the first verse of this song, which is now found in many hymnals (“Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” 2018). This verse is as follows:

Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm hath bound the restless wave, Who bid’st the mighty ocean deep Its own appointed limits keep; O hear us when we cry to thee, For those in peril on the sea. (“The Navy Hymn” 2018)

Although the primary focus is on the power of God the Father as Creator, the second and third verses respectively address Christ and the Holy Spirit, and the fourth the Trinity. The first three verses all end with the same two last lines, except for the fourth, which moves from petition to praise:

O Trinity of love and power! Our brethren shield in danger’s hour; From rock and tempest, fire and foe, Protect them wheresoe’er they go; Thus evermore shall rise to Thee, Glad hymns of praise from land and sea. (“The Navy Hymn” 2018)A number of variations of the hymn have been published, including verses that refer to submariners, pilots,

SEALS, and other specialized forces. The hymn is grounded in Scriptures taken from Psalm 65, Psalm 107, and the story of Jesus rebuking the

wind and sea in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark. It has been played at the funerals of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Richard M. Nixon, each with connections to the Navy.

See alsoAtlantic Charter Prayers; Hymns, Songs, and Poems

FOR REFERENCE “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” 2018. Library of Congress. April 20. https://www.loc.gov/item/

ihas.200000005/ ; Metaxas, Eric. 2017. “The Story Behind the Navy Hymn.” Nov. 11. https://catholiccitizens.org/views/76038/story-behind-navy-hymn/ ; “The Navy Hymn: Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” April 20, 2018. https://www.hisotry.navy.mil/brouse-by-topic/heritage/customs-and-traditions0/the-navy-hymn1.html

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Newdow v. Eagen (2004)Just over 20 years after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decided in Murray v.

Buchanan (1983) to dismiss a challenge against Congress for hiring chaplains to begin each day’s sessions in prayer, a U.S. district court reaffirmed this decision in Newdow v. Eagen (2004).

The case was brought by the Rev. Dr. Michael A. Newdow, a member of the Universal Life Church and founder of the First Amendment Church of True Science. His suit named a number of officials, including the House and Senate chaplains, claiming violations of the establishment clause of the First Amendment and the supremacy clause and the religious-test clause of Article VI of the Constitution.

Newdow alleged four injuries. The first was that in order to exercise his right to observe government actions he had to witness religious observance that he found offensive. The second was that Congress had failed to consider his application for the position of chaplain seriously because of his nontheistic beliefs. The third was that he had suffered from a personal reproach when Dr. Lloyd Ogilvie, the Senate chaplain, had uttered a prayer denying that there was “separation between God and State” on the day that the Senate unanimously adopted a resolution repudiating a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (later dismissed for lack of standing) that had invalidated the words “under God” in the pledge to the U.S. flag (Rosen 2002). Fourth, Newdow claimed that he was injured as a taxpayer because of government expenditures on the chaplains. In making these claims, Newdow also claimed that subsequent Supreme Court decisions had eroded its decision in Marsh v. Chambers (1983), which had upheld the Nebraska precedent of hiring a legislative chaplain on the basis of the history surrounding congressional chaplains.

Agreeing that the Court should consider the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, Judge Henry H. Kennedy applied the standard for establishing legal standing that the Supreme Court had affirmed in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (1992). It required a plaintiff to show “injury in fact” that was fairly traceable to the defendant, and that a court decision could redress. He further said that any harms asserted must “be concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent” (p. 34).

In examining Newdow’s first claim, Judge Kennedy denied that his mere exposure to a prayer when he visited the Senate on April 11, 2003, was sufficient injury to confer legal standing. It did not cause him to alter his regular routine, nor was he exposed to such congressional prayers on a regular basis.

In looking at Newdow’s claim that Congress had not seriously considered employing him as a chaplain, Kennedy noted that it contradicted his claim that such prayers and paying chaplains to say them were uncon-stitutional. Moreover, because a central purpose of such prayers was to request divine guidance, Congress could rightfully exclude those who were unable to offer such prayers. Kennedy further claimed that Congress as a whole did not make such decisions and that Newdow had thus sued the wrong parties.

As to the personal reproach that Newdow had felt when the chaplain of the U.S. Senate had repudiated the position that he had taken with regard to the words “under God” in the pledge, Kennedy said this was a past harm that seemed unlikely to be repeated.

Finally, recognizing that the Supreme Court had provided for limited cases of taxpayer standing in cases involving expenditures under the establishment clause, Judge Kennedy found that Newdow did have standing to question such expenditures, despite government claims that the spending arose not under the tax-ing-and-spending clause but under the congressional authority to choose its own officers. However, Kennedy said the decision upholding similar expenditures in Marsh v. Chambers remained in effect in part because the decision rested so firmly on congressional precedents. Although Newdow had argued that the decisions in Lee v. Weisman (1992), Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000), and other rulings had called this

precedent into question, Kennedy observed that both had focused specifically on prayer in school settings where students were much more impressionable and that none of the cases Newdow cited had actually called Marsh into question, while some had specifically supported it. If the decision were to be overturned, it was the job of the U.S. Supreme Court to do this, and the judge accordingly dismissed Newdow’s plea.

See alsoCongress, Chaplains; Lee v. Weisman (1992) ; Marsh v. Chambers (1983); Murray v. Buchanan (1983) ;

Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000)

FOR REFERENCE Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992); Lund, Christopher C. 2019. “The Congressional

Chaplaincies.” William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. 17: 1171-1214; Newdow v. Eagen, 309 F.Supp.2d 29 (D.D.C. 2004); Rosen, James. 2002. “Senate Pledges Allegiance Under God.” Fox News. Jan. 13. https://www.foxnews.com/story/senate-pledges-allegiance-under-god

New England PrimerOf all the books that have influenced American views of prayer, few other than the Bible were probably

more influential than the New England Primer, which served for many children as their introduction to the alphabet, to spelling, and to the catechism. The book originated in England, probably written by Benjamin Harris in 1683 (Roberts 2010, 498). Somewhere between 3 million and 8 million copies are believed to have been printed in the United States between the first edition published by Benjamin Harris in Boston in the late 17th century and Ira Webster’s republication of the 1777 edition in 1843 (Roberts 2010, 492). They were published by numerous publishers, including Benjamin Franklin, and in multiple cities that extended far beyond New England.

The books initially had relatively few engravings, most of which were connected to letters of the alphabet, although, in time, influenced by new ideas about teaching children, they included more such illustrations (Schnorbus 2010). Primers printed during and after the American Revolution also reflected changes from a pro-monarchical to an anti-monarchical stance.

The Primer was considered to be not only a tool for literacy (which was essential if individuals were to be able to read the Bible), but also a way of building character. To this end, it contained the Shorter Westminster Catechism and a variety of hymns and prayers. The 1777 edition began with a song of praise by Isaac Watts (1674-1748), the so-called godfather of English hymnology, followed by both a morning and an evening prayer, which he had also composed.

A section near the front of the book included three different examples of “The Infant’s Grace before and after Meat,” namely:

“BLESS me, O Lord, and let my food strengthen me to serve thee, for Jesus Christ’s sake. AMEN.” “I Desire to thank God who gives me food to eat every day of my life. AMEN.” “What’s right and good now shew me Lord, and lead me by thy grace and word. Thus shall I be a child of

God, and love and fear thy hand and rod.”The letter P under “An Alphabet of Lessons for Youth,” which is based on Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 6:6,

admonishes the reader to “PRAY to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which sees in secret shall

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reward thee openly.” Not long thereafter is a fairly long “Cradle Hymn,” again by Isaac Watts, followed by a number of other prayers, the most notable of which are an evening and a morning prayer.

The former, which remains widely known, provides: Now I lay me down to take my sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. (1777)

Other editions contain the morning prayer: Now I wake and see the light: ‘Tis God who kept me through the night. To him I lift my voice and pray That he would keep me through the day; If I should die before ‘tis done, O God, accept me through thy Son. (Moore 2005, 41). The 1777 Primer also included Agur’s Prayer (taken from the biblical book of Proverbs): “REMOVE far from

me vanities and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be full and deny thee, and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my GOD in vain.”

In addition to containing information on the Ten Commandments and points of Christian doctrine, the Shorter Westminster Catechism, which was included in the Primer, discussed the meaning of each of the petitions within the Lord’s Prayer. In answering the question, “What is prayer?” it responded with, “Prayer is an offering up of our desires to God for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ with confession of our sins, & thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.”

In a similar fashion, John Cotton’s “Spiritual Milk for American Babes,” which was also included in the Primer, describes prayer, in clearly Christological and Trinitarian terms, as “calling upon God in the name of Christ by the help of the Holy Ghost, according to the will of God.” The 1777 edition of the Primer ended with another Cotton work, “A Dialogue between Christ, Youth, and the Devil,” and ended with advice from a Rhode Island cleric that children “Should pray to GOD in the name of CHRIST, for saving grace.”

See alsoFranklin, Benjamin; McGuffey Readers; The Lord’s Prayer

FOR REFERENCE Moore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleday;

The New England Primer. 1777 edition. Sacred Texts. https://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/nep/1777/ Roberts, Kyle B. 2010. “Rethinking the New-England Primer.” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society

of America 104 (December): 489-523); Schnorbus, Stephanie. 2010. “Calvin and Locke: Dueling Epistemol-ogies in ‘The New-England Primer’, 1720-1790.” Early American Studies 8 (Spring): 250-287.

New York Muslim Community CenterAlthough prayer and religion can serve to unite people in times of crises, it also has the potential for acting

as a cause of division, especially when combined with other cultural and racial differences (Lean 2017). Few events in U.S. history have been more traumatic that the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center

and other facilities on Sept. 11, 2001, which resulted in almost 3,000 deaths. One of the buildings that sustained damage from landing gear from one of the planes during this attack was a five-story building at 45 Park Place in Manhattan owned by the Pomerantz family and leased to the Burlington Coat Factory.

After this building was abandoned and sold, it was used on Fridays for what has been described as “an overflow prayer space for TriBeCa’s Al Farah mosque.” It was headed by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a Sufi Muslim, who also founded the Cordoba Initiative, an interfaith group devoted to promoting understanding (O’Connor 2015). Joining with Sharif El-Gamal, who was chair and CEO of Soho Properties, in December 2009, they proposed the construction of a 15-story cultural center at the site.

Opponents, many from outside New York, expressed outrage at what some called “the ‘Ground Zero mosque,’ the “Ground Zero terror mosque,’ and the “Victory Mosque.” Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, likened allowing such a building on the site to allowing Nazis to post a sign near the Holocaust Museum in the nation’s capital or allowing Japanese to construct a site near the location of the attack on Pearl Harbor (O’Connor 2015).

Ultimately, the project appears to have failed because of a falling-out between Imam Rauf and El-Gamal, and the plans for a cultural center morphed into the construction of a 70-story luxury condominium tower (Kaysen 2017).

FOR REFERENCE Blumenthal, Ralph, and Sharaf Mowjood. 2009. “Muslim Prayers and Renewal Near Ground Zero.” The

New York Times. Dec. 8. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09mosque.html; Doss, Erika. 2011. “Remembering 9/11: Memorials and Cultural Memory.” OAH Magazine of History 25 ( July): 27-30; Kaysen, Ronda. 2017. “Condo Tower to Rise Where Muslim Community Center Was Proposed.” The New York Times. May 12. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/realestate/muslim-museum-world-trade-center.html ; Lean, Nathan. 2017. The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Hatred of Muslims. 2nd ed. London: Pluto Press; O’Connor, Brendan. 2015. “The Sad, True Story of the Ground Zero Mosque.” The Awl. Oct. 1. https://www.theawl.com/2015/10/the-sad-true-story-of-the-ground-zero-mosque/

Niebuhr, Reinhold See Serenity Prayer

Nixon/Kissinger PrayerApart from inaugurations and National Prayer Breakfasts, presidential prayers are generally considered to be

personal matters, but sometimes they reflect difficult decisions presidents have had to make and personal crises they have had to face. President Richard M. Nixon was the only president ever to resign from the

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presidency. He did so on Aug. 9, 1974, in the wake of revelations that he had covered up an illegal break-in at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in the Watergate Apartment Complex. The House Judiciary Committee had already drafted articles of impeachment against him, and even his top senatorial supporters had come to the White House to tell him that they would have to vote to convict.

Nixon’s greatest accomplishments as president were in the diplomatic arena, most notably the restoration of diplomatic contacts with the People’s Republic of China. He had worked closely with Henry Kissinger, a former Harvard professor of international relations who had served both as Nixon’s national-security advisor and his secretary of state.

As Nixon prepared to announce his resignation, he met with Kissinger at the White House. After taking a drink and talking with Kissinger, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein from The Washington Post who are credited with breaking the Watergate story, report that Nixon began weeping (1976, 470). According to their book, which was later turned into a movie, Nixon, who had been raised a Quaker, said to Kissinger,

“You are not a very orthodox Jew, and I am not an orthodox Quaker, but we need to pray (1976, 471). Al-though there is no text of this prayer, Woodward and Bernstein say that “The President prayed out loud, asking for help, rest, peace and love” after which he continued to weep (1976, 471). When he finally got up, he reportedly took another drink.

William Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter who would argue that Nixon’s offenses were no worse than those of previous Democratic administrations, said the story demonstrates the condescension of liberal elites, who consider falling to one’s knees a sign of unmanliness or insanity (Safire 1976). Nixon himself asked Kissinger not to remember his prayer as one of weakness (Emery 1994, 475). Others might view Nixon’s actions more charitably as the resort of a man with a broken spirit making a genuine appeal to God. The story is a reminder that the public and private prayers of individuals in power may often differ.

See Also Presidential Inaugural Prayers

FOR REFERENCE Emery, Fred. 1994. Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon. New York:

Times Books; Safire, William. 1976. “Nixon on His Knees.” The New York Times. March 29; Woodward, Bob, and Carl Bernstein. 1976. The Final Days. New York: Avon Books.

O

On a Wing and a PrayerSometimes the line between prayer and magic or prayer and luck is elusive.

Individuals in desperate situations often cry out to God in prayer, but when they survive, they, or others to whom they tell their stories, may question whether they would have survived even without the prayer. Was their safety a result of their own heroic efforts, of divine providence, of luck, of mere coincidence, or of some combination of these?

One popular expression that seems to encapsulate this ambiguity is the expression “On a Wing and a Prayer.” A website called The Phrase Finder suggests that the expression originated in a 1942 screenplay known as The Flying Tigers, in which a hotel clerk responded to a question by Jim Gordon, a character played by John Wayne, on the fate of a flight, by saying that,

“She’s coming in on one wing and a prayer.” A song composed during World War II by Harold Adamson and Jimmie McHugh was called “Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer”; other than this phrase, it contained no references to God. Hollywood released a film Wing and a Prayer in 1944, describing an American aircraft carrier that was used as a decoy until it joined in the Battle of Midway against Japan. The Phrase Finder notes that the phrase might have developed in part from the term “winging it,” which describes “actors struggling through parts that they have recently learned in the wings of a theater” (“The Phrase Finder”).

Further playing on the idea that God might be the key to military victory, or survival, an American pilot, Col. Robert L. Scott, who was part of the so-called “Flying Tigers,” published a popular book in 1943, God is My Copilot. In 1945, it was made into an eponymous movie (a bumper sticker subsequently said, “If God is your co-pilot, you need to switch seats”).

More recently, the Public Broadcasting Station released a film, A Wing and a Prayer, in 2015. It docu-ments the efforts of Al Schwimmer, an American pilot, to deliver weapons to the Israeli army on the eve of its fight for national independence in 1948.

See also Petitionary Prayer

FOR REFERENCE “On a wing and a prayer.” The Phrase Finder. https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/on-a-wing-and-a-

prayer.html

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P

ParodiesEven though prayer is a vital part of many people’s spiritual experience, it,

like other religious practices, is subject to parody. Some people believe that the term hocus pocus, which is used to signify deception, may have derived from the Latin words “Hoc est corpus meum (“this is my body”), a phrase used along with prayer during celebrations of the Eucharist, or Lord’s Supper, that may not have been understood by those who were uneducated ( Jacobs 2013, 220). In the story of the prophet Elijah at Mount Carmel, which is recorded in I Kings chapter 18, he is portrayed as mocking the prayers of the prophets of Baal. Moreover, Jesus’s own comparison of the prayer of the Pharisee and the publican (tax collector), as recorded in Luke 18:9-14, suggests that He was not above using parody, and even ridicule, in response

to the prayers of the self-righteous, who are the most likely to be uttering prayers in public. An 18th century manuscript, which purports to be a prayer of thanksgiving by a pastor for delivery from a

riding accident, appears instead to be a parody of Pastor Christopher Toppan of Newbury, Mass., who had criticized the perceived excesses of the First Great Awakening, in which New Light evangelists like George Whitefield and his followers had challenged the piety of the so-called Old Lights who had resisted revivalist techniques (Winiarski, 2012). A study by George Monteiro indicates that parodies of Scripture, prayers, and hymns have long been a vital part of popular folklore. He cites parodies of “Now I lay me down to sleep,” “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,” and many others, including prayers to the Virgin Mary and Christmas carols (1964).

The rock singer Janis Joplin released “Mercedes Benz” in 1970. Mocking the materialism of the era, the singer implores God to buy her a Mercedes Benz (considered to be a luxury car) so that she can keep up with her friends who drive Porsches (another luxury vehicle). It further implores God to buy her a color television and “a night on the town.”

The Boomer Bible contains a separately numbered section toward the back, “The Orders of Morning and Evening Prayer together with The Litany and Brayers and Platitudes,” which seems to mock both biblical prayers and the Book of Common Prayer with general inanities (Laird 1991).

See also Cartoons and Jokes

FOR REFERENCE Jacobs, Alan. 2013. The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press;

Laird, R.F. 1991. The Boomer Bible. New York: Workman Publishing; Monteiro, George. “Parodies of Scripture, Prayer, and Hymn.” The Journal of American Folklore 77 ( Jan.-Mar.): 45-52; Winiarski, Douglas I. 2012. “The Newbury Prayer Bill Hoax: Devotion and Deception in New England’s Era of Great Awakenings.” Massachu-setts Historical Review 14: 52-86.

Patriot PrayerAlthough generally considered a highly spiritual activity, prayer, and references to prayer, can sometimes

provide cover to extremist groups that seek to equate nationalism, and even conceptions of racial superiority, to spirituality.

On Aug. 29, 2020, a group of pro-Trump supporters drove through the streets of Portland, Ore., to confront protestors from Black Lives Matter and other groups who had been demonstrating, not always peacefully, in the city since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020. In August, a shot rang out, and Aaron “Jay” Danielson, who apparently also went by the name of Jay Bishop, was shot and killed. At the time, he was wearing a hat identifying him as a member of a right-wing group known as Patriot Prayer (Ford-ham 2010).

The group was founded by Joey Gibson, a former candidate for the Washington State Senate who lives by the motto, prominent during the American Revolutionary period, that “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God” (Fordham 2020). The group, which is similar to another group known as Proud Boys, who describe themselves as “Western Chauvinists” (Olmos 2020), seek to provoke confrontations with groups like Antifa, a radical antifascist group, and the Satanic Portland Antifascists (Levinson 2019). In 2019, Gibson was charged with felony riot and hit with a civil suit after allegedly starting a street fight outside a Portland bar. In 2017, Jeremy Christian, who had attended a Patriot Prayer event, pulled out a knife and killed two men who were attempting to defend two teenage girls from harassment.

Brad Galloway, a former member of a neo-Nazi group who now works with “Life After Hate,” observes that “groups like Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys make a public display of American Christian values,” but attract white supremacists (Olmos 2020).

See alsoAmerican Patriot’s Prayer

FOR REFERENCEFordham, Evie. 2020. “What is Patriot Prayer, the pro-Trump group whose member was killed in Portland?”

Fox News. Aug. 31. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/patriot-prayer-joey-bishop-portland-killed; Levinson, Jonathan. 2019. “Patriot Prayer, Proud Boys Continue Violence Even As Legal Consequences Mount.” OBP [Oregon Public Broadcasting]. Nov. 14. https://www.opb.org/news/article/patriot-prayer-proud-boys-political-vio-lence-law-enforcement/; Olmos, Sergio. 2020. “Patriot Prayer–the new face of ‘nativist bigotry.’” The Columbi-an, Jan. 30. https://www.columbian.com/news/2020/jan/30/patriot-prayer-the-new-face-of-nativist-bigotry/

Patton, George S., Prayer for Fair WeatherSome stories, like some individuals, appear larger than life. An individual connected with one such a story,

was Lt. Gen. George S. Patton (1885-1945) who was involved in numerous battlefield campaigns and who died after an automobile accident not long after World War II ended. He was celebrated in a 1970 movie, Patton, in which his role was brilliantly played by George C. Scott.

Never one to mollycoddle his men, Patton was known for his colorful language that demanded the very best from those who served under him, and he was reprimanded for verbally abusing and slapping soldiers under

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his command who were suffering from battle fatigue. Patton observed that “The soldier who ‘cracks up’ does not need sympathy or comfort as much as he needs strength” (O’Neill 2014, 38-39). During his fight against the Nazis in France after the D-Day invasion at Normandy, when his headquarters were located in Nancy, Patton was confronted with incessant rains that made movement of his troops and air support difficult. On Dec. 8, 1944, he called Roman Catholic Army Chaplain James H. O’Neill (1892-1972) to ask him whether he had a good prayer for weather, indicating that “We must do something about those rains if we are to win the war” (O’Neill 2004, 36).

Chaplain O’Neill, in turn, wrote a prayer, which he took to Patton, with a Christmas greeting on the other side. Patton signed the card and ordered 250,000 copies of the two-sided card to be printed. The prayer was as follows: “Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations. Amen” (O’Neill 2004, 36). The Christmas greeting said: “To each officer and soldier in the Third United States Army, I wish a Merry Christmas. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We march in our might to complete victory. May God’s blessings rest upon each of you on this Christmas Day. G.S. Patton, Jr., Lieutenant General, Commanding, Third United States Army” (O’Neill 2004, 36).

In conversations with Chaplain O’Neill, Patton noted that many on the home front were praying for the soldiers, and that it was time for them to begin praying for themselves as well. He further associated good soldiering not simply with thinking and working but also with “guts.” He described prayer as a type of “intake” that allowed for proper “output” (O’Neill 2004, 37).

Patton further ordered O’Neill to put together a Training Letter on prayer, which was sent to other chap-lains and commanders. The letter instructed: “Urge all of your men to pray, not alone in church, but every-where. Pray when driving. Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day. Pray for the cessation of immoderate rains, for good weather for Battle. Pray for the defeat of our wicked enemy whose banner is injustice and whose god is oppression. Pray for Victory. Pray for our Army, and Pray for peace” (O’Neill 2004, 38).

By Dec. 20, the skies had cleared for a week of good weather, enabling the Allies to call in air power to turn back a German counterattack. Meeting the next month with Chaplain O’Neill, Patron said, “Well, Padre, our prayers worked. I knew they would” (O’Neill 2004, 39). He awarded O’Neill a Bronze Star Medal.

See alsoFoxhole Prayers; Petitionary Prayer; Roosevelt, Franklin D., D-Day Prayer; Twain, Mark, The War Prayer;

Weather

FOR REFERENCEO’Neill, James H. 2004. [1971]. “The True Story of the Patton Prayer.” Oct. 6. The New American, pp. 35-39.

https://www.fpparchive.org/media/documents/us_military/The%20True%20Story%20of%20the%20Patton%20Prayer_Msgr.%20James%20H.%20O%27Neill_January%2012,%202004_The%20New%20American.pdf

Peace PrayerSee St. Francis of Assisi

Penn, WilliamWilliam Penn (1644-1718) was an English Quaker who was responsible for founding the colonies of

Pennsylvania and Delaware from a land grant from the English King.Persecuted for his religious beliefs in England, Penn chose to open his colonies to individuals of all faiths,

and long after his death, Pennsylvania retained a reputation for religious tolerance. Penn’s “Frame of Govern-ment for Pennsylvania” constituted a kind of constitution for the colony, and was notable for being amendable by a supermajority (Vile 2015, II: 347-48). The city of Philadelphia later served as the venue for the writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

In 1916 or 1917, the City of Philadelphia, meaning “city of brotherly love,” permitted the installation of a bronze plaque by the Colonial Dames of America on the east wall of a passage through City Hall with a prayer that Penn wrote in a letter as he left Philadelphia in 1684 aboard the ketch [a type of sailboat] Endeavour in 1684. It was addressed to “Tho. Lloyd, J. Claypole, J. Simcodk, Ch. Taylor and Ja. Harrison, to be communi-cated in meetings in Pensilvania, etc., among Friends.” The editor of Penn’s works later located the letter in Chile in South America (Gummere, 1915, 86).

The plaque, which has a profile of Penn at the top, reads as follows:“And thou, Philadelphia, the Virgin settlement of this province named before thou were born, what love,

what care, what service and what travail have there been to bring thee forth and preserve thee from such as would abuse and defile thee.

“O that you mayest be kept from the evil that would overwhelm thee. That faithful to the God of thy mercies, in the Life of Righteousness, thou mayest be preserved to the end. My soul prays to God for thee, that thou mayest stand in the day of trial, that thy children may be blest of the Lord and thy people saved by his Power.” (Federer, 1996, 499).

See alsoU.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787

FOR REFERENCEFederer, William J. 1996. America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations. N.p.: FAME Publishing, Inc;

Gummere, Amelia M. 1915. “William Penn’s Prayer for Philadelphia.” Bulletin of Friends’ Historical Society of Philadelphia. Vol. 6, No. 3 (November): 84-86; Gummere, Amelia M. 1916. “William Penn’s Prayer for Philadelphia.” Bulletin of Friends’ Historical Society of Philadelphia, Vol. 7. No. 2 (November): 6; Vile, John R. 2015. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2015. 4th ed. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

Pentagon Prayer RoomGiven the military’s provision for chaplains, it should not perhaps be surprising to find that the Pentagon,

the headquarters for the military and one of the targets of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, should have a prayer chapel. The nondenominational chapel opened in November 2002 in a part of the building that was the site of the

terrorist strike (Gore 2010), and it contains a stained-glass window depicting the Pentagon, an eagle and a U.S. flag with what has been described as “a double row of 184 ruby-red glass pieces representing the victims killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the building”; it reads, “United in memory, September

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22, 2001” (Cohen 2019). The project manager for the chapel was Manal Ezzat, a Muslim woman who is a member of the Army Corps of Engineers (Lewin 2019).

The prayer room is open to those of all faiths, with specific prayer services scheduled each week for Catho-lics, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and others. Prayers vary widely. An article written during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 observed that in addition to praying for the safety of American fighting forces and Iraqi civilians, some prayed for “disarray and confusion on the part of the Iraqi leadership,” others that Americans could not lose their resolve, and still others for military victory (Gamerman 2003).

See alsoMilitary Chaplains

FOR REFERENCECohen, Tom. 2010. “Muslim prayers welcome at Pentagon chapel.” CNN. Aug. 19. https://www.cnn.

com/2010/US/08/18/pentagon.chapel.islam/index.htm; Gamerman. 2003. “An arsenal of prayer at Pentagon.” Baltimore Sun. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2003-03-27-030327--16-story.html; Gore, D’Angelo. 2010. “No Pentagon Mosque.” Aug. 17. https://www.factcheck.org/2010/08/no-pentagon-mosque; Lewis, Katherine. 2019. “After 9/11 Pentagon Interfaith Chapel Built By Muslim Woman Where All Are Welcome.” Sept. 11. https://www.diversityinc.com/after-9-11-pentagon-interfaith-chapel-built-by-muslim-woman-where-all-are-welcome/

Performative PrayerMany American reformers have been religiously motivated, and have sought strength in prayer. On occa-

sion, they have used public prayers to draw attention to their cause. In the 19th century, American women sometimes participated in pray-ins either inside saloons or outside them where they could be seen by the pub-lic. In the later civil rights movements, African-Americans participated in kneel-ins outside white churches that refused them admission or sought to segregate them from other worshippers.

In a study of American civil rights actions between 1960 and 1970, Professor Tobin Miller Shearer has found that there were “more than 220 civil rights events involving public prayer between 1942 and 1977, beginning with A. Philip Randolph’s experiments with public prayer during the March on Washington movement and ending with a prayer vigil held by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to protest the Carter administration’s support of an anti-affirmative action Supreme Court case. Of these events, 170 occurred in the eleven years between 1960 and 1970” (2015, 493). Shearer noted that civil rights protest-ers “incorporated stylized postures, displayed a keen consciousness of the listening audience, acknowledged the context, spoke to the immediate setting, and followed familiar patterns but not rote scripts” (2015, 495).

Shearer observes that such prayers sometimes created crisis situations, often resulting in violence against those conducting the protests, especially those kneeling. At other times, he observed, such prayers interrupted violence, as when firefighters, and police with dogs refused to follow orders from Birmingham Commissioner of Public Safety Bull Connor to attack after approximately 4,000 protesters fell to their knees (2015, 497). Observing how civil rights protesters often dressed in a fashion similar to middle-class whites, Shearer observes that “the combination of physical vulnerability and overt piety enraged those opposed to racial integration but aware of and often committed to Christian practice”; by kneeling, the protesters were claiming

“divine authority for their actions,” leading those who were seeking to protect the status quo to take offense (2015, 498).

Shearer further notes that some individuals, typically male pastors, sometimes further increased the sense of crisis by specifically calling out the officials and other leaders who were enforcing segregation in their prayers. Although such protests often involved theatrical elements, Shearer observes that “Those who prayed were both strategists and devotional beings” (2015, 502), and they could never be sure what reactions their prayers and their prayer postures would evoke.

See alsoKneel-ins; Pray-Ins; Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom; Prayer Vigils; Taking a Knee

FOR REFERENCE“Prayer in the Grog-Shops.” 1874. The Churchman. Feb. 21, p. 60, cols. 4-5; Shearer, Tobin Miller. 2015.

“Invoking Crisis: Performative Christian Prayer and the Civil Rights Movement.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 83 ( June): 490-512.

Petitionary PrayerOf all the types of prayer uttered in America, the most common is probably the petitionary prayer. Techni-

cally known as an “impetration,” the petitionary prayer is distinguished by a request to God for something specific. Such a prayer might also contain words of praise, adoration, thanksgiving, or confession that do not include specific requests (Stump 2002, 609), although the so-called “Sinner’s Prayer” typically follows a prayer of confession with a plea for, or acceptance of, salvation. The Lord’s Prayer, which is attributed to Jesus, contains a number of petitions including “Thy will be done.” Similarly, the Hail Mary prayer calls upon the mother of God to “pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” Petitionary prayer is closely related to intercessory prayer, which is understood as a prayer for others rather than oneself.

Petitionary prayer is based on the idea that God has the power to answer our prayers, that not all things are predetermined, and that prayers will sometimes alter the course of events in a positive direction (Stump 2002). Such prayers also recognize that the human self is “a creature, dependent on the Creator” (Winner 2018, 81).

In the late 19th century through the first third of the 20th, a number of liberal Protestants began to ques-tion the efficacy of petitionary prayer because it seemed to conflict with scientifically discovered laws of nature. Such individuals stressed the way that prayers affected those who made them rather than the God to whom the prayers were directed. Harry Emerson Fosdick observed that “There are some who still think of prayer in terms of childish supplications to a divine Santa Claus” (1920, 22). In some tension with biblical passages that suggested that one should approach God in prayer as a child might approach a parent (Ostrander 2000, 85), Fosdick suggested that maturity required moving away from the idea that “prayer was an Aladdin’s lamp by rubbing which we summoned the angels of God to do our bidding” (1920, 28-29). Somewhat later Fosdick seemed to go even further, classifying prayers for changes in the physical world as “equivalent to primitive magic” (Ostrander 2000, 153).

In response, many more conservative theologians responded with answered-prayer narratives, designed with a view to empiricism, detailing instances where God had answered prayer (Ostrander 2000, 39).

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Most people of faith believe that all prayers are subject to God’s will. Even Jesus’s prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane that he might escape crucifixion were not answered affirmatively. Those with such an understanding often suggest that prayer may have a more important effect in aligning the will of individuals to God rather than in getting God to change His mind or his plans.

Prayers for God to intervene on behalf of the sick are quite pervasive in many American homes and church-es. For more than 100 years, social scientists have been attempting to measure the efficacy of such prayers, with varying results (Brown 2020; Levin 2020, 85-115). People of faith generally distinguish prayer from magic, and it is almost impossible to distinguish which prayers are from the strongest believers, which are delivered with the greatest faith, which are the most fervent, and whether prayers by individuals (including patients) who might otherwise be outside the study are also having an effect.

Most theological conceptions of God suggest that He is able to distinguish between mere human wants and human needs, a distinction that has been highlighted in Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” (1970), where the singer implores God to provide a luxury car and a television set and even “a night on the town.” Professor Lauren F. Winner explored this phenomenon by drawing in part from a diary of Keziah Goodwyn Hopkins Brevard, a Southern plantation owner and widow, who constantly prayed that God would give her better slaves and even envisioned heaven as a place where she would be segregated from African-Americans and abolitionists, many of whom she undoubtedly expected to be in hell (2018, 87, 89). At the same time, many of her slaves were praying for their freedom.

President Abraham Lincoln observed in the Second Inaugural Address that individuals in both North and South read the same Bible and prayed to the same God, imploring that He would give them victory. Lincoln wisely observed that God could not answer both sets of prayers at the same time. Mark Twain’s short story

“The War Prayer” points out that praying for victory for one side in a war is equivalent to praying for destruc-tion for the other.

Working from the scriptural observation that God already knows our needs before individuals bring them to Him, Winner suggests that the primary intent of petitionary prayer might be friendship. As she explains,

“Friendship is a good that can come from petition, precisely because God has drawn us into conversation with God about our desires, and when we state our desires, we are offering intimacy with our desiring and vulnera-ble selves” (Winner 2018, 83).

See alsoAnswered Prayer Narratives; Fosdick, Harry Emerson; Healing; Lincoln, Abraham, Second Inaugural

Address; Lord’s Prayer; Parodies; Rosary; Sinner’s Prayer; Weather

FOR REFERENCEBrown, Candy Gunther. 2012. Testing Prayer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; Clanton, J. Caleb.

2014. “George Santayana and the Problem of Petitionary Prayers.” American Journal of Theology & Philosophy. 35 (May): 108-128; Fosdick, Harry Emerson. 1920. The Meaning of Prayer. New York: Association Press; Levin, Jeff. 2020. Religion and Medicine: A History of the Encounter Between Humanity’s Two Greatest Institu-tions. New York: Oxford University Press; Ostrander, Rick. 2000. The Life of Prayer in a World of Science: Protestants, Prayer, and American Culture 1870-1930. New York: Oxford University Press; Stump, Eleonore. 2002. “Petitionary Prayer.” Philosophy of Religion: A Reader and Guide, ed. William Lane Craig, Kevin Meeker, J.P. Moreland, and Michael Murray. Edinburgh University Press, pp. 609-624; Winner, Lauren F. 2018. The

Dangers of Christian Practice: On Wayward Gifts, Characteristic Damage, and Sin. New Haven, CT: Yale Univer-sity Press. See especially chapter on “Prayer,” pp. 57-93.

PluralismOne of the most notable aspects of American religious history is that it has become considerably more

pluralistic over time. This pluralism is increasingly accommodating prayers from different faiths at public events.Although some religious groups, most notably the Puritans, who came to America did so to secure their

religious freedom, many including Puritans were unwilling to extend the same freedom to others. Roger Williams founded Rhode Island after he left Massachusetts because of its doctrinal rigidity.

Some colonies, especially Pennsylvania and Delaware (both founded by William Penn) and Maryland, founded by Lord Baltimore, were open to individuals of varied faiths, but many colonies and early states had established churches, for which all citizens, churched and unchurched, were required to pay taxes. The First Amendment, ratified in 1791, prohibited a national religious establishment, and in 1833 Massachusetts became the last state to abandon an established church. The First Amendment also protected the “free exercise” of religion, which the U.S. Supreme Court has subsequently extended to the states through the due-process clause of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868.

The First and Second Great Awakenings brought not only Methodists and Baptists but also members of other denominations into focus. The 1830s witnessed the beginnings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat-ter-day Saints. The 1840s and 1850s brought increased immigration from countries that were predominately Roman Catholic, and a whole hosts of new religions developed. As a whole however, the U.S. chiefly identi-fied as a Protestant nation. Protestants were united around a common Bible (the King James Version) and generally did not regard either reading the Bible or prayer to be a sectarian exercise when carried out in public schools, leading many Catholics to establish their own parochial schools.

This, of course, changed when the Supreme Court respectively outlawed both practices in public schools in Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington v. Schempp (1963) and in subsequent cases.

One way of noting religious diversity is noting when Congress first employed a chaplain from a denomina-tion. The House of Representatives employed its first Methodist in 1800, its first Baptist in 1801, its first Unitarian in 1821, its first Congregationalist in 1840, its first member of the Disciples of Christ in 1881, its first Universalist in 1895, its first Lutheran in 1979, and its first Roman Catholic in 2000. The Senate employed its first Baptist in 1809, its first Methodist in 1814, its first and only Congregationalist in 1816, its first and only Roman Catholic in 1832, its first and only Lutheran in 1886, and its first and only Seventh-day Adventist in 2003. Notably, however, neither house has yet employed a representative of a non-Christian religion.

Another way of measuring religious diversity is to note those occasions when guests from minority Ameri-can religions have been called upon to pray before Congress. The U.S. House invited the first rabbi to pray in 1860. The first Muslim imam to be invited to pray in the U.S. House was in 1991 and in the U.S. Senate in 1992. The Dalai Lama became the first Buddhist to be invited to pray in the U.S. Senate in 2014. The U.S. Senate invited the first Sikh to pray in 2019.

Although there was a time when America was increasingly described as Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish (Herberg 1960) or as Judeo-Christian, modern inaugurations, vigils, and other public events routinely extend invitations from imams and members of other faiths to pray.

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See also Congress Chaplains; Congress, First Muslim Prayer in; Congress, First Rabbi to Give Public Prayer; Dalai

Llama; Ecumenical Prayers; Penn, William; Presidential Inaugurations; Sikh, First to Pray in Congress

FOR REFERENCEHerberg, Will. 1960. Protestant, Catholic, Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology. Rev. ed. New York:

Doubleday.

Pray for America BibleThe number of specialty Bibles seems almost endless. There are Bibles that highlight the words of Jesus in

red, or passages related to the environment in green, as well as Bibles designed for patriots, for conservatives, and for individuals of all ages (Vile 2020).

A recent addition to this list is the One Year Pray for America Bible, published by Tyndale House Publishers in 2019. Designed, as the title suggests, for individuals who want to read through the Bible in a year, each day’s reading includes the date and a brief prompt to pray for the nation, and is divided into a passage from the Old Testament, a passage from the New Testament, and selections from both the book of Psalms (songs) and Proverbs (wisdom literature). Selections are taken from the New Living Translation.

The foreword is written by Barry C. Black, the current Senate chaplain, who is the first to be an Afri-can-American and a Seventh-day Adventist. Arguing that “Prayer helped to make America a beacon of freedom” (A5), Black offers several reasons for “Getting Back to Praying for Our Nation” (A5). Black writes that we should pray for our government “because God has ordained government to establish order in society,”

“because God commands us to pray for it,” “because life should not be divided into sacred and secular,” “be-cause people of faith have a role in influencing public life and policy,” “because the ends sought by the govern-ment should be morally acceptable,” because “we are urged to pray for others,” “because intercessory prayer is an affirmation of faith in the God who desires to serve humanity,” and “because God blesses nations that acknowledge him” (A5-A7).

In further explicating “How We Should Pray,” Black says that “we should pray for our government’s needs,” “we should pray with total dependence on God,” “we should pray confidently,” and “we should pray with thanksgiving” (A8). The last instruction does something to balance what is otherwise largely an explanation of petitionary, or intercessory, prayer.

This Bible contains black-and-white photos of iconic American landmarks, each with a short prayer direct-ed to God’s blessings on the government and its leaders. Color inserts further provide prayers from the following statesmen and church leaders: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Billy Graham, Botette Bright (cofounder of CRU, which used to be known as Campus Crusade for Christ), Franklin D. Roosevelt, Samuel Smith, Peter Marshall, Jacob Duché, James Weldon Johnson, Dr. Jeremy K. Pridgeon, and Mark and Jill Herringshaw as well as from the Book of Common Prayer.

In 2020, Tyndale advertised a Pray for Life Bible with an introduction by Joni Eareckson Tada, an evangelical Christian active in the disability-rights movement.

See AlsoCongress, Chaplains ; Petitionary Prayer

FOR REFERENCEOne Year Pray for American Bible. 2019. Foreword by Barry C. Black. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House

Publishers, Inc; Vile, John. 2020. The Bible in American Law and Politics: A Reference Guide. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Pray for Peace Postage CancellationIt is likely that the desire for peace is among the most frequent topics of prayer. In 1952, evangelist Billy

Graham, who had been holding a crusade in the city, held a peace rally on the east steps of the U.S. Capitol Building on Feb. 3 in which he called for the establishment of a National Day of Prayer.

That decade, during which the U.S. was in a Cold War posture with the Soviet Union and Communist China, witnessed both the adoption of “In God We Trust” as the national motto and the addition of the words “under God” to the pledge to the U.S. flag.

In 1954 and 1955, Michigan Rep. Louis Rabaut proposed a bill asking the Post Office to create a cancella-tion that read “Pray for Peace.” Clearly prompted by the Cold War context, Rabaut explained:

“It would seem that, in view of the manner in which our country has been catapulted into the role of leader-ship of the free world, in recognition of the heavy mantle of responsibility which has been thrusted upon our shoulders as Americans in the face of the long-continued and ever-increasing attacks upon us by the forces of godlessness and atheism, we need constantly to be reminded of our dependence upon God and of our faith in His support … . We need to return to basic truths. We need to pray for peace” (Clark 2005, 48-49).

Public Law 600, section 2509, providing for this cancellation was adopted on June 20, 1956, with little apparent congressional dissent. Title 39 of the U.S. Code accordingly provides that “The Postmaster General may provide for the use in post offices of the first and second class of a special canceling stamp or postmark-ing die bearing the words “Pray for Peace.”

See alsoNational Day of Prayer

FOR REFERENCEClark, Alexandra Leigh. 2005. Congress, religion, and the Cold War consensus from 1952-1956. Under-

graduate thesis for Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi.

Pray the VoteOne of the initiatives of the Presidential Prayer Team, launched in 2004, is known as “Pray the Vote.” It is

designed to encourage individuals to host prayer parties concluding on election eve to encourage individuals to vote. It is similar to another campaign, “Pray Across America,” which was held in state capitals throughout the United States between Sept. 11 of 2004 and 2005 to pray for America’s leaders (Walker 2004).

The idea that prayer should influence one’s vote is nothing new. An article that looks at the effects of the issues of Prohibition and the candidacy of Democrat Al Smith (the first Roman Catholic to be on the national ballot for a U.S. presidential election) quotes the Methodist minister Benjamin Harvey Greathouse

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as writing in a letter to a local newspaper that “The voice of the whole people MUST be expressed; and they must vote as they pray” (Gage 2009, 403).

The original Pray the Vote initiative was called into question by those who considered that it was a partisan attempt to reelect President George W. Bush, who was expecting to garner 86% of the evangelical vote (Walker 2004). Some pointed to the fact that Bush’s campaign had asked supporters to “identify 1,600 ‘Friendly Congregations’ in Pennsylvania where voters friendly to President Bush might gather on a regular basis.” Jim Wallis, an evangelical leader on the left, commented that “When prayer becomes politically partisan, it becomes a dangerous manipulation of prayer” (Walker 2004). By contrast, John Moyer, a chaplain’s assistant helping with the Pray the Vote initiative, observed that “The focus is prayer. That’s what makes us nonpartisan” (Walker 2004).

An article in an Episcopalian publication in 2008 noted that more people seemed to want to vote their prayers than to pray their vote. It observed that “To pray our votes means to seek ways to engage our faith and our consciences in careful research, honest conversation with persons whose ‘vote your prayer’ differs from your own. It means openness to knowing that whatever happens in God’s world, it is still God’s world!” (McCoy, 2008).

The website for Pray the Vote 2020 suggested prayers “for our existing and new leaders” and offered the following prayer: “Heavenly Father, thank you for your continued grace and mercy and for blessing the United States of America. As many across the country head to the polls, we ask for Your wisdom and guid-ance as the nation votes. We pray that Your will is accomplished through our actions and for the results of the election to be according to your plan” (“Praying for the Elections 2020).

See alsoPresidential Prayer Team

FOR REFERENCEGage, Justin Randolph. 2009. “Vote as You Pray: The 1928 Election in Washington County, Arkansas.” The

Arkansas Historical Quarterly 68 (Winter): 388-417; McCoy, Terry and David. 2008. “Pray your vote … Vote your Prayer.” Episcopal Life Weekly. https://episcopalchurch.org/files/elife_insert_102608_fullpage.pdf; “Praying for the elections. Pray the Vote, 2020. https://www.presidentialprayerteam.org/pray-the-vote; Walker, Ken. 2004. “The Politics of Prayer.” Christianity Today. Aug. 1. https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/august/18.26.html

Pray to God but Keep Your Powder DryMost individuals who advocate and engage in prayer probably do so in the belief that it has efficacy, perhaps

even in bypassing what are considered to be ordinary laws of nature. Others might view prayer in opposition to action. The 19th-century agnostic Robert G. Ingersoll thus observed in Volume IV of his Works that “The hands that help are better far than lips that pray.” Thus, for some individuals the idea of keeping someone in their

“thoughts and prayers” is a kind of positive action, which for others may appear as a substitute for such action. One individual who appreciated both thoughts and actions was Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), who

opposed Charles I in the English Revolution, became Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1653-1658, and was ultimately responsible for the king’s execution. His spirit was later captured in a poem,

“Oliver’s Advice,” by William Blacker under the pen name Fitz Stewart in 1834, which advised, “Put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your powder dry.” Commentator Bruce Fein has rephrased this as “Pray to God, and leave the powder dry” (2016).

Although William Safire has demonstrated that American politicians have sometimes mangled the mean-ing of the phrase, the powder at issue was gunpowder, which had to remain dry in order to blast away the ene-my, so the phrase essentially means to back up prayer or faith with a willingness to engage in what some might regard as more efficacious action. Safire, who links the phrase to a combination of “piety and practicali-ty,” compares the phrase to another song from World War II titled “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition” (1997). As originally reported, this expression grew out of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1941 when men turned to a chaplain for prayer, and he manned a machine gun and uttered the phrase. A song with this title, which was written by Broadway composer Frank Loesser and published in 1942, attributed the words to “The Sky Pilot.” Further investigation revealed that a chaplain by the name of Lt. Howell Forgy, who was aboard the USS New Orleans during the Japanese attack, had apparently originated the phrase in inspir-ing men to respond to the attack.

Both the phrase attributed to Cromwell and that attributed to Chaplain Forgy might also be compared to the phrase “on a wing and a prayer,” which navigates the issue of whether to attribute life to God or to technology, or to the phrase, apparently originating with Benjamin Franklin but often incorrectly attributed to the Bible, declaring that “God helps those who help themselves.” In a similar vein, a quotation variously attributed to St. Augustine, St. Ignatius (founder of the Society of Jesus) and William Carey (a missionary to India), advises to “Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”

See alsoFoxhole Prayers; On a Wing and a Prayer; Petitionary Prayer; Thoughts and Prayers; Twain, Mark, The

War Prayer

FOR REFERENCEBlacker, William. [1834] “Oliver’s Advice.” Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Oliver%27s_Advic;

Budanovic, Nikola. 2017. “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition—The Legendary Army Chaplain Of Pearl Harbor.” War History Online. July 5. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/praise-the;lord-and-pass-the-ammunition-bc.htm; Fein, Bruce. 2016. “Pray to God, but read James Madison.” Washington Times. Feb. 3. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/3/bruce-fein-pray-god-read-james-madison; Safire, William. 1997. “Keeping Your Powder Dry.” The New York Times. Feb. 23.

Prayer and Bible Reading in Public SchoolsFew issues involving church and state have elicited more passion than the controversy over prayer and Bible

reading in school. Although this dispute is typically dated to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Engel v. Vitale in 1962, the roots of the controversy go back much further. One of the earliest laws in the United States was the “Old Deluder Satan Act,” which was designed to provide schooling for children so that they would be able to read the Bible and resist the devil, and many American colleges and universities were founded specifi-cally to prepare individuals for the ministry.

Schooling in colonial America was often conducted by pastors in colonies that often had official state religions. Even the adoption of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1791 only initially limited

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national religious establishments, and Massachusetts did not officially disestablish its Congregational Church until 1833. The rise of widespread public education in the 19th century generally brought with it less sectarian instruction, but leading educators, who were almost all Protestants, did not generally consider reading from the King James Version of the Bible or generic prayers to be sectarian, despite protests from Roman Catholics, who not only had their own translation of the Bible but also believed it was inappropriate to present Bible readings without explanation by church leaders. When legal attempts failed to put an end to such practices, Catholics began establishing their own schools (as Protestants would later do in the 20th century both in reaction to racial integration and to Supreme Court decisions that they thought unduly secularized public education), which in turn led to the question of whether states could help fund them.

The general answer to this question was no. In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), the Supreme Court, drawing from the so-called “child-benefit” theory, made a small exception for state provision of bus transpor-tation to parochial schools, but the majority decision, written by Justice Hugo L. Black, drew upon arguments from the fight for religious disestablishment in Virginia and quoted Thomas Jefferson to emphasize the importance of keeping a high wall of separation between church and state. Moreover, in Illinois ex rel. McCol-lum v. Board of Education (1948), the Supreme Court struck down a “released time” program in which public schools provided a place for on-site religious instruction and religious exercises during school hours as a violation of the establishment clause. The decision was somewhat modified in Zorach v. Clauson (1952), when the Supreme Court, acknowledging the religious nature of the American people, allowed schools to dismiss children whose parents consented for off-campus religious instruction during regular school hours.

The practice of starting the school day with Bible reading and prayer and offering grace before meals appears to have continued in many public schools up to (and often after) the Supreme Court decision in Engel v. Vitale (1962). In Billard v. Board of Education (1904), the Kansas Supreme Court had thus upheld the expulsion of a student who attempted to do other things while the teacher led the class in Bible reading, the Lord’s Prayer, and other readings. By contrast, in examining a prayer recommended by the New York Board of Regents, which provided, “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country,” the Supreme Court decided in Engel that the state should not be in the business of certifying prayers for children in public schools. The following year, it extended a similar prohibition to daily devotional readings from the Bible and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in Abington School District v. Schempp.

Although they had their defenders, both decisions stirred considerable opposition by those who thought that the Court was attempting to kick God out of public schools. Members of Congress have introduced numerous proposals to amend the U.S. Constitution to permit voluntary public prayer and/or Bible readings in the schools, but these efforts have foundered both on the difficulty of phrasing such an amendment and on the supermajorities required by the constitutional-amendment process.

In addressing establishment-clause cases, the Court typically uses a three-part test articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1972), which requires that to pass constitutional muster under the establishment clause, laws must have a clear secular (rather than a religious) purpose, must neither have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, and must avoid excessive entanglement between church and state. The Court has been especially sensitive about prayer and Bible reading involving public school children, who might feel peer pressure to participate. The Court has further articulated the so-called endorsement test in which it seeks to assure that governments are not endorsing one set of religious beliefs over another.

These tests have eliminated most forms of religious acknowledgement in public schools and, consistent with

the decision in Everson, of direct state aid to parochial schools, as in Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty v. Nyquist (1973). In Marsh v. Chambers (1983), the Court has permitted prayer in state legislatures, and in Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014) it permitted prayer before a New York town meeting in light of long-established historical practice and in light of the age of the participants. On a related issue, it has permitted some religious displays on public properties, especially when the religious element—a Christmas crèche or the display of the Ten Commandments—is accompanied by secular symbols, as in Lynch v. Donnelly (1984).

Subsequent decisions have limited prayer at public school graduation exercises in Lee v. Weisman (1992) and at public school football games in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000). Following a similar ruling about secular college and university campuses in Widmar v. Vincent (1982), however, the Supreme Court has ruled, largely on free-speech grounds, in Good News Club v. Milford Central School (2001), that public schools that create a limited public forum for after-school events cannot exclude religious groups.

President Donald J. Trump featured the latter decisions and other rulings protecting the free speech of both public school students and teachers and their right to engage in private prayer in unveiling a set of guidelines for prayer in public schools in 2020. The prohibitions established in Engel v. Vitale and Abington v. Schempp on teacher-led devotional prayer or Bible reading, as well as those on prayer at ballgames and gradua-tion ceremonies, remain.

See alsoAbington School District v. Schempp; Billard v. Board of Education (1904); Engel v. Vitale; Lee v. Weisman;

Marsh v. Chambers; Proposed Constitutional Amendments for Prayer in Schools; Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe; Town v. Greece v. Galloway; Trump, Donald, Guidelines on Prayer and Public Schools

FOR REFERENCEAbington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963); Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty

v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756 (1973); Dierenfield, Bruce. 2007. The Battle over School Prayer: How Engel v. Vitale Changed America. Boston: Northeastern University Press; Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1963); Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947); Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98 (2001); Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 2203 (1948); Keynes, Edward, with Randall K. Miller. 1989. The Court vs. Congress: Prayer, Busing, and Abortion. Durham, NC: Duke University Press; Laubach, John H. 1969. School Prayers: Congress, the Courts and the Public. Washington, DC: Public Affairs Press; Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992); Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984); Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S.783 (1983); The First Amendment Encyclopedia. 2009. Original print version of the Encyclopedia of the First Amendment, edited by John R. Vile, David L. Hudson Jr. and David Schultz. Washington, DC: CQ Press. https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/encyclopedia; Santa Fe Independence School District v. Doe, 430 U.S. 290 (2000); Town of Greece v. Calloway, 572 U.S. ____ (2014); Vile, John R. 2020. The Bible in American Law and Politics: A Refer-ence Guide. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield; Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 2673 (1981); Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952).

Prayer Caps and CoveringsMembers of some religious groups wear prayer caps either to signal that they are under God’s authority or

that prayer is a constant part of their lives.

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As a general rule, American courts have upheld the right of defendants to wear such caps in courtrooms, while suggesting that any prejudice against such individuals might be mitigated by proper voir dire examina-tion of jurors and proper jury instructions. Thus in McMillan v. State, the Maryland Court of Appeals reversed a decision by a lower court requiring a defendant named Olugba to remove such a head covering known as a filaas (Levine 1998, 1507). Similarly, in 1978 the case of In re Palmer, the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that a lower court had erred in requiring a defendant to remove a takia, another type of prayer cap worn by Sunni Muslims, without considering whether his religious beliefs were sincere. That same year, a New York state court ruled in Close-It Enterprises, Inc. v. Weinberger that the trial court had wrongly ordered a defendant to remove a yarmulke.

In a slight wrinkle on these decisions, in 1988 a court ruled in Spanks-El v. Finley that an individual could be asked to remove a fez for the limited purpose of going through a metal detector. Similarly, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruling in State v. Hodges in 1985 suggested in a fairly unusual case that it was unlikely that a religious justification would permit an individual to arrive in court dressed as a chicken!

FOR REFERENCEClose-It Enterprises, Inc. v. Weinberger, 407 N.Y.S.2d 587 (App. Div. 1978); In Re Palmer, 386 A.1d 1111

(R.I. 1978); Levine, Samuel J. 1998. “Religious Symbols and Religious Garb in the Courtroom: Personal Values and Public Judgments.” Fordham Law Review 66: 1505-1540; McMillan v. State, 265 A.2d 453 (Md. 1970); Shields, Marjorie A. 2006. “Wearing of Religious Symbols in Courtroom as Protected by First Amendment.” American Law Reports 18 A.L.R.6th 775; Spanks-El v. Finley, No 85-C9259, 1987 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3374 (N.D. Ill. April 23, 1987); State v. Hughes, 695 S.W.2d 171 (Tenn. 1985).

Prayer ClothsOne prayer ritual that is currently practiced primarily among Pentecostal and Holiness denominations in

the South, and which is based on miracles attributed to Paul in Acts 19:11-12, is the practice of praying over and anointing small pieces of cloth, which are then laid over the sick or mailed to those with physical needs. Such patches are “variously known as prayer cloths, anointed handkerchiefs, blessed cloths, and faith cloths” (Blanton 2015, 52), and seem to share some elements in common with magic. It is common during the anointing ceremonies for “prayer warriors” in the congregation to gather around those who are doing the anointing or for the congregation as a whole to engage in “skein prayer, in which all begin praying their own prayers aloud, sometimes in tongues (Blanton 2015, 56, 58).

The practice was engaged in extensively by televangelist Oral Roberts, who mailed cloths to members of his viewing audience, thus establishing a more personal relationship with them. Initially cut by church members with pinking shears in a “saw-toot” pattern, these were eventually manufactured with similar serrated edges.

One scholar of the subject ties such remnants to the canvas Tent Cathedrals in which Roberts and other evangelists preached, pointing out that both emphasized “the notion of portability and itineracy” (Blanton 2015, 65). This scholar notes that another evangelist, A.A. Allen, cut strips of his canvas tent into prayer rugs, which he gave to donors (Blanton 2015, 66).

See alsoRobert, Oral

FOR REFERENCEBlanton, Anderson. 2015. Hittin’ the Prayer Bones: Materiality of Spirit in the Pentecostal South. Chapel Hill:

University of North Carolina Press. For specific chapter on prayer cloths, see Chapter 2, “Prayer Cloths: Remnants of the Holy Ghost and the Texture of Faith,” pp. 52-104.

Prayer for AmericaSee Kucinich, Dennis

Prayer for UnitySee Eisenhower, Dwight D., Inaugural Prayer

A Prayer for AmericaThe terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, were among the most

traumatic events in the history of the United States of America. The nation was shocked by the surprise and ferocity of the attack and the large numbers of casualties. The attack in turn led at least indirectly to a second American war in Iraq and to its longest war ever in Afghanistan.

In less than two weeks after the attacks, an event called “A Prayer for America” was held at Yankee Stadium, where an estimated 30,000 people, many of them family members of the victims, gathered for prayer and reflection. The event had originally been planned for Central Park but had been moved to Yankee Stadium as a result of security concerns (McFadden 2001). The crowd was not as large as anticipated, perhaps in part because tickets had originally been designated for the families of victims, many of whom might have preferred to express their grief in private.

The speakers included “the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York Cardinal Edward Egan, a Muslim cleric, two rabbis, and clergy from the Protestant, Hindu, Greek Orthodox and Sikh faiths” (Hopkins 2001). One feature of the event was the Blowing of the Shofar, a ram’s horn used by Jews to call individuals to worship. In addition to reflecting the diversity of the city, the inclusion of non-Christian faiths was an indica-tion that the event was not so much designed to portray America as a Christian nation as it was designed to portray Americans as a praying people. The inclusion of a Muslim indicated the city’s recognition that those who had attacked the World Trade Center did not represent that religion as a whole. In leading off the five-hour program, actor James Earl Jones proclaimed, “We are united not only in our grief, but also in our resolve to build a better world. At this service, we seek to summon what Abraham Lincoln called ‘the better angels of our nature’” (McFadden 2001).

In addition to Jones, the event featured such entertainers as television personality Oprah Winfrey, and singers Placido Domingo (who sang “Ave Maria”), Bette Midler (who sang “The Wind Beneath My Wings”), the Harlem boys choir (who, depending on the report read, sang either, or perhaps both, “We Shall Overcome” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing”), and Lee Greenwood, who sang “God Bless the USA” (Hopkins 2001). Other songs on the program included “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “God Bless America,” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” In addition to New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, politicians who attended included

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former President Bill Clinton, New York Sens. Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Clinton, and former New York mayors Edward I. Koch and David Dinkins.

See alsoGod Bless America; Hymns, Songs, and Poems; Pluralism

FOR REFERENCEHopkins, Nick. 2001. “At Yankee Stadium, a tearful farewell to victims.” The Guardian. https://www.

theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/24/afghanistan.terrorism12; McFadden, Robert D. 2001. “A Nation Challenged: The Service; In a Stadium of Heroes, Prayers for the Fallen and Solace for Those Left Behind.” The New York Times. Sept. 24. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/24/nyregion/nation-challenged-service-sta-dium-heroes-prayers-for-fallen-solace-for-those.html; “‘Prayer for America’ embraces many faiths.” 2001. CNN.com/U.S. Sept. 23. edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/23/vic.yankee.memorial.service/index.html

Prayer Meeting Revivals Throughout American history, periods of perceived religious lassitude have been followed by times of

renewed religious interest, or revival, which have often served to generate subsequent political reform move-ments. Thus, the movement initiated by the preaching of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) and George White-field (1714-1770) in the 1730s through the 1750s generated not only considerable religious enthusiasm but also led to the spread of notions of human equality that undoubtedly contributed to America’s eventual independence from Great Britain. The Second Great Awakening, often associated with Presbyterian Charles Finney (1792-1875), as well as with Methodists and Baptists, beginning in the late 18th century and lasting into the early decades of the 19th century, added fuel to the abolitionist, women’s suffrage, and related move-ments. As one of the monikers suggests, the third revival from about 1857-1859, often known as the Prayer Meeting Revival, embraced both the United States and the British Isles and was particularly associated with prayer meetings that were largely organized among U.S. citizens by businessmen.

Some trace the origin of this third revival to meetings begun by Jeremiah Lampier, a businessman, who began a midday prayer meeting at the New York City Dutch Reformed Church in 1857. Starting with six members, it quickly grew to include neighboring churches of other Protestant denominations whose members may have been motivated in part by a stock market crash in 1858. For a time, as many as 6,000 individuals were attending daily prayer meetings in New York City alone, with Philadelphia soon reporting 3,000 in attendance there (Randall 2009, 218).

Previous revivals had been associated with intense emotional manifestations, which often split the church into Old Side and New Side leaders who respectively feared emotional excesses or viewed them as manifesta-tions of the power of the Holy Spirit. By contrast, the Prayer Meeting Revival was especially characterized by the orderliness that lay leaders, typically businessmen, exerted over the prayer meetings that they called to support it. Meetings began and ended punctually, were limited to the singing of a hymn, prayer, the reading of Scripture, and attention to specific prayer requests (Randall 2009, 219). They typically involved strong interde-nominational cooperation and are estimated to have added at least 1 million members to Protestant churches in the U.S. alone (Randall 2009, 2019). The revivals that followed were tied to the rise of evangelist Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899) of Chicago, and evangelist C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) in England. William and

Catherine Booth (1829-1912; 1829-1890), of the Salvation Army, as well as a number of women evangelists, are also associated with this movement.

The dominant historiography of this movement has particularly promoted “the modern image of the Christian layman as an active, pious businessman,” which may have somewhat underplayed the fact that women, children, and college students were also drawn into the movement (Long 1994). Northern historians of the movement probably also underplayed the power of the revival in Southern cities, in part because they did not believe that God could work as powerfully within the slave states.

The Azusa Street Revival that began in Los Angeles under the preaching of William J. Seymour in 1906 contributed to the rise of charismatic Christianity with its emphasis on speaking in tongues and faith healing. Still later, the 1950s witnessed popular responses to crusades conducted by Billy Graham and other speakers, who believed that religious revival was a key to defeating communism during this period of Cold War.

Modern evangelistic outreaches in cities are often preceded by one or more months of prayer. These often involve interdenominational prayer meetings of pastors, processions and marches, and the distribution of annotated prayer calendars that target specific needs of the city (Elisha 2013).

Once citywide meetings begin, revivalists often urge individuals who are under conviction to pray the “sinner’s prayer,” specifically asking for salvation. This is sometimes in conflict with early Calvinist beliefs that individuals are destined either to salvation or damnation by God’s Providence and cannot secure, although they may evidence, such an election through their own actions.

See alsoHaystack Prayer Meeting; Sinner’s Prayer

FOR REFERENCEElisha, Omri. 2013. “The time and place for prayer: evangelical urbanism and citywide prayer movements.”

Religion 43, 3:312-330; Kidd, Thomas S. 2019. Who Is an Evangelical? The History of a Movement in Crisis. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; Long, Kathryn. 1994. “The Power of Interpretation: The Revival of 1857-58 and the Historiography of Revivalism.” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 4 (Win-ter); 77-105; Randall, Ian. 2009. “Lay People in Revival: A Case Study of the ‘1859’ Revival.” Transformation 26 (October): 217-213.

Prayer Pilgrimage for FreedomJust as individuals of faith had often led the movement for the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery

itself, so too religious leaders led many of the civil rights marches and protests in the 1950s and 1960s that resulted in the adoption of civil rights laws.

In time, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who had often found solace in prayer, emerged as one of the leading African-American leaders. He based his initiatives on nonviolent protest and civil disobedience to laws he considered unjust.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court had declared in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that the equal-pro-tection clause of the 14th Amendment required that the system of discriminatory Jim Crow laws must come to an end, progress remained slow. King, who was pastor of the Dexter Street Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., had gained national attention when he helped direct the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955-1956 after a black seamstress, Rosa Parks, had refused to go to the back of a bus.

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In 1957, King became part of the Southern Leadership Conference and proposed a Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom to Washington, D.C., shortly after which his picture was featured on the cover of Time magazine. Although some African-American leaders were tepid about the idea of a pilgrimage for fear that it would simply antagonize the Eisenhower administration, which had preferred to move slowly on issues related to race, King explained that “This will not be a political march. It will be rooted in deep spiritual faith” (Garrow 1986, 90). The call for the pilgrimage, which was signed by A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King Jr., and Roy Wilkins, was as follows:

“As the Founding Americans prayed for strength and wisdom in the wilderness of a new land, as the slaves and their descendants prayed for emancipation and human dignity, as men of every color and clime in time of crisis have sought Divine guidance, so we now, in these troubled and momentous years, call upon all who love justice and dignity and liberty, who love their country, and who love mankind, to join in a Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington on May 17, 1957, where we shall renew our strength, communicate our unity, and rededicate our efforts, firmly but peaceably, to the attainment of freedom” (Lee Friedlander, just before page 1).

After visiting Africa, where he met then Vice President Richard M. Nixon, who invited him to the White House at a future unspecified date, King returned to help lead the prayer pilgrimage. It was held on May 17, 1957, which marked the third anniversary of the Brown decision. A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979), who had organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, presided over the three-hour event, at which Mahalia Jackson sang, and a number of pastors spoke, ending with King. Speaking to a group estimated to be from 15,000 to 27,000 (the organizers had hoped for 50,000 or more), King delivered an impressive speech that foreshadowed his later March on Washington in 1963 where he would deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech. At the Prayer Pilgrimage, King forcefully demanded that the government “Give us the ballot!” (Branch 1988, 217). That June he had a two-hour meeting with Vice President Nixon, and Congress adopted a civil rights bill later that year.

Lee Friedlander, a budding photographer who was only 22 years old at the time of the march, mingled with the well-dressed crowd (most women wore hats, and many men wore suits and ties) and took numerous iconic photographs that he subsequently gave to Yale University, which has held an exhibition on the rally.

See alsoKing, Martin Luther Jr; Thoughts and Prayers

FOR REFERENCEBranch, Taylor, 1988. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63. New York: Simon and Schuster;

Garrow, David J. 1986. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: William Morrow and Co., Inc; Lee Friedlander: Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom. 1957. N.p.: Eakins Press Foundation; “Let Us March On: Lee Friedlander and the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.” Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery. https://www.bu.edu/art/exhibitions/past/2017-2018/let-us-march-on-lee-friedlander-and-the-prayer-pilgrimage-for-freedom/

Prayers for Public LeadersThere is consensus among individuals of faith in the United States that it is important to pray for political

leaders. In the author’s experience, such prayers are more likely to be directed on behalf of the U.S. president than on behalf of less-visible public servants like members of Congress or the judiciary. In I Timothy 2:1-2,

the apostle Paul exhorted Timothy that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.”

A recent article in a leading evangelical magazine suggests four keys to praying for a president. They are to “Pray honestly, but with mercy”; to “Pray for winners and for losers”; to “Pray for wisdom, peace, and justice”; and to “Pray for perspective and discipleship” (Kristian 2020).

The first plea to pray for mercy was apparently motivated in part by billboards that appeared during the 2012 presidential election in some Southern states calling for citizens to offer the imprecatory prayer that King David had offered in Psalm 109: 9-10 for his enemies. Applying this prayer to then-President Barack Obama, the billboards asked, “May his children be orphans, and his wife a widow. May his children wander about and beg; may they be driven out of the ruins they inhabit” (Kristian 2020).

Although such prayers may reflect some sentiments, most guides offer far more affirmative prayers, many of which seem to be based in part on the request of the biblical king Solomon, who asked God for wisdom on making decisions on behalf of the people. A site calling itself Myfaithvotes, which is directed to prayers for all government officials, including those in all three branches of government, many of whom it lists by name, thus advises that readers should “Pray They Would Know Jesus and Walk With Him,” “Pray Their Families Would be Strengthened,” and “Pray They Would Operate Under God’s Wisdom” (“Your Guide to Praying for Government Officials”).

See alsoPray the Vote

FOR REFERENCEKristian, Bonnie. 2020. “How to Pray over a President.” Christianity Today. November, p. 30; “Your Guide to

Praying for Government Officials.” Myfaithvotes. N.d. https://mfv.sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/MFV_Prayer_Guide_for_Government_Officials.pdf

Praying IndiansOne indication of the centrality of prayer to the Christian life is the term Praying Indian. It has been used

to describe those Native Americans, especially members of the Eastern Algonquian language group in Massachusetts, who embraced Christianity and organized into towns in the 17th century.

A primary force behind the conversion of Native Americans in Massachusetts was the Cambridge-educated missionary John Eliot (1604-1690). Eliot learned their language and published the first Bible in their lan-guage, and, indeed, the first Bible in North America, in 1663. It was titled Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God.

In forming their own praying towns, many Native Americans embraced Christian beliefs, including the renunciation of “the sorcery of the powwows” (Van Lonkhuyzen 1990, 403). They also adopted other norms of the British colonists, including claiming and fencing in individual plots of land to cultivate, adopting similar gender roles and sexual behaviors, and even allying with these colonists during King Philip’s War, which began in 1675, and still later during the Revolutionary War.

The former war was particularly hard on the Praying Indians, often catching them in the middle of fighting they had not sought and sometimes bringing attacks on them from both sides.

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Historians continue to debate the degree to which Praying Indians genuinely accepted the Christian message and the degree to which they converted to obtain the benefits of English technology and to attempt to preserve their identity in a time of great crisis (Van Lonkhuyzen 1990; White 2003).

The Praying Indians of Natick and Ponkapoag maintain a website at https://natickprayingindians.org/ and continue to sponsor an annual powwow.

See alsoColonial Interactions with Native Americans; Puritans

FOR REFERENCEVan Lonkhuyzen, Harold W. Van. 1990. “A Reappraisal of the Praying Indians: Acculturation, Conversion,

and Identify at Natick, Massachusetts, 1646-1730.” The New England Quarterly 63 (September): 396-428; White, Craig. 2003. “The Praying Indians’ Speeches as Texts of Massachusett Oral Culture.” Early American Literature. 38, No. 3: 437-467.

Pray-InsLong before 20th century civil rights protesters engaged in civil disobedience and kneel-ins, American

women who participated in the 19th and early 20th century temperance movement took part in similar pray-ins in and outside of saloons, especially in the American Midwest. The idea had been advocated by Dr. Diocletian (Dio) Lewis (1823-1886), who claimed to have given a speech, “The Power of Woman’s Prayer in Grog Shops,” hundreds of times.

The temperance movement was a major social movement involving many women who participated in public affairs usually reserved for men in the hope of protecting homes and hearths against the evils of alcoholism, which often left families destitute. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which was founded in 1874 and whose leading figure was Frances Willard (1839-1898), played a particularly important role in the movement, as did the Anti-Saloon League, founded in 1893. Carry Nation (1846-1911) made her reputation by going into saloons with an axe and destroying bottles of liquor, but she preferred to be photographed on bended knees in prayer (“Prayer in America,” 2008).

By entering saloons and praying or by praying outside, women, who, with their children, were often viewed as the primary victims of alcohol abuse, not only drew attention to themselves but also exerted pressure on their proprietors to close.

An unsigned article published in 1874 observed that although many were praising the pray-ins for their immediate results in closing down many saloons, they should also consider long-term consequences. Ques-tioning the “doubtful legality” of interrupting a legal trade “by religious exercises,” the article observed that

“the device has a double edge, and may cut both ways” (“Prayer in the Grog-Shops” 1874, 60). The article expressed fear that the pray-ins posed “the very imminent peril of bringing worship into contempt” (“Prayer in the Grog-Shops,” 1876, 60). Suggesting that prayer “is a supplication addressed to Almighty God, and to Him alone,” the article argued that “it is more than questionable whether it is even desirable or even fit that it should be offered in the hearing of those for whose benefit it is intended, unless such are previously disposed to join with it. Praying at people is a practice which in almost every case hardens and angers them, and inevitably tends to degrade prayer” (“Prayer in the Grog-Shops” 1874, 60). It further observed that “all who

understand what prayer really is, will readily see that it cannot be less effective in the closet than in the presence of those whom it seeks to influence” and that “those who select the dram-shop as the place to pray in for the suppression of liquor selling thereby declare, though perhaps unintentionally, their conviction that their success will be due much less to God’s answering influence than to the effect of their fervor and zeal upon the ears of men” (1874, 60).

In 1919 the nation adopted the 18th Amendment, which resulted in national alcoholic prohibition, but it was widely evaded and contributed to the growth of organized crime. It was eventually repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933 (Kyvig 1979).

It was widely believed that women were stronger supporters of Prohibition than men, and the adoption of Prohibition prior to national women’s suffrage may have removed one of the obstacles to the ratification of women’s suffrage in the following year. Interestingly, Malcolm R. Patterson, the governor of Tennessee, which was the state that secured the three-fourths majority needed for ratification, had commented in 1908, “Let the women pray, and the men vote” (Sims 1991, 203). When they secured the vote, one suffragist observed that the contest for the vote had “pitted ‘powers that pray’ against ‘powers that prey’” (Sims 1991 203).

See also Kneel-ins; Performative Prayers

FOR REFERENCEFletcher, Holly Berkley. 2007. Gender and the American Temperance Movement of the Nineteenth Century. New

York: Routledge; Kyvig, David E. 1979. Repealing National Prohibition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; “Prayer in the Grog-Shops.” 1874. The Churchman. Feb. 21, p. 60, cols. 4-5; Sims, Anastatia. 1991. “‘Powers that Pray’ and ‘Powers that Prey’: Tennessee and the Fight for Woman Suffrage.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 50 (Winter): 203-225; Volk, Kyle G. 2014. Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.

Presidential Inaugural Prayers of 1937Although a congressional chaplain delivered a prayer at the first inauguration of President George Wash-

ington, and some subsequent presidents incorporated prayer within their inaugural speeches, the practice of inaugural prayer was not reborn until the second inauguration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937.

In the years before this, Congress administered the oath of office to the incoming vice president at the end of the regular legislative session, allowing him to serve as president of the Senate and preside over it on inauguration day (Medhurst 1980, 77). During these years, the chaplain would deliver a prayer in the Senate at the beginning of the inaugural day, albeit not at the inauguration itself. The 1937 presidential inauguration was unique not only in inaugurating the president and vice president in the same ceremony, and in re-institut-ing the practice of inviting the chaplain to offer a prayer at the inauguration, but also by adding a benediction by someone who was neither a congressional chaplain nor a Protestant. This honor went to the Rev. John A. Ryan of Catholic University in the nation’s capital.

The Senate chaplain who resumed the practice of prayer at the inauguration was the Rev. ZeBarney T. Phillips (1875-1942). He began by addressing God as “Almighty God and heavenly Father, Ruler and Guard-ian of the World,” and proceeded by asking Him to “sanctify to the Nation the meaning of this hour that Thy

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people with one heart and mind may acknowledge their fealty to Thee” (Medhurst 1980, 97-98). He contin-ued with blessings on the president and vice president and “the high and holy offices to which they have been called.” He proceeded to ask for God’s blessing upon them and members of the other two branches of gov-ernment, asked that in “casting all his care upon Thee” the president might “feel underneath Thine everlasting arms.” He also asked that the president might “speak in in words of unshorn truth Thy message for the healing of the nations and hasten the day when men shall rise above all lesser things to those glorious heights where love shall weave a holy bond of peace enduring till earth’s shadows vanish in the Light of Light” (Med-hurst 1980, 98-99).

Medhurst, a professor of rhetoric, observed that “The paradoxical aspect of this prayer arises from the intentional juxtaposition of religious terms with political categories” (1980, 99). Further noting that “The vision presented in the prayer, the invitation it issues, the assumptions with which it operates: all are without constitutional foundation” (1980, 103) but that no one appears to have complained about apparent conflicts with the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Medhurst suggests that such “civil religious discourse ... is discourse which people use, but do not act upon” (1980, 103).

Roosevelt’s decision to invite Father Ryan to speak appears to have been partial payback for Ryan’s strong support for his New Deal programs, including a critical reply over the radio to a speech by Father Charles Coughlin, who had accused Roosevelt of being a communist. Roosevelt further hoped to secure his support among Roman Catholic voters (Medhurst 1980, 95).

Ryan’s prayer was shorter than the Senate chaplain’s: “Almighty God, Ruler of nations, we beseech Thee to bless the people of the United States. Keep them at peace among themselves and in concord with all other peoples. Cause justice and charity to flourish among them that they may all be enabled to live as persons created in Thine own image and likeness. Do Thou bless abundantly our Chief Magistrate. Inspire his leader-ship. Grant him, O God of infinite wisdom and power, the light and the strength to carry through the great work that he has so well begun, and to pursue untiringly his magnificent vision of social peace and social justice. Through Christ our Lord. Amen” (Medhurst 1980, 104-105). Medhurst notes that Ryan’s prayer specifically commended Roosevelt’s policies in a way that the chaplain failed to do (1980, 105).

See alsoCongress, Chaplains; Presidential Inaugural Prayers

FOR REFERENCEMedhurst, Martin Jay. 1980. ‘God Bless the President’: The Rhetoric of Inaugural Prayer. Thesis submitted

for doctor of philosophy degree from the Graduate School in the Department of Speech Communication at Pennsylvania State University. August.

Presidential Inaugural PrayersAt the first presidential inauguration of George Washington, Samuel Provoost, the newly installed chaplain

in the U.S. Senate, offered a prayer. With the generally overlooked exception of a prayer at the inauguration of President Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America, this practice was discontinued until Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second inauguration in 1937. It corresponded with inaugurating both the president and vice

president at the same event (before this, the vice president had been inaugurated in the Senate before the president was inaugurated), at which time the Senate chaplain, the Rev. ZeBarney T. Phillips, and the Rev. John A. Ryan of Catholic University, were invited to pray. Since then, prayers have been a regular feature of the ceremonies.

Martin Jay Medhurst, now a professor at Baylor University, wrote a doctoral thesis in which he meticulously analyzed such prayers from 1937 through 1977. Medhurst noted that those who prayed were chosen on the basis of four factors: “political expedience”; the president’s “personal prerogative”; as a “philosophical demon-stration,” as when choosing individuals to pray from more than one faith tradition; and according to “past practice,” as when inviting a congressional chaplain (1980, 529).

Medhurst identified five factors that influenced the manner in which members of the clergy constructed their inaugural prayers. These reflected “the historical situation,” “the inaugural occasion,” “the cleric’s relation-ship with the president-elect,” “the cleric’s theological tradition,” and “the cleric’s theoretical approach to public prayer” (Medhurst 1980, 535). In examining the influence of theological traditions, Medhurst observed that Roman Catholics tended to invoke the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, some pray-ers drew from prayer books, Protestants tended to include more scriptural allusions, Christians often specifically invoked the name of Jesus, and rabbis occasionally included one or more Hebrew phrases. In terms of theo-retical approaches to prayer, some pray-ers crafted their prayers with the entire audience in mind, while others chiefly focused on either “the immediate listeners, the president-elect, or God alone” (Medhurst 1980, 544).

Many members of the clergy drew upon what Medhurst identified as “civil-religious myths” (1980, 546). Such themes included the idea of America as “the mouthpiece of God,” “the missionary nation,” “the sign-post,” “the land of justice and equality,” “the chosen land,” “the redeemer nation,” “the servant of mankind,”

“the land of the free,” “the faithful,” or “the peace-maker” (Medhurst 1980, 550-551). Medhurst further identified six common syntactical elements of such prayers. They included: “address

to the Deity,” “ascription to the Deity,” “prayer assertions,” “prayer petitions,” “supports and warrants for petitions,” and “conclusions” (Medhurst 1980, 554). The most common way of addressing the Deity was as

“God,” followed by “Lord,” “Father,” “Thou,” “Christ,” and others (Medhurst 1980, 556). Ascriptions included references to God’s “power,” his “personality,” his “Teaching and Inspiration,” and his “Benefaction” (Medhurst 1980, 559-560). Prayers often included expressions of thanks and gratitude as well as petitions. The most commonly offered such petitions, in order of their frequency, were for blessing, peace, guidance/leading, strength/empowerment, wisdom, courage, and faith (Medhurst 1980, 563). Petitions for charity, humility, mercy, enlightenment, patience, forgiveness, prudence, and obedience were much less frequent (Medhurst 1980, 564).

Inaugural prayers often focus on the nature of “the presidential office and program,” the ceremony itself, presidential character, the nature of God, the relationship of God to the people, or invitations to “unity and national solidarity” as well as to “self-understanding” (Medhurst 1980, 576). Inaugural prayers calling for self-understanding have focused on the beliefs that Americans “are God’s people,” “are concerned about the welfare of others,” “cherish lofty and righteous ideals,” “can recognize their faults,” “understand the need for Divine guidance” and “recognize and accept their responsibility to provide leadership for mankind” (Medhurst 1980, 595). Prayers are often formulated as incomplete syllogisms, which encourage Americans to think of themselves as a special people with a special mission.

An article by author Steven Waldman in 2009 noted that inaugural prayers appeared to be becoming “less inclusive and pluralistic over time.” He thus observed that, including the two prayers scheduled for President

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Barack Obama’s first inauguration, all 12 prayers delivered since 1989 were by Protestants, whereas half had been so over the prior 48 years. He contrasted the earlier “religious diversity model,” which sometimes included prayers that made direct references to Christ but were balanced with prayers by individuals from other faiths, with “the American’s pastor” model in which Billy Graham spoke in inclusive language for all faiths, and “the Protestant-only model,” which was epitomized in 2001 where Franklin Graham called upon Americans to acknowledge Christ “alone” as savior (Waldman 2009). Waldman observed that evangelical Protestants have increasingly come to view themselves as a persecuted minority. Waldman quotes Franklin Graham as saying “as a minister of the gospel, I was not there to stroke the egos of men. My role was to acknowledge the all-powerful One and please Him” (2009).

In 2017 the televangelist Paula White, a spiritual counselor to Donald J. Trump often identified as a proponent of the prosperity gospel, became the first female clergy member to deliver an inaugural prayer, at Trump’s inauguration (Weiland 2017). In 2009, the Rev. Sharon Watkins, president of the Disciples of Christ, became the first woman to give a sermon at the National Prayer Service in the National Cathedral marking the inauguration of President Obama.

Although presidential inaugurations receive far more attention than the inauguration of state governors, most of these proceedings also feature prayers or are preceded or followed either by prayer breakfasts or church services at which prayers are uttered.

See alsoCongress, First Prayer in ; Davis, Jefferson; Presidential Inaugural Prayers of 1937

FOR REFERENCEMedhurst, Martin Jay. 1980. ‘God Bless the President’: The Rhetoric of Inaugural Prayer. Thesis submitted

for doctor of philosophy degree from the Graduate School in the Department of Speech Communication at Pennsylvania State University. August; Starr, Kenneth. 2017. “Presidents as Tradition Creators and Tradition Keepers.” Faulkner Law Review 9:27-43; Waldman, Steven. 2009. “The Power of Prayer.” The Wall Street Journal. Updated Jan. 17. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123215076308292139; Weiland, Noah. 2017. “Paula White, Trump’s Spiritual Adviser, Says He Has ‘a Hunger for God.’” The New York Times. Jan. 19. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/us/trumps-pastor-paula-white.html; Zhang, Andrew. 2009. “Another First—woman to give inaugural sermon.” CNN. Jan. 12. https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/12/inauguration.sermon.index.html

Presidential Prayer BreakfastSee National Prayer Breakfast

Presidential Prayer TeamThe Bible exhorts individuals to pray for their leaders. Prayers for the British monarch were a standardized

part of the Book of Common Prayer before American independence, after which those in America favoring

independence began praying for members of Congress instead.It is often difficult to disassociate prayers for a leader from prayers for the leader’s policies. One group that is

sometimes accused of ignoring this difference is the Presidential Prayer Team, or PPT, a nonprofit, and outward-ly nonpartisan, group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., that was formed a week after the terrorist strikes against Ameri-ca on Sept. 11, 2001 (Kennedy 2003). Although it touts its support from small donors, it was initially funded by Jerry Colangelo, the owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team (Walker 2004). The PPT signed up 1.6 million people to pray for then-President George W. Bush and members of his Cabinet.

After the U.S. began its second war with Iraq, the PPT launched a program known as “Adopt Our Troops.” It had the dual goals of seeing to it that every service member involved had a prayer partner and showing support for the troops.

Movements like those launched by the PPT appear to be based on the assumption that, when it comes to prayer, there is strength in numbers. Timothy George, dean of the Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., while encouraging prayer, has cautioned against believing that there is a magical threshold of pray-ers that is more likely to attract God’s attention (Kennedy 2003). Pointing out that Scriptures call upon Christians to pray for their enemies, George observed that “the rising and falling of all empires and kings are in the hand of God, in his own time” (Kennedy 2003).

In 2004, the PPT launched an initiative known as Pray the Vote, which began on Sept. 11. Although critics like Democrat evangelical Jim Wallis charged that it was designed to help President George W. Bush win re-election, PPT’s president, John Lind, responded that “The focus is on prayer. That’s what makes us nonpar-tisan” (Walker 2004).

Although PPT lost more than 25,000 supporters when Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, another 41,000 signed up, seemingly vindicating the organization’s claim to be nonpartisan (Banks 2009).

On June 2, 2019, after a special day of prayer for the president, its organizer, the Rev. Franklin Graham, called upon the PPT to send prayers of encouragement to President Donald J. Trump on June 14, which was his birthday. Graham said, “This is a critical time for America. We’re on the edge of a precipice. We need to pray for God to intervene. We need to ask God to protect, strengthen, encourage, and guide the president” (Bonner 2019). This special prayer preceded PPT’s kickoff of its Summer Session of Prayer.

In March 2020, the PPT reacted to the coronavirus by announcing that it was adding a “daily 2-minute feature” on its Pray First Network “That provides listeners with information and encouragement to pray specific prayers over national events and circumstances” (Tune 2020).

A group headed by Ralph Reed calling itself the Faith and Freedom Coalition sent out pledge cards in May 2010 as part of what it called The November 3rd Project, whose purpose was “To Defeat the Radical Left’s Quest to Destroy America.” The cover of the envelope pictured Trump with his hands folded in prayer on the one side “V[ersu]s” eight Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders, Adam Schiff, and Joe Biden as well as the names of prominent news media like CNN, MSNBC, and The New York Times that were perceived to oppose him on the other, clearly indicating that prayer is sometimes utilized for partisan purposes.

See alsoBook of Common Prayer; Pray the Vote; World Prayer Center

FOR REFERENCEBanks, Adelle M. 2009. “Presidential Prayer Effort Proves to be Bipartisan.” Christianity Today. March 3;

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Bonner, Julia. 2019. “Presidential Prayer Team Announces Massive Intercessory Movement Ahead of Trump’s Birthday.” Charisma News. https://www.charismanews.com/us/76647-presidential-prayer-team-announces-massive-intercessory-movement-ahead-of-trump-s-birthday; Kennedy, John W. 2003. “Prayer warriors: e-mail newletters [sic] are helping hundreds of thousands to pray about the war.” Christianity Today Vol. 47, no. 5, p. 36+. Gale OneFile: Religion and Philosophy, https://link/gale-com/ezproxy.mtsu.edu/apps/doc/A100736395/PPPRP? U=tel_middleten&sid=PPRP&xid=c7ce91ee. Accessed March 28, 2020; Tune, Tim. “Presidential Prayer Team Launches ‘Health and Prayer’ Feature on Its Pray First radio Network.” Christian-Headlines. https://www.christianheadlines.com/contributors/tim-tune-presidential-prayer-team-launches-health-and-prayer-feature-on-its-ptryer-first-radio-network.; Walker, Ken. 2004. “The politics of prayer: the Presidential Prayer Team prays for Bush, Iraq, and more voters.” Christianity Today. Volume 48. August, p. 26+.

Presidential Proclamations of Prayer and ThanksgivingSince the 1950s American presidents have issued proclamations for prayer at least twice a year, once for the

National Day of Prayer in early May and the second for Memorial Day. From time to time, they have issued other proclamations of prayer and/or thanksgiving, such as the four proclamations that George H.W. Bush issued in 1990 and 1991, three of which were tied to the Gulf War (Domke and Coe 2010, 82).

There is a long history of similar proclamations dating to U.S. colonial history, and to European nations from which Americans had emigrated. Indeed, although eliminating many traditional religious holidays, the Protestant Reformation encouraged days of fasting and prayer ( Jacobs 2015 286). In the New England states, it was common to call for days of prayer, fasting, repentance, and humiliation in the wake of natural disasters and military setbacks, and for days of thanksgiving on the occasion of military victories.

In 1768, Boston, Braintree, Charleston, and Lexington, Mass., all called for a day of fasting and prayer in anticipation of the arrival of British troops, while Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee helped push through a similar day in Virginia (Davis 20008, 84). John Witherspoon, president of the College of New Jersey (today’s Princeton) drafted the call for a fast day issued by the Second Continental Congress on June 12, 1775, that implored people to ask God for “his merciful interposition for our deliverance” and included a petition “to forgive our iniquities, to remove our present calamities, to avert the desolating judg-ments with which we are threatened” and to endow George III with wisdom (Davis 2000, 85). By 1777, the emphasis had shifted to thanksgiving, but with a distinctive Christian cast that through “their humble and earnest supplication that it may please God through merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance” (Davis 2000, 86). A study by Henry Ippel notes that such actions prompted George III to issue his own days of fasting and prayer in Great Britain (Ippel 1980).

President George Washington issued two Proclamations of Prayer and Thanksgiving during his administration. John Adams followed with more explicit calls for prayers of repentance, which were interpreted by some as attacking dissenting Democratic-Republican voices (Dickson 1987). President Jefferson objected to such proclamations as violating the separation of church and state, but President Madison issued them when request-ed by Congress to do so. Andrew Jackson later objected to such proclamations on grounds similar to Jefferson’s.

On the eve of the Civil War in 1861, outgoing President James Buchanan proclaimed that Jan. 4 would be a fast day for peace and reconciliation, but the day proved to be a failure. As Professor Harry Stout explained:

“For most northern pulpits, the fast afforded an opportunity to preach against the sins of slavery in the South and secession in South Carolina. For most Southern pulpits, the fast marked an occasion to preach on ancient

themes against the heresies of ‘puritan’ abolitionism” (2006, 9).President Lincoln revived the tradition of calling for days of fasting and thanksgiving, while modern

president focus almost solely on Thanksgiving. The contemporary holiday is often more associated with family feasting, togetherness, marathons and other sports events, and national unity than on repentance (Dennis 2002) and bears little similarity to the practices often attributed to the Pilgrim fathers (Wills 2003).

Some modern state governors have issued calls for days of prayer for rain or for state health emergencies. In an unusual move, President-elect Joe Biden gave a speech on the eve of Thanksgiving in 2020 appealing for unity, urging citizens to limit family meals to protect themselves during the COVID-10 pandemic, character-izing the biblical injunction to love neighbors as “a radical act” of healing, and noting the loss that so many family members had sustained, noting that he would be “thinking and praying for each and every one of you at our Thanksgiving table because we’ve been there” (Biden 2020).

See alsoAdams, John ; Madison, James; National Day of Prayer; Washington, George; National Day of Thanksgiv-

ing and Prayer

FOR REFERENCEBiden. Joe. 2020. Transcript of Thanksgiving-eve address included with story “Joe Biden appeals for unity in

Thanksgiving-eve address” KTIV. Nov. 25. https://ktiv.com/2020/11/25/biden-to-deliver-thanksgiving-ad-dress/; Davis, Derek H. 2000. Religion and the Continental Congress 1774-1789: Contributions to Original Intent. New York: Oxford University Press; Dennis, Matthew. 2002. Red, White, and Blue Letter Days: An American Calendar. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. See especially chapter 2, “Haven in a Heartless Calendar: America’s thanksgiving, 1621-2000,” pp. 81-118; Dickson, Charles Ellis. 1987. “Jeremiads in the New American Republic: The Case of National Fasts in the John Adams Administration.” The New England Quarterly 60 ( June): 187-207; Domke, David, and Kevin Coe. 2010. The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America. Updated edition. New York: Oxford University Press. Ippel, Henry P. 1980. “Blow the Trumpet, Sanctify the Fast.” Huntington Library Quarterly 44 (Winter): 43-60); Jacobs, Jaap. 2015. “‘Hot Pestilential and Unheard-of Fevers, Illnesses and torments’: Days of Fasting and Prayer in New Netherland.” New York History 96 (Summer/Fall): 284-300; Stout, Harry S. 2009. Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War. New York: Penguin Books; Strauch, Tara Thompson. 2013. Taking Oaths and Giving Thanks: Ritual and Religion in Revolutionary America. Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in history. College of Arts and Science, University of South Carolina; Wills, Anne Blue. 2003. “Pilgrims and Progress: How Magazines Made Thanksgiving.” Church History 72 (March): 138-158.

Prisoners’ RightsBecause the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments” and

because even prisoners retain their human status and certain basic rights, the issue of prisoners’ rights has been increasingly litigated. The issue has also been the subject of legislation.

Because prisons have unique security concerns, for many years judges tended to defer to the judgments of prison wardens as to what freedoms they could and could not permit in prisons. Courts were somewhat more willing to intervene after Congress adopted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in 1993 and the

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Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) in 2000, but Congress typically continued to balance such rights against perceived security needs, often to the detriment of religious freedoms (Solove 1996).

Prison officials are usually more likely to understand, and be sympathetic to, requests for religious exercises that are embraced by mainline Christian denominations than by those with which they are less familiar. A recent report notes that Muslims in state prisons have most frequently filed suits relative to “1) Ramadan practice; 2) the ability to grow facial or head hair; 3) access to religious texts; 4) access to prayer and worship services; 5) clothing; 6) halal meals; 7) access to religious property; 8) access to a religious leader; and 9) discrim-inatory behavior” (Muslim Advocates 2019, 8). In specifically examining the limitation of prayer and worship, the report observed: “At one institution, Muslim inmates were banned from praying inside the chapel, even though other religious groups were permitted to do so,” forcing them to pray outside even during bad weather. Other plaintiffs complained that “a prison banned Muslim prayer in the prison dayroom, and sent a prisoner to administrative segregation when he attempted to pray with others.” Still others said a prison had banned Muslim prayers in an outdoor yard, or even in inmates’ own cells (Muslim Advocates 2019, 17-18).

After an appeals court rejected a lower court decision upholding the right to prohibit Alfonza Greenhill, a Sufi Muslim prisoner in solitary confinement, both from growing a beard and participating in group prayer sessions on Fridays, the Federal Bureau of Prisons issued new guidelines. They expanded such rights and revoked earlier policies that limited group prayers, considered to be especially important in Muslim worship, to two or three inmates (Khan 2019).

It is important to realize that, as in the military, prisons often employ chaplains to take care of inmates who are denied access to local churches. Many scholars believe that prisoner rehabilitation is most likely to be accomplished by conversion or spiritual transformation, which is not considered to be the function of secular governments. In what he describes as a “thought experiment,” Professor Alexander Volokh has suggested that the United States consider a voucher system for prisons like that which has been discussed for schools. If this were available, prisoners would be permitted to choose a “faith-based prison” that might otherwise be consti-tutionally impermissible (2012, 781).

See alsoAnglo-American Legal Procedures

FOR REFERENCEKhan, Aysha. 2019. “Federal Bureau of Prisons loosens limits on Muslim inmates’ prayer.” Religion News

Service. Dec. 18. https://religionnews.com/2019/12/18/federal-bureau-of-prisons-loosens-limits-on-muslim-inmates-prayer/; Muslim Advocates. July 2019. Fulfilling the Promise of Free Exercise for All: Muslim Prisoner Accommodation in State Prisons. https://muslimadvocates.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/FULFILLING-THE-PROMISE-OF-FREE-EXERCISE-FOR-ALL-Muslim-Prisoner-Accommoda-tion-In-State-Prisons-for-distribution-7_23-1.pdf; Solove, Daniel J. 1996. “Faith Profaned: The Religious Freedom Restoration Act and Religion in the Prisons.” The Yale Law Journal 106 (November): 459-491; Volokh, Alexander. 2012. “Prison Vouchers.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 160 (February): 779-863.

Proposed Constitutional Amendments for Prayer in SchoolsProposals for restoring prayer, and sometimes Bible reading, in public schools have been among the most

frequently proposed amendments in the past 60 years. The movement was sparked by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Engel v. Vitale (1962), which ruled that the New York Board of Regents had no business endors-ing an official school prayer, and by the subsequent decision in Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), ruling that devotional readings of the Bible and of the Lord’s Prayer were similarly in violation of the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, designed to prohibit the establishment of religion.

Although both decisions were supported by advocates of separation of church and state, they also stirred intense opposition among those who thought the Court had kicked God out of the schools, and thereby under-mined the capability to train virtuous citizens. Apropos of the time, one congressman observed that “they put the Negroes in the schools and now they’ve driven God out” (Laubach 1969, 2). In a similar fashion, evangelist Billy Graham would declare, “We’ve taken God out of the schools and put sex in” (Graham 1966, 80).

GOP Rep. Frank J. Becker (1899-1981) of New York, who was a devout Roman Catholic, led efforts in Congress to adopt an amendment that would restore voluntary prayer and/or Bible reading to public schools. In addition to a fourth section that provided a fairly standard seven-year ratification deadline, one version of his amendment was as follows:

“Sec. 1: Nothing in this Constitution shall be deemed to prohibit the offering, reading from, or listening to prayers or Biblical scriptures, if participation therein is on a voluntary basis, in any governmental or public school, institution or place.

“Sec. 2: Nothing in this Constitution shall be deemed to prohibit making reference to, belief in, reliance upon, or invoking the aid of God or a Supreme Being in any governmental or public document, proceeding, activity, ceremony, school, institution, or place or upon any coinage, currency, or obligation of the United States.

“Sec. 3: Nothing in this article shall constitute an establishment of religion” (Beaney and Beiser 1973, 32).Becker met substantial resistance from New York Democrat Emanuel Cellar, who, however, reluctantly

called for hearings. Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh subsequently led much of the opposition, which centered around who would lead the prayers, which version of the Bible might be used, and how to accommodate those who objected to the practices. Christianity Today, a prominent evangelical magazine, never called for adoption of the amendment. Instead, it chose to emphasize “that the proper place for prayer and Bible reading was the home and the church” (Toulouse 1994, 251). Thus, despite the support of such influential senators as Everett Dirksen of Illinois and Howard Baker of Tennessee, the Becker amendment and a number of proposed successors ultimately failed to receive a vote by two-thirds majorities in both house of Congress, which is required to send an amendment to the states for ratification; three-fourths thereof would have to ratify before it became law.

Republicans were generally more supportive of the proposed amendment than were Democrats, and Ronald Reagan was among those who advocated such an amendment when he ran for president in 1980 and 1984. Despite the decision in Wallace v. Jaffree striking down an Alabama law specifically stating that students could use a moment of silence to pray, there is general agreement that silent prayer is an option in states that provide for such a time as long as teachers do not instruct students that prayer is the preferred use of such time. Decisions in Marsh v. Chambers and Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014) have likewise allowed for the continuation of public prayer in state legislatures and at town board meetings, respectively.

In recent years, arguments related to Bible reading and prayer seem to have shifted to issues of the rights of religious believers. Consistent with the congressional passage of the Equal Access Act, President Donald J. Trump has accordingly expressed support for a nine-year old Utah student who was forced to remove the cross on his forehead on Ash Wednesday and for a Muslim student who was reportedly harassed for wearing

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a hijab to school (Ordonez 2020).

See alsoAbington v. Schempp; Engel v. Vitale; Lord’s Prayer; Marsh v. Chambers; Separation of Church and State;

Town of Greece v. Galloway; Trump, Donald, Guidelines on Prayer in Public Schools; Wallace v. Jaffree

FOR REFERENCEBeaney, William M., and Edward N. Beiser. 1973. “Prayer and Politics: The Impact of Engel and Schempp on

the Political Process.” In The Impact of Supreme Court Decisions: Empirical Studies, 2d ed., ed. by Theodore L. Becker and Malcolm M. Feeley. New York: Oxford University Press; Campbell, Karl E. 2003. “Senator Sam Ervin and School Prayer: Faith, Politics, and the Constitution.” Journal of Church and State 45 (Summer): 443-456; Graham, Billy. 1966. “Interview with Billy Graham.” U.S. News & World Report. April 25, p. 80; Keynes, Edward, with Randall K. Miller. 1989. The Court vs. Congress: Prayer, Busing, and Abortion. Durham, NC: Duke University Press; Laubach, John H. 1969. School Prayers: Congress, the Courts and the Public. Wash-ington, DC: Public Affairs Press; Ordonez, Franco. 2020. “Trump Defends School Prayer. Critics Say He’s Got It All Wrong.” NPR. Jan. 16. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/16/796864399/exclusive-trump-to-rein-force-protections-for-prayer-in-schools; Smith, Rodney K. 1987. Public Prayer and the Constitution: A Case Study in Constitutional Interpretation. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources; Toulouse, Mark G. 1993. “‘Christianity Today’ and American Public Life: A Case Study.” Journal of Church and State 35 (Spring); 241-284; Vile, John R. 2015. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2015. 4th ed. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

Prosperity GospelAmong all the varieties of prayer, none is probably more common than the petitionary prayer in which

individuals ask for personal blessings. The United States praises the free-enterprise system for the prosperity that it has brought to the nation, and citizens often laud entrepreneurs and equate financial blessings with moral worth.

One result has been the rise of what is known as the Prosperity Gospel, an interdenominational movement, which is often in turn tied to the idea of positive thinking. It expresses confidence that God will answer prayers for personal health and prosperity, especially when expressed through a gift (often described as a seed) of faith. Although the term is new, the idea has roots in the New England Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Burton 2017) and the New Thought Movement in the 1880s, which stressed the power of the human mind.

An early exponent was E. William Kenyon (1867-1948), a Baptist minister who popularized the movement (Akiri, 2018). Another Baptist preacher, Russell H. Conwell (1843-1925), who later served as the first president of Temple University in Philadelphia, told members of his congregation, “I say you ought to be rich; you have no right to be poor” (Burton 2017). Christian Science further stressed the superiority of the spiritual over the physical world, and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) later stressed the power of positive thinking.

Some scholars have also connected the movement to the thesis advanced by sociologist Max Weber that the Protestant work ethic was a way for faithful individuals to demonstrate signs of God’s favor indicating they were “elect” or “predestined” (Burton 2017). The negative side of this philosophy is the suggestion that those who are experiencing sickness, poverty, or pain might be unworthy, or might even be reaping the consequences

of their own dissolute lives.Advocates of the modern Prosperity Gospel have included Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Oral Roberts,

Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, Paula White, Creflo Dollar and others who broadcast their ministries throughout the nation. Many are further tied to Pentecostal and Holiness movements, which empha-size speaking in tongues, faith healings, and other manifestations of the Holy Spirit. The popular Prayer of Jabez is essentially a request that God will enlarge the territory of the individual making the request.

Prosperity Gospel pastors apply promises of blessings to Old Testament patriarchs like Abraham to modern Christians who exhibit their faith by giving to their ministries in expectation of material rewards. Some churches suggest that God is contractually obligated to return financial rewards to those who give and pray for his blessings.

President Trump, whose grew up under the teachings of Dr. Peale, surrounded himself with a number of individuals, including spiritual advisor Paula White, who are identified with this movement. Although he has appealed to working-class whites, he has had difficulty in identifying with others who might not be faring well economically. His speeches often call out political opponents as corrupt or undeserving while stressing very positive themes even during situations, like the coronavirus pandemic or mishandled communications with foreign governments, that others have assessed as less than optimal.

The Prosperity Gospel has been praised for emphasizing that God is concerned with the material aspects of life. Critics stress that the roots of poverty are often institutional and suggest that its advocates too freely interpret biblical passages related to spiritual blessings into material rewards. They argue that the movement tends to make prayer and tithes into a “quid pro quo transaction” rather than a more personal communication between God and human beings ( Jones 2015).

See alsoJabez, Prayer of ; Petitionary Prayer

FOR REFERENCEAkiri, Mwita. 2019. “The Prosperity Gospel: Its Concise Theology, Challenges and Opportunities.” Jan. 25.

Gafcon. https://www.gafcon.org/resources-the-prosperity-gospel-its-concise-theology-challenges-and-op-portunities; Brumley, Jeff. 2018. “Some pray prosperity gospel will get them rich and healthy.” Baptist News Global. Sept. 10. https://baptistnews.com/article/some-pray-prosperity-gospel-will-get-them-rich-and-healthy/#.XsaeJlVKiUk; Burton, Tara Isabella. 2017. “The prosperity gospel, explained: Why Joel Osteen believes that prayer can make you rich.” Vox. Sept. 1. https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/1/15951874/prosperity-gospel-explained-why-joel-osteen-believes-prayer-can-make-you-rich-trump; Butler, Anthea. 2017. “The Cheap Prosperity Gospel of Trump and Osteen.” The New York Times. Aug. 30. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/opinion/trump-osteen-harvey-church.html; Jones. David W. 2015. “5 Errors of the Prosperity Gospel.” The Gospel Coalition. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/5-errors-of-the-pros-perity-gospel/; Jones, David W., and Russell S. Woodbridge. 2017. Health, Wealth, and Happiness: How the Prosperity Gospel Overshadows the Gospel of Christ. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publishers; Sinitier, Phillip Luke. 2015. Salvation with a Smile: Joel Osteen, Lakewood Church and American Christianity. New York: New York University Press.

Providentialism

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When John Winthrop accompanied a group of Pilgrims to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, he gave a speech, “A Model of Christian Charity,” in which, drawing from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, he likened the colony to a “city upon a hill.” Many others would liken the colony to a “New Israel,” founded in the American wilderness for the glory of God. Pilgrims believed in a “covenant theology,” in which believers were under obligations to God, whom He would in turn reward. If settlers adhered to God’s commands, they would flourish and become an example, or beacon, to other nations, but if they failed to retain their relationship with God, he would punish them, and, if they failed to confess their sins and repent, they would serve as an exam-ple of faithlessness for the rest of the world.

In time, this concept of God’s special providence and the colony’s special mission was transferred from this specific colony and the region of New England to America as a whole. Even early American leaders who are sometimes classified as Deists believed that God was working on behalf of the nation as a whole and that He would answer prayers on their behalf. George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, whom Joseph Waligore has classified as “Christian Deists” (2016), are but two individuals who seemed to hold this view. Thus in his circular letter to the states, which Washington authored in 1783, he observed that America appeared “to be peculiarly designated by Providence for the Display of human greatness and felicity” (Washington 2015, 128). Franklin proposed that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 should open each day with prayer, as the Congress under the Articles of Confederation had long done.

In examining Independence Day speeches from 1776 to 1876, historian Robert P. Hay observes that “if not uniquely American, the idea of protecting Providence was characteristic of American patriotism” (Hay 1969, 80). For years, individuals, particularly Presbyterians, petitioned Congress to adopt a constitutional amend-ment specifically recognizing God within the U.S. Constitution. During the Civil War, both sides of the conflict often claimed that God was on its side and often prayed for military victory. The Confederate motto, included on its Great Seal, proclaimed Deo vindice, which recognized God as its defender. Part of Abraham Lincoln’s greatness was his recognition, expressed in his Second Inaugural Address, that individuals from both North and South read from the same Bible and prayed to the same God, and that God could not simultane-ously answer both sets of their prayers in the way that they wanted. Similarly, the novelist Mark Twain’s short story “The War Prayer” pointed out that victory for one nation often meant misery for another.

President William McKinley reputedly justified taking the Philippines as a colony after the Spanish-Amer-ican War because of a duty to help Christianize the islands. This sense of mission, often referred to as Ameri-can exceptionalism, continued into the 20th century, with Americans respectively believing that they had a special mission to defeat autocracies during World War I, Nazism during World War II, communist atheism in the Cold War, and radical Islamists during the War on Terror. On June 6, 1944, President Franklin D. Roo-sevelt led the nation in prayer for the troops who were landing on Normandy Beaches. In the 1950s, Congress added the words “under God” to the pledge to the American flag and recognized “In God We Trust” as the national motto.

Numerous books, most aimed at popular rather than scholarly audiences, have equated America’s military and economic successes, as well as its protection of civil rights and liberties, with God’s blessings. Michael Medved (2016) recounts numerous evidences of divine providence in America. A Georgia state senator has published a book in which he cites more than a dozen times in U.S. history when prayer changed the out-come of a battle or another situation that affected U.S. history (Loudermilk 2011); Susie and William J. Federer have recounted 32 times when prayers have evidenced themselves in miracles in U.S. history (2012); while James P. Moore Jr. refers to many such prayers in his history of prayer in America (2005). Other books

include prayers from citizens of other nations who have also changed history (Goyer 2015).

See alsoConstitutional Convention of 1787; Franklin, Benjamin; Lincoln, Abraham; Second Inaugural Address;

McKinley, William ; Petitionary Prayer; Roosevelt, Franklin D., D-Day Prayer; Twain, Mark, “The War Prayer”; Washington, George, Circular Letter to the States

FOR REFERENCEFederer, Susie, and William J. Federer. 2012. Miracles in American History: 32 Amazing Stories of Answered

Prayer. Amerisearch, Inc; Goyer, Tricia. 2015. Prayers That Changed History. Grand Rapids, MI: Zonderkidz; Hay, Robert P. 1969. “Providence and the American Past.” Indiana Magazine of History 65 ( June): 79-101; Loudermilk, Barry. 2011. And Then They Prayed: Moments in American History Impacted by Prayer. Campbell, CA: FastPencil; Medved, Michael. 2016. The American Miracle: Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic. New York: Crown Forum; Moore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleday; Vile, John R. 2010. The Bible in American Law and Politics: A Reference Guide. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield; Waligore, Joseph. 2016. “The Christian Deist Writings of Benjamin Franklin.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 140 ( January): 7-29; Washington, George. 2015 [1793]. “George Washington’s Circular Letter to the States.” Founding Documents of America: Documents Decoded.” Ed. John R. Vie. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, pp. 127-132.

PuritansAlthough America is a very pluralistic society that has been shaped by numerous religious influences, few

have been more important in shaping its self-perceptions than the Puritans, who came to America from England and Holland in the 17th Century so they could freely practice their religion. Although they were not initially keen on sharing such freedom with others, they believed in a congregational form of church govern-ment, which lent itself to self-government. They initially required individuals to be church members before they could vote or otherwise participate in government decision making.

As Protestants, Puritans placed great emphasis on plain interpretations of Scripture, which they believed pointed to the imminent return of Christ to Earth to establish His kingdom. The Puritans are the source of the idea that America is “a city upon a hill” with a special destiny. They likened their journey across the Atlantic Ocean to that of Moses crossing the Red Sea, and alternatively viewed the new land as a Promised Land or New Canaan or as a wilderness that they had to tame. The idea that the new land was a wilderness suggested that it was the right of Europeans to take it from Native Americans who did not typically fence property for agriculture and many of whom were decimated by diseases brought from Europe. While some Puritans initially wondered whether the natives might be remnants of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel, they eventually conceived of them to be Canaanites or Amalekites (enemies that the ancient Israelites had encoun-tered in the Promised Land) whom they had a mandate to destroy. In time Puritan notions were transfigured into the doctrine of “manifest destiny” that the nation used as a mandate to expand from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast (Buck 2015, 55-76; McKenna 2007). Puritan ideas, expressed in the Mayflower Compact of 1620 and in other early documents, that they were a people covenanted with God and with one another were arguably reflected in later state constitutions as well as in the U.S. Constitution.

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There is general agreement that Puritans were individuals with strong convictions, and they were particular-ly known for their readings of Scripture that were often accompanied by meditation, self-examination, and confessional prayer (Hambrick-Stowe 1982, 282). A scholar observes that although Puritan sermons often stressed rationality, “the devotional exercises, when pursued by the contemplative, led to experiences quite beyond the realm of reason” (Hambrick-Stowe 1982, 286). Devotional exercises often included singing. Many early Puritans followed John Calvin’s admonition to sing only songs that were directly taken from Scriptures (many of these were written as prayers), while, in time, others embraced Martin Luther’s idea that new songs could be written in vernacular languages that would also glorify God (Phillips 2012, 208).

Although Puritans had sought to refine Anglicanism, they were wary of religious symbols, which they associated with the worship of idols and with Roman Catholicism. They were further contemptuous of the Book of Common Prayer because they thought that its prescribed prayers were a poor substitute for more spontaneous prayers to God. Some Puritans even expressed doubts as to whether the Lord’s Prayer should be frequently repeated.

See alsoBook of Common Prayer; Liturgical Versus Spontaneous Prayer; Lord’s Prayer

FOR REFERENCEBuck, Christopher. 2015. God & Apple Pie: Religious Myths and Visions of America. Kingston, NY: Educator’s

International Press; Cressy, David. 1984. “The Vast and Furious Ocean: The Passage to Puritan New England.” The New England Quarterly 57 (December): 511-532; Hambrick-Stowe, Charles E. 1982. The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines in Seventeenth-Century New England. Chapel Hill: University of North Caroli-na Press; McKenna, George. 2007. The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism. New Haven, CT: Yale Univer-sity Press; Phillips, Christopher N. 2012. “Cotton Mather Brings Isaac Watts’s Hymns to America: or, How to Perform a Hymn without Singing It.” The New England Quarterly 84 ( June): 203-221.

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QAnon Shaman Prayer in Senate ChamberReligion and nationalism can both lead to powerful emotions and provoke

militant action, and when they mix, the combination can be volatile. Rarely was this clearer than on Jan. 6, 2021, when after being addressed by

President Donald J. Trump, a large crowd marched to the U.S. Capitol. They arrived with the apparent intent of stopping Vice President Mike Pence from certifying votes from the Electoral College that would show, contrary to Trump’s assertions, that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had won the presiden-tial and vice-presidential election. Demonstrators carried a variety of banners and signs, including one that said “Jesus is my God, Trump is my President”

(Derrick 2021). After breaking through windows and then surging through open doors, rioters swarmed through the building, some shouting “Hang Mike Pence” (he had indicated that he would do his constitution-al duty and certify the election despite Trump’s fallacious claims that he had won), while others assaulted police officers, invaded some offices (members of Congress had been evacuated or were barricaded within other offices), posed sitting in the speaker’s chair, waved Trump and Confederate flags, and shouted profani-ty-laced epithets.

One of the more notable figures who participated was Jake Angeli (his legal name is Jacob Anthony Chans-ley), of Arizona. The so-called “QAnon Shaman” wore a fur cape with horns over his shirtless and extensively tattooed body, and carried a bullhorn and a six-foot spear with the words “Q Sent me!” The Q stood for Q-Anon, a group that, among other things, believes that key Democrats run a pedophile ring that needs to be exposed.

A video taken by a photographer for The New Yorker that was released more than a week after the rampage showed Angeli and four others entering the chamber of the U.S. Senate where only a single law enforcement agent was present. Despite the officer’s request, Angeli proceeded to the desk of the speaker of the Senate (the vice president) where he left a note for Pence telling him that “It’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.”

While he was at the desk, Angeli uttered a prayer thanking God “for this opportunity to stand up for our god-given, unalienable rights.” Ignoring the violence that had preceded their entry, he further thanked God for providing “the inspiration needed to these police officers to allow us in this building to allow us to exercise our rights,” and “to send a message to all the tyrants, the communists and the globalists that this is our nation not theirs” (Snedeker 2021).

Angeli referred to fellow members of the mob as “patriots that love you and then love Christ.” At one point, using language that would be familiar to almost all traditional or evangelical Christians, he referred to the

“divine, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent creator God” (Fea 2021). As if oblivious to the mayhem that he and his fellow insurrectionists were creating, Angeli thanked God for

surrounding the group with “the white light of love, protection, peace and harmony.” He further thanked God

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“for allowing the United States of America to be reborn”—a rebirth that he again tied to allowing the group “to get rid of the communists the globalists and the traitors within our government.” The prayer ended “in Christ’s holy name” (Snedeker 2021). Professor John Fea has noted that the idea of rebirth was connected to the view, prominent among evangelical followers of QAnon, that just as the American Revolution was preceded by a Great Awakening, so too the nation’s cleansing would be preceded by a similar Reformation.

Ironically, about the time that Angeli was offering his prayers, members of Congress were praying for their own safety. Congressman Lisa Blunt Rochester, Delaware’s first black member of the U.S. House, had been recorded praying for “Peace in the land, peace in this country, peace in this world” as she was hunkered down in the House balcony (“Hard to Lay Down Anger … ” 2021).

Congress met again the evening of Jan. 6 and into the morning hours to certify Biden’s victory. As the FBI began rounding up the insurrectionists, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached Trump for a second time (it did not result in his conviction), and the U.S. Capitol remained on lockdown as the nation warily prepared for Biden’s inauguration, and citizens of many faiths continued to pray for a peaceful transition of power.

See alsoCongress, Chaplains

FOR REFERENCEDerrick, Will. 2021. “God & Capitol on January 6.” Juicy Ecumenism. Jan. 12. https://juicyecumenism.

com/2021/01/12/will-derrick/; Fea, John. 2021. “New Video: January 6 insurrectionists pray in the Senate Chamber.” Jan. 17. https://thewayofimprovement/com/2021/01/17/new-video-january-6-insurrection-ists-p0ray-in-the-senate-chamber/; FM Editors. 2021. “‘Hard to Lay Down Anger So That I could Pray’ – Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester Says of Her Fervent Prayer During Capitol Siege.” Faithfully Magazine. Jan. 7. https://faithfullymagazine.com/lisa-blunt-rochester-prayer/; Jenkins, Jack. 2021. “As chaos hits Capitol, two forms of faith on display.” The Salt Lake Tribune. Jan. 6. https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/01/06/cha-os-hits-capitol-two/; Snedeker, Rich. 2021. “Capitol insurrectionists dragged Jesus into secular hall of Con-gress.” Patheos. Jan. 17. https://www.paatheos.com/blogs/godzooks/2021/01/capitol-insurrection-christiani-ty-prayer-congress-donald-trump/

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Rauschenbusch, WalterWalter Rauschenbusch (1861-1928) was a Baptist theologian who graduated

from the Rochester Theological Seminary, began preaching at the Second German Baptist Church in a poverty-stricken area of New York City, and subsequently became a professor of theology back in Rochester. There he helped organize a group of theologians known as the “Brotherhood of the Kingdom” and authored Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907) and a number of other books that put him in the forefront of the Social Gospel movement.

Rauschenbusch’s central organizing principle, which he traced both to the Old and New Testaments, was that of the kingdom of God. This emphasis was furthered by three contemporary philosophical currents, namely, “the immanence of God, the organic character of nature and of human life, and

the presence of the kingdom of heaven on earth” (Hopkins 1938, 145). Growing in part out of liberal accep-tance of the idea of Darwinian evolution, the movement was very much opposed to the idea of Social Dar-winism as embodied in the principle of “the survival of the fittest.” To the contrary, the movement traced many contemporary evils to the growth of individualism and unbridled capitalism and was often associated with socialism and with the democratic and social reforms of the Progressive Era.

In 1909, Rauschenbusch incorporated many of his ideas into a book of prayers. In his preface, Rauschen-busch wrote, “Many good men have given up the habit of praying, partly through philosophical doubt, partly because they feel that it is useless or even harmful to their spiritual nature” (1908, 11-12). He remained an advocate, however, of “prayer before battle ... the greatest breeder of revolutionary heroism in history” (1908, 12). Indeed, he suggested that “If we had more prayer in common on the sins of modern society, there would be more social repentance and less angry resistance to the demands of justice and mercy” (1908, 12).

In his introduction, Rauschenbusch specifically focused on the Lord’s Prayer, which he presented as “the purest expression of the mind of Jesus” (1908, 15). He believed that “The Lord’s Prayer is part of the heritage of social Christianity which has been appropriated by men who have had little sympathy with its social spirit.” Continuing in the spirit of his earlier comparison to prayer and war, Rauschenbusch observed, “It belongs to the equipment of the soldiers of the kingdom of God. I wish to claim it here as the great charter of all social prayers” (1908, 17). Focusing on it hope for the kingdom of God, Rauschenbusch presented the prayer as one that set the desire “for the social salvation of mankind ahead of all personal desires” (1908, 19). He stressed the prayer’s emphasis on social solidarity, the fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man.

Beginning with prayers for morning, noon, and night and prayers of praise and thanksgiving, his “Grace Before Meat” is notable for including prayers for “the many men and women whose labor was necessary to produce it, and who gathered it from the land and afar from the sea for our sustenance” (1908, 39).

Rauschenbusch devoted the large majority of his prayers to those “for social groups and classes,” many of whom faced exploitation through sweatshops, low wages and dangerous working conditions, and child labor. These included a “Prayer for Children Who Work,” “For the Children of the Street,” “For Women Who Toil,”

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“For Workingmen,” “For Immigrants,” as well as for employers, members of various professions, and even for mothers and for lovers. A prayer “For Kings and Magnates” asks that God would open the hearts of members of both groups “to the saving spirit of the new age of freedom” (1908, 65). A prayer “For Lawyers and Legisla-tors” asks God to “Suffer not the web of outgrown precedents to veil their moral vision, but grant them a penetrating eye for the rights and wrongs of today and a quick human sympathy with the life and sufferings of the people” (1908, 74). At a time when many perceived the poor to be lazy, Rauschenbusch focused on “the idle rich, who have vigor of body and mind and yet produce no useful thing” (1908, 89).

“Prayers of Wrath” respectively condemn war, alcoholism, materialism and impurity. The prayer against war asked that God would “Bless our soldiers and sailors for their swift obedience and their willingness to answer to the call of duty, but inspire them none the less with a hatred of war, and may they never for love of private glory or advancement provoke its coming” (1908, 98). His prayer against alcoholism looked forward to “the day when all our men shall face their daily task with minds undrugged and with tempered passions; when the unseemly mirth of drink shall seem a shame to all who hear and see; when the trade that debauches men shall be loathed like the trade that debauches women; and when all this black remnant of savagery shall haunt the memory of a new generation but as an evil dream of the night” (1908, 109).

A final section is devoted to prayers for “The Progress of Humanity.” It includes a prayer for the church, which offers contrition for its sins, and asks for “a swifter compassion with suffering, and an utter loyalty to the will of God” (1908, 119). The book concludes with a prayer “For the Cooperative Commonwealth.” It exalts “the dream of the golden city of peace and righteousness” and foresees a world where “thy freemen shall not live as tenants of men on the earth which thou hast given to all; when no babe shall be born without its equal birthright in the riches and knowledge wrought about by the labor of the ages; and when the mighty engines of industry shall throb with a gladder music because the men who ply these great tools shall be their owners and masters” (1908, 124).

Rauschenbusch influenced numerous subsequent scholars, including Reinhold Niebuhr and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who considered him to be a modern-day prophet. Some of them, however, also concluded that Rauschenbusch’s philosophy, like much of 19th century religious thought, reflected “sentimen-tality, inadequate biblical interpretation, political naiveté, and excessive moralism” (Brackney 2018, 214).

See alsoKing, Martin Luther Jr; Lord’s Prayer; Language

FOR REFERENCEBrackney, William H. 2018. “Walter Rauschenbusch—Prophet and Legend.” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 31, 1:

199-220; Hopkins, C. Howard. 1938. “Walter Rauschenbusch and the Brotherhood of the Kingdom.” Church History 7 ( June): 138-156; Rauschenbusch, Walter. 1909 and 1910. For God and the People: Prayers of the Social Awakening. Boston: The Pilgrim Press.

Roadside ChapelsLarge skyscrapers and stadiums often dominant city landscapes that were once more notable for church

spires, which, like prayers, were oriented heavenward. In Washington, D.C., at least, the National Cathedral continues to occupy the highest point in the city, and it, and other American cities and towns, are filled with spires from churches of numerous denominations.

In some cities, particularly in Roman Catholic neighborhoods, yards are decorated with shrines and altars to saints, like St. Jude, who are believed to have answered prayers on their owners’ behalf. A study of such sites in New York Italian-American communities observes that the saints who are honored are often specific to a region from Italy from which the family emigrated (Sciorra 1989, 188). The study further identifies some shrines, such as Our Lady of Mount Carmel site on Staten Island, to which pilgrims come annually to kneel and pray, often donating their own statues to the site (Sciorra 1989, 195). In some cases individuals open their homes so that neighbors can visit shrines and offer prayers they have constructed.

As one travels through the countryside, it is not uncommon to see small churches as well as groups of three crosses, representing the crucifixion of Jesus. Sometimes there are also makeshift memorials to the victims of automobile accidents along the roadside.

A charming feature that enhances travel is the presence of roadside chapels, usually quite small, where visitors can stop to pray and reflect. Jimmy Tomlin has written a story about visiting such chapels, often no larger than a bedroom, in western North Carolina. They typically contain an altar, a kneeling bench, a cross, a King James Bible, and a book for guests to sign, often along with their prayer requests. He observed that at one such site, he found what appeared to be a shrine consisting of small crosses, photographs, candles, hand-written prayers, small shells and stones, coins, and even a bottle cap (2015).

A story from Wisconsin claims that “roadside chapels are unique to Belgian Catholics” (“Roadside Cha-pels”). These are described as typically being nine feet long and seven feet wide, and having both a small altar and a guestbook.

Another writer has discovered roadside chapels in South Dakota, in the Grand Teton National Park (the Chapel of the Sacred Heart), and elsewhere (Winthrop 2018).

See alsoNational Cathedral; St. Jude

FOR REFERENCE“Roadside Chapels.” walloonbelgiansdoorpeninsula.weebly.com/roadside-chapels.html; Sciorra, Joseph. 1989.

“Yard Shrines and Sidewalk Altars of New York’s Italian-Americans.” Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture 3: 185-198; Tomlin, Jimmy. 2015. “Roadside Chapels Offer Small Space, Large Presence.” Our State. May 5. https://www.ourstate.com/roadside-chapels/; Winthrow, Brandon. 2018. “It Wouldn’t Be an American Road Trip Without Roadside Chapels.” Sept. 1. Daily Beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/it=wouldnt-be-an-american-road-trip-without-roadside-chapels

Roberts, OralGranville Oral Roberts (1918-2009) was a leading televangelist. He began within the Pentecostal tradition

with its emphasis on speaking in tongues, faith healings, and other manifestations of the Holy Spirit. He became a Methodist, known both for preaching and living out the Prosperity Gospel, which stresses that God brings both healing and wealth. Known in his early years for tent revivals, Roberts founded his eponymously named university in Tulsa, Okla., in 1963.

In addition to the role that prayer played in his ministry, Roberts had at least three major connections to prayer. First, his university is known for its 200-foot Prayer Tower, with a space-age look that he modeled on

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the Space Needle from the Seattle World’s Fair, which he visited the previous year. In a second but related vein, his campus also includes a 60-foot-tall sculpture called Praying Hands. Third, Roberts became well known for telling his viewers that God was going to take him home unless he successfully raised large amounts of money within a specified time period.

The Prayer Tower, which is a central feature of the Oral Roberts University campus, was designed in Rob-erts’s words to let students know “That prayer and the power of God are central to all we do within Oral Roberts’s ministry and the university” (Grubiak 2020, 102). The tower also contained related imagery. Profes-sor Margaret Grubiak observes, “From afar, the tower’s form looked like a cross. Up close, those looking up at the tower saw a symmetrical web of steel that was to recall Jesus’s crown of thorns. To stress this analogy, the tips of steel in the crown were colored red to symbolize the blood of Christ. From above, this crown of thorns also appeared as the Star of David. At the very top of the tower was an eternal flame, representing the Holy Spirit” (Grubiak 2020, 102). It should be noted that long before Roberts, Aimee Semple McPherson, founder of the Church of the Foursquare Gospel in Los Angeles, had also included a prayer tower where volunteers worked round the clock to take phone calls from individuals who were sick or had prayer requests (Krist 2018).

In addition to Roberts’s prayer tower, a Praying Hands sculpture, originally designated as Healing Hands and designed for another of Roberts’s projects (a medical complex known as the City of Faith that went bankrupt), was moved to the entrance of the university in 1981. Sculpted by Leonard McMurry and cast in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, the sculpture weights 30 tons and is reputed to be the largest bronze sculpture in the world.

In 1980, Roberts conveyed to his listeners that a 900-foot Jesus had appeared to him in a vision telling him to build his City of Faith. Seven years later, Roberts related that God was going to call him home unless he raised millions of dollars from his followers to fund a medical missionary program. He reportedly spent the last 10 days of this ultimately financially successful but highly ridiculed effort (which had appeared to make God into an extortionist), in a prayer room within his Prayer Tower.

See also Healing; Prosperity Gospel

FOR REFERENCEGrubiak, Margaret M. Landscapes of Faith and Doubt in Modern America: Monumental Jesus. Charlottesville:

University of Virginia Press; Krist, Gary. 2018. “Aimee Semple McPherson: The L.A. evangelist who built the world’s first megachurch.” Los Angeles Times. June 24. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-krist-aimee-semple-mcpherson-20180624-story.html

Roman CatholicsColumbus and other Europeans learned of the Americas at a time when the primary division within

Christianity was that between the Roman Catholic Church in the West, headquartered in Rome, and the Eastern Orthodox Church in the East that had, until the city’s demise in 1453, its headquarters in Constanti-nople (today’s Istanbul). In 1517, however, Martin Luther initiated the Protestant Reformation, and King Henry VIII of England later broke the church in England away from Rome. Even as Roman Catholics have their own internal divisions, Protestants have continued to split into various denominations ever since.

One of the defining features of the Church of England was its Book of Common Prayer, which provided

common templates for worship. The Protestant belief that the Bible should be translated, and that worship services should be conducted, in the vernacular language of the people further separated Catholics and Protestants. Puritan dissenters from the Anglican Church who came to America sought to follow other European Protestants who had called for eliminating indulgences, statues of the saints, prayers directed to God through Mary and other saints (Catholics’ use of the Rosary continues to separate them from Protestant practice), the idea (transubstantiation) that the bread and wine offered at Mass become the actual body and blood of Christ, and even the episcopal structure that the Church of England had retained from the Catholic Church. Many of these issues took on further political dimensions as Great Britain went to war with Catholic countries in Europe (most notably Spain and France), and as the throne occasionally switched in England between Catholic and Protestant monarchs.

Just as Central and South America, which were settled primarily by Spain and Portugal, became primarily Catholic, so the 13 original American colonies were primarily Protestant (Maryland was originally settled largely by Catholics), with the Anglican Church tending to dominate in the Southern states, Quakers in Pennsylvania and Delaware, and Calvinist congregational churches in the North. Many Protestants had brought their detestation of Catholicism with them to America, and while some states offered religious freedom to all, most still required tax support from both Catholics and dissenting Protestants who were not members of the colony’s established churches. Among Protestants, Episcopalians remained the closest to Catholics in their emphasis on liturgical prayer and worship, with other Protestants favoring greater focus on spontaneity, an emphasis that was further reinforced during a series of revivals or Great Awakenings, which further democratized Protestant denominations.

Many North Americans feared the English recognition of the Catholic Church in Canada in the Quebec Act of 1774 that preceded the American Revolution, and they were concerned that the establishment of Catholic bishops in the 13 colonies would bring subservience to Rome. Roman Catholics in the 13 colonies, however, joined with Protestants in declaring their independence, and when the new Constitution was written, all were vested in an amended constitution that both prohibited the establishment of an official religion and that provided for its free exercise.

In time, immigration from Ireland and from Southern European nations brought a considerable number of Roman Catholic immigrants to America, whose culture, as well as religion, often differed substantially from that of descendants from immigrants from Northern Europe. Although Protestants differed from one another, they often found that the differences among themselves were less substantial than their differences with Catholics. This was particularly evident in public schools, where most Protestants accepted the King James Version of the Bible (1611) which they had been taught to read and interpret on their own. By contrast, Catholics accepted the interpretations of the Bible by church authorities and did not therefore favor having the Bible read or the Lord’s Prayer repeated without suitable commentary. As generic Protestant religious exercises including Bible reading and prayer predominated in public schools, many 19th century Catholics formed their own parochial schools, which they financed on their own and through which they conveyed their doctrines. There was a strong strain of anti-Catholicism in the United States throughout much of the 19th and early 20th centuries that sometimes broke out in rioting in major U.S. cities; in the South, the Ku Klux Klan was not only anti-black, but also anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant.

Although the practice of congressional chaplains dated back to the First and Second Continental Congress, it was not until 1832 that the Senate appointed Father Charles Constantine Pise as the first Roman Catholic to hold this post. It was not until 1960 and after considerable controversy that the nation elected John F.

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Kennedy, its first (and until 2021) only president who identified as a Roman Catholic, and it was not until 2000 that the Senate hired a Catholic chaplain. For many decades there was almost always a single Roman Catholic on the U.S. Supreme Court, but today there is a Catholic majority. Reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council beginning in 1962 eased some of the distance between Catholics and Protestants, as had their common opposition to communism during the Cold War.

In the 1970s conservative Protestants often found themselves politically aligned with traditional Catholics on such issues as opposition to abortion on demand, pornography, the Equal Rights Amendment for women, gay rights, and same-sex marriage. Similarly, liberal Protestants sometimes found themselves arm in arm with liberal Jews and Catholics in civil rights movements, anti-war protests, and other issues of social justice. Modern political divisions are more likely to break along liberal/conservative lines than among Protestant/Catholic ones.

Today it is common for both Protestant clergy and for Catholic priests to be invited to give prayers at presidential inaugurations and to participate in other public events.

See alsoBook of Common Prayer; Chavez, Cesar; Columbus, Christopher, and Other Early European Explorers of

the Americas; Congress, Chaplains; Conroy, Patrick J., and Paul Ryan; Ecumenical Prayers; Kennedy, Robert F; Prayer and Bible Reading in Public Schools; Liturgical Versus Spontaneous Prayers; Presidential Inaugural Prayers; Rosary; St. Christopher; St. Francis of Assisi; St. Jude; St. Patrick’s Prayer

FOR REFERENCEMcCartin, James P. 2019. “Praying in the Public Square: Catholic Piety Meets Civil Rights, War, and Abor-

tion.” In Roman Catholicism in the United States: A Thematic History, ed. Margaret M. McGuinness and James T. Fisher. New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 264-283; Smith, Gregory A. 2008. “One Church, Many Messages: The Politics of the U.S. Catholic Clergy.” In Catholics and Politics: The Dynamic Tension Between Faith and Power, ed. Kristin E. Heyer, Mark J. Rozell, and Michael A. Genovese. Washington, DC: George-town University Press, pp. 43-59.

Roosevelt, Franklin D., D-Day PrayerThe greatest amphibious force ever gathered was assembled by America and its allies off the shore of

Normandy, France, to begin the invasion against the German occupiers on June 6, 1944. The time and date of this invasion had been a closely guarded secret, but the evening after it was launched,

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had spoken the previous night on the fall of Rome to Allied forces, gave another radio address. After telling the audience that the initial hours of the invasion had been successful, Roosevelt offered an extended prayer, effectively acting as a national priest.

Addressing “Almighty God,” Roosevelt described the “mighty endeavor ... to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity” (Roosevelt 1944). Roosevelt asked God to lead and to strengthen the invading troops. He noted that “the enemy is strong,” and that the road ahead was likely to be long, but “we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph” (Roosevelt 1944). Roosevelt observed that the troops had been drawn from civilian life and that “They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people” (Roosevelt 1944).

In a fireside chat that he had given on Christmas Eve 1943, Roosevelt had asked “that God receive and cherish those who have given their lives, and that He keep them in honor and in the grateful memory of their countrymen forever” (Snape 2015, 369). Similarly, recognizing in his D-Day prayer that some troops would die in the conflict, Roosevelt asked God to “Embrace these, Father, and receive them” (Roosevelt 1944). He further asked that those on the home front would rededicate themselves to renewed faith in this time of conflict. He asked God to “Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other: Faith in our united crusade” (Roosevelt 1944). Referring to “the unholy forces of our enemy,” Roosevelt asked God to “Help us conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies” (Roosevelt 1944). He further asked for “a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil,” and ended with, “Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen” (Roosevelt 1944).

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the head of the invading force, had issued his own statement to invading troops earlier that day. Referring, as would Roosevelt, to the invasion as part of a “Great Crusade,” Eisenhow-er told the troops that “The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.” Saying that the goal was “full Victory,” Eisenhower wished the troops “Good Luck!” before adding, “And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking” (Eisenhower 1944).

An article in the July 1944 edition of The Link magazine further described the preparations that had been made on the home front for the invasion:

“Plans include the tolling of church bells summoning the people to worship, the sounding of police and fire sirens, the blowing of bugle calls announcing a call to prayer, the conducting of downtown and residential mass meetings. It is arranged in many cities for all traffic to come to a stop, work benches to stand idle and all business to suspend for a period wherein all people will be asked to pray silently. Radio stations and motion picture houses will present prayers by transcription and trailer … . All in all, the invasion will probably inspire the greatest wave of mass intercession in history” (Snape 2015, 349). Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio and Democratic Rep. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana sponsored the World War II Memorial Prayer Act of 2013, which was adopted the following year. It directed the secretary of the interior to install a plaque or an engrav-ing of Roosevelt’s D-Day Prayer at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., albeit without the use of any federal expenditures. Although the act encountered some opposition from groups that did not think that such a Judeo-Christian prayer represented all who served in the war (Tritten 2014), it was adopted.

See alsoFoxholes; Petitionary Prayer

FOR REFERENCEEisenhower, Dwight D. 1944. “Document for June 6th: D-day statement to soldiers, sailor, and airmen of

the Allied Expeditionary Force, 6/44.” America’s Historical Documents. https://www.archives.gov/histori-cal-docs/todays-doc/?dod-date=606; Roosevelt, Franklin D. 1944. “A ‘Mighty Endeavor:’ D-Day.” Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. https://www.fdrlibrary.org/d-day; Snape, Michael. 2015. God and Uncle Sam: Religion and America’s Armed Forces in World War II. Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, Boydell Press; Tritten, Travis J. 2014. “WWII Memorial prayer inscription approved over secularist, ACLU objections.” Stars and Stripes. July 1. https://www.stripes.com/news/wwii-memorial-prayer-inscription-approved-over-sec-ularist-aclu-objections-1.291510

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RosaryMary, the mother of Jesus, holds a special place in the hearts of most Christians, but she is particularly

venerated in Roman Catholic churches, which are often named in her honor. According to Catholic doctrine, Mary was sinless, a virgin when she conceived Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit (a belief shared with many conservative Protestants), remained a virgin thereafter, and ascended into heaven without dying. Catholics often view Mary and other select saints like St. Jude and St. Christopher, as a conduit in passing on prayers to her son, whereas English Puritans once smashed images of Mary and other saints as idolatrous, and most Protestants believe that they go directly to God in prayer in the name of Jesus.

Among Catholics, the rosary is probably the most widely offered prayer. It consists of handling a set of beads from which a crucifix hangs, making the sign of the cross, and repeating the words associated with the biblical annunciation to Mary that she would conceive Jesus. Often said in conjunction with the Apostles' Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Gloria Patria, and other prayers, the central prayer, much of which is taken from the angel’s announcement to Mary in the biblical book of Luke that she was to conceive Jesus, is as follows:

“HAIL MARY, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen” (“How to Pray the Rosary”).

Although the prayer is technically a petitionary prayer, praying the rosary is also a form of contemplative prayer, which is believed to strengthen the spiritual lives of those who repeat it. Prayers to Mary have been especially prominent within some immigrant communities in the United States, which often hold prayers, participate in feasts, and offer novenas (nine successive days of prayer) in her honor. Individuals who partici-pate in confessions in the Catholic Church are often asked to say a number of “Hail Marys” in penitence. The rosary was so widely known that it became the subject of a number of popular songs in the first 30 years of the 20th century (Lewkowicz 2012).

Prayers to Mary were associated with the gaining of spiritual merit and with indulgences for sins (Kane 2004, 92). Many people claimed to have met apparitions of Mary, and she was used in the 1950s both to combat communism and to encourage teens to be modest and sexually pure. The Family Rosary Crusade, which was founded by Father Patrick Peyton and which proclaimed that “The family that prays together stays together,” had a large media presence both on radio and television and on public billboards.

The reforms of the Second Vatican Council somewhat deemphasized the role of Mary, partly in an attempt to be more ecumenical, but the rosary remains a popular form of private devotion. This is evident in the popularity of broadcasts of nuns offering this prayer on radio and television that were initiated by Mother Angelica of the Annunciation nee Rita Antoinette Rizzo (1928-2016). The faith of individual Catholics participating in diverse social movements including civil rights, opposition to the war in Vietnam, and legal protections for the rights of the unborn is often strengthened by their rosary prayers (McCartin 2019). After Sen. Robert Kennedy, who was known for his Catholicism, was shot, a worker pressed a rosary into one of his hands. Joe Biden has worn a rosary ever since the death of his son Beau of brain cancer, as a way of remem-bering him.

The rosary is not, however, as well suited for public prayer as the Lord’s Prayer and others that are equally embraced by both Catholics and Protestants. The song “Ave Maria,” the Latin term for “Hail Mary,” which incorporates part of the rosary prayer, is, however, often offered as a prayer at funerals.

See alsoThe Family That Prays Together Stays Together; Kennedy, Robert F; In Jesus’s Name; The Lord’s Prayer;

Roman Catholics

FOR REFERENCE“How to Pray the Rosary.” Rosary Center & Confraternity. https://www.rosarycenter.org/homepage-2/

rosary/how-to-pray-the-rosary/; Kane, Paula M. 2004. “Marian Devotion Since 1940: Continuity or Casual-ty?” Habits of Devotion: Catholic Religious Practice in Twentieth-Century America. Ed. James M. O’Toole. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 88-100; Lewkowicz, Amy K. 2012. “When Tin Pan Alley Sang ‘The Rosary.’” U.S. Catholic Historian 30 (Fall): 39-62; McCartin, James P. 2019. “Praying in the Public Square: Catholic Piety Meets Civil Rights, War, and Abortion.” In Roman Catholicism in the United States: A Thematic History, ed. Margaret M. McGuinness and James T. Fisher. New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 264-283; Schuffer, Kathy. 2017. “Mother Angelica’s Legacy.” March 26. National Catholic Register. https://www.ncregis-ter.com/daily-news/mother-angelicas-legacy-reflections-on-ewtn-foundress-trust-in-providence; Wangler, Thomas E. 1997-1998. “Daily Religious Exercises of the American Catholic Laity in the Late Eighteenth Century.” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia 108 (Fall-Winter): 1-21.

Rowan County v. Lund (2017)Although American courts have consistently found since Engel v. Vitale (1962) that public prayer in public

schools violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment, controversy has remained over public prayers outside classroom settings that primarily involve adults. If such a prohibition were to be extended too far, it might even apply to the opening plea for God to “save the United States and this honorable court” at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Both key Supreme Court rulings dealing with public prayer outside the public school settings have upheld the practices. In Marsh v. Chambers (1983), the Court allowed the Nebraska Legislature to continue to hire a chaplain to offer prayers at the beginning of each legislative day. Similarly, in Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014), it upheld the practice of a town in New York of inviting members of the local clergy to perform this function. In both cases, the Court largely ignored the Lemon test that it typically applied, and chose to rely on the long history of such prayers instead.

Two recent U.S. circuit court decisions have brought some ambiguity into this area. In Bormuth v. County of Jackson (2017), the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the practice where members of a Jackson County, Mich., board of commissioners took turns leading the group in prayer, whereas in Lund v. Rowan County (2017) the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down similar prayers in a county in North Carolina.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court often steps in to resolve such conflicts between circuits, the justices left both decisions in place on appeal, albeit not without Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, filing a dissent in the Lund case. Thomas noted that the circuit court had relied on the fact that the prayers were given solely by commissioners, that their prayers were distinctively Christian, that they often included a request for members of the audience to stand, and that they took place in a fairly intimate setting. Thomas, however, noted that “virtually all of the factors it identified were present in Town of Greece” (2018, 2566). The only substantive difference that Thomas identified was that the prayers in Lund were delivered by members of the board rather than by ministers.

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Historically, Thomas observed, Congress, state legislatures, and state conventions have been opened by prayers by lay individuals. Specifically referencing the decision in Marsh, Thomas noted in a footnote that he found it “hard to see how prayers led by sectarian chaplains whose salaries are paid by taxpayers ... could be less of a government establishment than prayers voluntarily given by legislators” (2018). By contrast, an article by Chad West suggests that the historical evidence for chaplain-led prayers within state legislatures and state constitutional conventions is much stronger than that for those led by legislators, which he believes come closer to violating the line between church and state (2019). Yet another writer recommends eliminating legislative prayers altogether (Corbin 2019).

See alsoCongress, Chaplains; Engel v. Vitale; Marsh v. Chambers; Town of Greece v. Galloway

FOR REFERENCEBurmouth v. Cty. Of Jackson, 870 F.3d 494 (6th Cir. 2017) (en banc); Corbin, Caroline Mala. 2019. “Christian

Legislative Prayers and Christian Nationalism.” Washington and Lee Law Review 76: 453-483; Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983); Lund v. Rowan Cty., 863 F.3d 268 (4th Cir. 2017) (en banc); Rowan County v. Lund, 138 S. Ct. 2564 (2018) (Thomas, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari); Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565 (2014); West, Chad. 2019. “Legislative Prayer: Historical Tradition and Contemporary Issues.” Utah Law Review Vol. 2019, No. 3: 709-734.

S

St. ChristopherOne of the most obvious public manifestations of the belief that prayer can

make a difference is the display of St. Christopher medals either as items of jewelry, or hanging from car mirrors, or otherwise displayed in vehicles. The practice is especially prominent among Roman Catholics. Just as they associate St. Jude as the saint to whom to bring hopeless causes, so too they identify St. Christopher as one who helps protect people on journeys.

Many elements of the story of St. Christopher are clearly mythical. Be-lieved to have been born with the name of Reprobus, meaning outcast, he earned the name meaning Christ-bearer. Described as a giant of a man, over seven feet tall, he is said to have desired to serve the greatest king of all. Initially believing that this was the devil, he reputedly converted when he

noticed that even the devil shrank from a cross, and therefore decided that Christ must be stronger.Taught Christianity by a hermit, St. Christopher took on the task of carrying individuals across a river

where many were dying in the crossing. On one occasion he carried across a child who proved to be extremely heavy. He realized that this was none other than Jesus who had created the world and was carrying its heavy sins. In time, St. Christopher was martyred for refusing to worship the Roman emperor. By some accounts, it took extreme efforts to kill him, and his blood subsequently helped restore an eye to the emperor who ordered his death.

As one who reputedly carried the Christ child through rough waters, St. Christopher has gained the reputation as being the saint who provides traveling mercies. As early as 1947, an article identified him as the

“Patron Saint of the Motor-Car Drivers” (Bonaparte 1947). Others, however, have looked to him for healing from disease or for protection during war.

As in the myths that surround him, the medals have a semi-magical quality to them, and it is unknown how many individuals substitute wearing or display of the medal for prayer or see the medallion as a means of reminding them to pray.

See alsoSt. Jude

FOR REFERENCEBonaparte, Marie. 1947. “Saint Christopher, Patron Saint of the Motor-Car Drivers.” American Imago 4

( July): 49-77; Mittman, Asa Simon, and Marcus Henses. 2018. Primary Sources on Monsters: Demonstrare, Volume Two. York, UK: Arc Humanities Press; “Saint Christopher.” The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints. 2012. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 96-100.

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St. Francis of AssisiOf all saints other than those mentioned in the Bible, St. Francis of Assisi (1181/1182-1226) is likely the

best known to both American Roman Catholics and Protestants. A friar who founded the Franciscan Order, St. Francis is particularly associated with his reverence for nature as a reflection of God’s creation.

St. Francis is also widely associated with a “Peace Prayer,” which has been widely quoted over the last century. It is as follows:

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness light; where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. (Appelbaus 2015, 71)

St. Francis is also known for his “Canticle [hymn] of the Sun,” the sentiments of which are encapsulated in the hymn “All Creatures of Our God and King,” which was written by the Rev. William Henry Draper (1855-1933), an Anglican, for a children’s Pentecost festival sometime between 1910 and 1926 (Appelbaus 2015, 745). The opening stanza reads:

All creatures of our God and King, Lift up your voice and with us sing Alleluia! Alleluia! Thou burning Sun with golden beam, Thou silver moon with softer gleam! O praise him, O praise him! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! (Appelbaus 2015, 72-730)

With its focus on the beauties of nature as God’s creation, the hymn seems especially appropriate at a time of increased concern over global warming and other environmental issues.

Statues of St. Francis are often found in gardens, or in birdbaths, including those connected with Protestant churches (Appelbaus 2015, 70). Whereas early Catholic statues in Europe often portrayed the saint as meditating on a cross or skull, most garden portrayals include one or more birds sitting on his head or arms.

Although the prayer attributed to St. Francis embodies many of the virtues that he possessed, the prayer cannot be found in any of his known works and is believed to have first appeared in a French Catholic magazine in 1913 and/or on a prayer card dated about the same time (Appelbaus 2015, 71). It may have been

especially circulated among Quakers, who are pacifists.In 1979, Mother Teresa led the audience in the Peace Prayer when she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, and

Margaret Thatcher cited it when she became prime minister of England that same year. In 1995, President Bill Clinton quoted the prayer for the arrival of Pope John Paul II, noting that “His prayer, carried to this day in the pockets, the purses, the billfolds of many American Catholics and revered by many who are not Catho-lics, is a simple clarion call to unity” (“‘Simple Prayer’ of St. Francis was modern creation” 2009). In 1998, Clinton further referred to this prayer in a speech of contrition that he gave at the National Prayer Breakfast for his sexual involvement with a White House intern.

On Jan. 24, 2002, Pope John Paul II met with religious leaders in Assisi, Italy, for an Assisi Day of Prayer, in which the virtues of the saint were highlighted.

Rep. John Boehner, an Ohio Republican and speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives who had been responsible to bringing Pope Francis to the Capitol, read this prayer at his resignation in 2015 (Beckwith 2015).

See alsoSt. Christopher; St. Jude

FOR REFERENCEAppelbaum, Patricia. 2015. St. Francis of America: How a Thirteenth-Century Friar Became America’s Most

Popular Saint. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press; Beckwith, Ryan. 2015. “This is the Prayer John Boehner Read at His Resignation.” Time. Sept. 25. https://time.com/4050091/catholic=-prayer-john-boehiner/; “’Simple Prayer’ of St. Francis was modern creation.” 2009. Daily News. Jan. 31. https://www.dailynews.com/2009/01/31/simple-prayer-of-st-francis-was-modern-creation/

St. JudeOne of the divides between Roman Catholic and Protestant theology is that the former believes that

individuals can get special access to Jesus by praying through a saint (especially his mother, Mary), whereas Protestants generally believe that individuals have direct access to Jesus, who they believe is the only mediator between God the Father and human beings.

It is common for Catholic believers to invoke different saints for different occasions. Mary is, of course, regularly invoked through the praying of the rosary. Those who travel may invoke St. Christopher, individuals seeking to find lost objects often pray to St. Anthony (Meagher 2002), individuals who grow up near the birthplace or shrine of a saint may invoke that saint, and those who face particularly difficult situations may turn to St. Jude, also known as Jude Thaddeus, who is believed to have been related to Mary and Jesus and is described as the Patron Saint of Lost Causes.

The primary devotion to St. Jude appears to have been brought from Chile in South America, where there is a shrine to him, by a priest named James Tort, who was assigned to the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a largely Mexican-American congregation, in Chicago. A parishioner by the name of Rose McDonald donated a statue of St. Jude, which was apparently largely based on a prayer card with the saint’s picture that Father Tort had brought with him (Orsi 1996, 6-7).

Originally in something of a competition with another statue of the Little Flower of Jesus, St. Therese of

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Lisieux, in time a statue of St. Jude was elevated as prayers to him seemed to be more efficacious (Orsi 1996, 7-8). Devotion and requests to St. Jude increased during the Great Depression, and in November 1929, the League of St. Jude was established, with members paying $1 a year, $25 for individual perpetual membership, or $100 for perpetual membership for a family (Orsi 1996, 9). In time, additional monies were raised both through donations by mail and through the sale of medallions, plaques, calendars, blessed oil and other objects devoted to St. Jude.

Although the statue and church remained a site of local devotion and the destination for some pilgrimages, much as with many contemporary radio and television ministries, individuals were encouraged to send their requests by mail, which would be placed on an altar before the statue of St. Jude during prayers and Masses. Over time, St. Jude became as much of a national as a local saint. It was common for Roman Catholic moth-ers to send medals of St. Jude to sons fighting in World War II to wear around their necks.

Particularly after the meeting of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), there was some reaction against what was considered to be rather mechanical or magical invocations to saints for special favors, and a corre-sponding attempt to redirect prayers to St. Jude from purely personal concerns to wider social causes (Orsi 1996, 34-36). Priests began reminding parishioners “that Saint Jude is just our intercessor and that ultimately all power comes from God” (Orsi 1996, 35).

The National Shrine of St. Jude still maintains a website, which includes a novena prayer (one conducted over nine days or weeks) as follows:

“Most holy Apostle, SAINT JUDE THADDEUS, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, you bear the name of the traitor, who delivered the beloved Master into the hands of His enemies. Yet the Church honors and invokes you universally as the patron of hopeless cases and things despaired. Pray for me! Make use, I implore you, of that particular privilege accorded to you to bring visible and speedy help where help is almost de-spaired. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and support of heaven in all my necessities, evils, and sufferings: particularly …

“(State Your Request)“… and that I may bless God with you and all the elect throughout eternity. I promise you, O blessed

SAINT JUDE, to be ever mindful of this great favor and I will never cease to honor you as my special and powerful patron and to do all in my power to encourage devotion to You.” (Shrine of Saint Jude)

St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., which opened in 1962 and provides free care for its patients, was named by entertainer Danny Thomas as the fulfillment of a promise he had made to St. Jude that if he gave him success, he would dedicate a memorial to him.

See alsoMass Media and Other Technologies; Petitionary Prayer; Roman Catholics; Rosary

FOR REFERENCEMeagher, Timothy J. 2001. “The Miracles of St. Anthony of Padua.” Religions of the United States in Practice,

Vol. I, ed. by Colleen McDannell. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 337-344; Orsi, Robert. 1991. “The Center out There, in Here, and Everywhere Else: The Nature of Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Saint Jude, 1929-1965.” Journal of Social History 25 (Winter): 213-232; Orsi, Robert A. 1996. Thank You, St. Jude: Women’s Devotion to the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; “Novena to Saint Jude.” Shrine of St. Jude. https://www.rosaryshrineofstjude.org/novena-st-jude/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwajX0Y-ft6AIVjp-fCh3Atga-EAAYASAAEgLeDPD_BwE

St. Patrick’s PrayerOne of the best-known Christian prayers is the St. Patrick’s, or St. Patrick’s Breastplate, Prayer. As the first

of these names suggested, it is typically attributed to St. Patrick of Ireland (a 5th century Christian missionary to the island), and sometimes called St. Patrick’s Breastplate Prayer. It has particular resonance among Ameri-cans (mostly Roman Catholics) of Irish descent, whose heritage is celebrated each St. Patrick’s Day on March 17. This and other Irish prayers and hymns are among the oldest in Western Europe (Hull 1910, 417).

Most stanzas of the prayer, also known as “Morning Prayer” or “The Lorica [body armor],” begin with the words, “I arise today.” The first verse extols manifestations of God through the sun, fire, lightning, wind, sea, earth, and rock. The second stanza, which uses anthropomorphic imagery, extols God’s strength as manifested in his wisdom, his eye, his ear, his hand, and his way, all of which serve as his shield of protection.

The next and probably best-known part of the prayer is Christocentric, imploring that “Christ shield me today.” It portrays Him as an all-pervasive and protecting presence:

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me. Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in the eye that sees me, Christ in the ear that hears me. (“A Reflection”)

St. Patrick is said to have prayed this prayer as he prepared to meet a pagan Irish king.

See alsoMilitary Language and Prayer

FOR REFERENCEHull, Eleanor. 1910. “The Ancient Hymn-Charms of Ireland.” Folklore 21 (December): 417-446. “A Reflection on St. Patrick’s Prayer.” World Vision. https://www.worldvision.org/chirstina-faith-news-sto-

ries’reflection-st-patrick-day-prayer

Santa Fe School District v. Doe (2000)Although the Supreme Court ruled in Engel v. Vitale (1962) that public prayers in public school classrooms

violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment, schools are associated with many extracurricular events. In Lee v. Weisman, the Court ruled that prayers by a rabbi at a junior high school graduation were unduly coercive, because most students would have felt strong pressure to attend. In Santa Fe School District v. Doe (2000), the Court had to decide whether student-led prayer at high school football games fell under the same rule.

The case arose after complaints by Mormon and Roman Catholic students and parents (both minority faiths in an area of southern Texas. dominated by Baptists) about a school council chaplain broadcasting prayers over a public-address system. A district court had allowed for a “non-denominational” prayer determined

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by the students at graduation ceremonies. Santa Fe High School, in turn, adopted a two-step process whereby students would first vote whether or not to have a “nonsectarian” and “non-proselytizing” prayer at ballgames and then vote on the student who would deliver them. This law was also challenged, with Doe being used as a name for the plaintiffs to shield their identities.

Relying upon Lee v. Weisman, the district court had struck down the graduation prayers as being too coer-cive, whereas the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld the graduation prayer as a way of solemnizing the occasion, but had voided prayers at football games on the basis that they served no similar secular purpose.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion for the U.S. Supreme Court in which he identified the prayer at ballgames as an unconstitutional form of government speech forbidden by the establishment clause rather than a mere expression of private speech, which would have been protected under the free-exercise clause. Although the students were to decide both on whether to have the prayer and on who should deliver it,

“these invocations are authorized by a government policy and take place on government property at govern-ment-sponsored school-related events” (302). The proposed practice of pregame prayers did not constitute a public forum because it was limited to a single student and was subject to regulations prohibiting it from being sectarian or proselytizing. The fact that a majority of the students would select the individual who would pray further made it quite unlikely that a candidate from a minority religion would ever be chosen. Moreover, the decision in Board of Regents, Univ. of Wis. System v. Southworth (2000) had looked with disfavor at a similar regulation leaving student funding of extracurricular groups to majority vote. Although an election might protect majority rights, it would not protect the rights of the minority. Stevens argued that a policy specifically written to “solemnize” an event would almost inevitably lead to prayer, since “A religious message is the most obvious method of solemnizing an event” (306). Stevens further noted that “the only type of message that is expressly endorsed in the text is an ‘invocation’—a term that primarily describes an appeal for divine assistance” (306-07). Such an invocation would further be broadcast over the school’s public-address system, leading members of the audience to perceive “the pregame message as a public expression of the views of the majority of the student body delivered with the approval of the school administration” (308). Moreover, the history of the regulation shows that it was designed to promote such prayer.

In addressing the district’s argument that the prayer was permissible because the activity was a voluntary and hence non-coercive event, which differed significantly from a graduation ceremony, Stevens argued that the prayer encouraged “divisiveness along religious lines” (311) and noted that cheerleaders, players, band members and others were under heavy obligations to be there. Other students feel “immense social pressure” to attend (311).

The Court decided to grant relief to a facial challenge to the law rather than wait to see the results of student elections. Stevens emphasized that the policy had “an unconstitutional purpose” (314) of promoting prayer that would increase religious divisiveness and should therefore be stopped.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist authored a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Rehnquist argued that the majority opinion “bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life” (318) and that the Court should have waited for the consequences of the student election. Rehn-quist thought it was even possible that a student might run on a platform choosing to solemnize the games by doing something other than praying.

Although Rehnquist was far less enamored with the Lemon test, from which the requirement for a secular legislative purpose was taken, he thought that solemnizing games and promoting sportsmanlike behaviors were valid secular purposes, and countered Stevens’s assumption that such a purpose would necessarily call for prayer by observing that singing the National Anthem might accomplish the same objectives. Unlike Stevens,

Rehnquist said the student prayer in this case was a form of private speech rather than the government speech condemned in Lee v. Weisman. He further said Stevens’s concern for “content neutrality,” was incorrectly borrowed from the jurisprudence of free speech rather being than applicable to cases involving challenges under the establishment clause. Rehnquist ended by reiterating his view that the Court should have waited to see how the policy was actually implemented before intervening.

See alsoEngel v. Vitale; Lee v. Weisman; Prayer and Bible Reading in Public Schools

FOR REFERENCEBoard of Regents, University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth, 529 U.S. 217 (2000); Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S.

421 (1961); Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992); Lupu, Ira C. 2001. “Government Messages and Government Money: Santa Fe, Mitchell v. Helms, and the Arc of the Establishment Clause.” William and Mary Law Review 42: 771-822; Santa Fe School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000); Wexler, Jay. 2009. Holy Hullabaloos: A Road Trip to the Battlegrounds of the Church/State Wars. Boston: Beacon Press, pp. 177-204.

Scopes TrialOne of the most famous trials in America in the 20th century took place in Dayton, Tenn., in 1925. Ostensibly,

the case centered on whether a schoolteacher by the name of John Scopes had violated Tennessee law by teaching the theory of evolution, contrary to a recently adopted state law, but the case is generally understood as a fight between fundamentalist literal interpretations of Scripture and modern science.

The case is probably best known for the free-wheeling cross-examination by the lawyer Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), who was defending Scopes, of William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), an orator and politician, who was there to defend the state law. Darrow was able to show both that Bryan himself did not accept a literal six-day account of creation and that there were many other biblical conundrums he had not solved. However, the case also involved an objection to opening the proceedings in prayer.

On the first day of the trial, Judge John T. Raulston had called upon a local fundamentalist pastor to pray, and he had responded with a prayer that lasted about seven minutes (Moore 2005, 284). After the judge called upon a second preacher to pray at the beginning of the following day, Darrow suggested that the prayer should be opened to others, perhaps a rabbi. By the third day, Darrow decided to object to the practice of opening the proceedings with prayer.

When he did so, Judge John T. Raulston responded, “I do not want to be unreasonable about anything, but I believe I have a right, I am responsible for the conduct of the court, it has been my custom since I have been a judge to have prayers in the courtroom when it was convenient and I know of no reason why I should not follow up this custom, so I will overrule the objection” (Linder). Darrow noted that he had not objected to prayer on the first day but that he feared that the persistence of the practice might be considered to be a way

“to influence the deliberation and consideration of the jury of the facts in this case.”Thomas Stewart, the Tennessee attorney general, sought to defend the practice by referring to a case where

the Tennessee Supreme Court had upheld the right of a jury to bow in prayer before coming to a verdict. Darrow responded, “I do not object to the jury or anyone else praying in secret or in private, but I do object to the turning of this courtroom into a meeting house in the trial of this case” (Linder). Stewart further observed

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cerned,” but simply on the question of whether Scopes had taught a theory that state law prohibited. In the process, however, he referred to “the agnostic counsel for the defense” (Linder). This brought further response by Dudley Field Malone for the defense since he was among the members of the defense who did not, like Darrow, regard themselves as agnostics. Questioning whether the judge had opened other trials with prayer, Malone said his objection centered on his perception that the prayers “having been duly argumentative ... help to increase the atmosphere of hostility to our point of view, which already exists in this community by wide-spread propaganda” (Linder). When Stewart suggested that “this is a God fearing country,” Malone, who was from New York, responded, “no more God fearing country than that from which I came.”

After Judge Raulston said he had started court proceedings with prayer when a minister was present, he added that he thought the matter was up to his discretion. He said both that he had sought to prevent the prayers from becoming partisan and that he valued divine guidance: “I have instructed the ministers who have been invited to my rostrum to open the court with prayer, to make no reference to the issues involved in this case. I see nothing that might influence the court or jury as to the issues. I believe in prayer myself; I con-stantly invoke divine guidance myself, when I am on the bench and off the bench; I see no reason why I should not continue to do this” (Linder).

See alsoGod Save the United States and This Honorable Court

FOR REFERENCELinder, Douglas O. Famous Trials. The Scopes Trial. Day 3: Debate Over Prayer. https:/www.Famous-trials.

com/scopesmokkey/2120-debate; Moore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleday.

Seagulls, Crickets, and Mormon HistoryJust as Jews celebrate their deliverance out of Egypt, and Christians celebrate the miracles of Jesus and his

resurrection from the dead, other groups both within these traditions often identify with particular events in their history that they believe to be miraculous responses to prayer.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, founded by Joseph Smith (1805-1844), who were until recently more commonly known as Mormons, have a similar story from their settlement in Utah in 1848. It involves deliverance from a plague of crickets of biblical proportions by a flock of seagulls. According to this account, when confronted by swarms of crickets eating their grain and other crops, the Mormons engaged in a “three-day fast and prayer” (Cunningham 2017), after which white gulls filled the skies and began eating the crickets, taking time periodically to disgorge themselves before eating still more. As early as 1853, Apostle Orson Hyde, who had apparently been in Europe in 1858, reported, “The hand of Providence prepared agents, and sent them to destroy the destroyer; a circumstance that was rare, one that was never known to exist before, and never since to any extent” (Cunningham 2017).

The story, which has apparently expanded in its retelling, and is sometimes also tied to the destruction of insects by strong winds, was commemorated by the dedication of a seagull monument. It features two bronze seagulls atop a column decorated at its base with bronze tablets, and was sculpted by Mahonri Young of Utah and placed on the grounds of the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1913. It reads:

SEAGULL MONUMENTERECTED IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCEOF THE MERCY OF GODTO THE MORMON PIONEERS (Madsen and Madsen 1987, 174).

In 1955, the Utah Legislature designated the seagull as its state bird.Some modern scholars have questioned whether the plague of crickets would have been as catastrophic as it

has subsequently been portrayed to be. They point out that many Native Americans regularly harvested these crickets, or katydids, which were quite high in protein, by driving them into large pits where they were cooked (Cunningham 2017; Madsen and Madsen 1987). Moreover, the reported disgorging of the insects was not the rejection of the meaty portions of the insects but of those parts like the legs that were indigestible and that humans would typically also remove before eating the meaty core.

The story of the seagulls and crickets is sometimes tied to yet another story from Provo, Utah, that took place in July 1855. This story recounts how after having so many of their crops devastated by insects, the people prayed and found a “honey dew” on the leaves of trees, which the people harvested and processed into sugar. It resembles the story of Jews receiving manna in the wilderness after they escaped from Egypt. Like the earlier miracle, it is possible to provide a naturalistic explanation, since trees attacked by aphids sometimes lead to similar results, although, as an LDS publication emphasizes, “the fact that the Lord may work through natural means does not diminish the miraculous nature of the experience of these faithful Saints” (“The Grasshopper War ...”).

See alsoChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) Temple Dedications; Petitionary Prayer

FOR REFERENCECunningham, Ryan. 2017. “A Seagull Story: Why a bug-eating trash bird makes Utah proud.” Salt Lake

City Weekly. Feb. 15. https://www.cityweekly.net/utah/a-seagull-story/Content?oid=3613991; “The Grasshop-per War of 1855 and the Provo Sugar Miracle.” 1986. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. February. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1986/02/discovery/the-grasshopper-war-of-1855-and-the-provo-sugar-miracle?lang=eng; Madsen, David B., and Brigham D. Madsen. 1987. “One Man’s Meat is Another Man’s Poison: A Revisionist View of the Seagull ‘Miracle.’” Nevada Historical Society Quar-terly 30 (Fall): 165-181.

See You at the Pole (SYATP) EventsSince its decision in Engel v. Vitale in 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently struck down the

practice of public prayer in public school classrooms on the ground that this violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment as applied to the states by the due-process clause of the 14th Amendment. In Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98 (2001), however, the Court also ruled that public schools that created a limited public forum could not bar meetings on public school grounds by groups, including those desiring to teach the Bible or engaging in other religious activities, as long as the schools were not acting as the official sponsors.

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Even before this decision, students have gathered since 1990 at school flagpoles in See You at the Pole (SYATP) events on the fourth Wednesday in September to pray together. Consistent with judicial precedents, such events at public schools must be voluntary and avoid official school sponsorship.

See alsoEngel v. Vitale; Prayer and Bible Reading in Public Schools

REFERENCESNational Legal Foundation. 2018. “See You at the Pole: Your Right to Participate.” Feb. 7. https://national-

legalfoundation.org/issue-resources/elementary-students-and-teachers-right-to-participate-in-see-you-at-the-pole/

Serenity PrayerThe Serenity Prayer is one of America’s best-loved and most-repeated prayers. It was written and first delivered

as a prayer at an interfaith church service in Heath, Mass., by Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), a Lutheran pastor and theologian who published widely and taught for many years at Union Theological Seminary.

Educated at Elmhurst College, Eden Theological Seminary, and Yale University, Niebuhr was a theological liberal who was deeply influenced by the Social Gospel movement and identified himself for a time as a socialist. As he described in The Nature and Destiny of Man, however, he came to believe that the liberal belief in the perfectibility of human nature was flawed and that greater attention needed to be paid to the insights of such theologians as St. Augustine and John Calvin as to the role that sin and selfishness played in human behavior. He opposed both communism and Nazism, and was especially repulsed by anti-Semitism. He was generally known for his political realism. In one book, Moral Man and Immoral Society, Niebuhr further emphasized how individuals acting in groups often behaved more immorally than they did as individuals. Partly in reaction to what he considered to be the over-optimism of The Christian Century magazine, Niebuhr founded the magazine Christianity and Crisis.

Niebuhr’s original prayer was composed of only seven lines and, like the Lord’s Prayer, was phrased in the first person plural. He never copyrighted the prayer, which has subsequently been adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous, which has added additional verses. The original prayer is as follows:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. (Sifton 2003, 7)

It is common to see versions of the prayer where the last two lines say “and the wisdom to know the differ-ence.” Niebuhr’s daughter, Elisabeth Sifton, notes that the version by Alcoholics Anonymous “omits the spiritually correct but difficult idea of praying for grace to accept with serenity that which we cannot change, and focuses instead on the simpler notion of obtaining serenity to accept what cannot be changed” (Sifton 2003, 292). Although her father did not “fuss” about this change, she observed that he would have understood that “just because something can be changed doesn’t mean that it must be!” (Sifton 2003, 293).

An Episcopal priest and family friend, Howard Chandler Robbins, subsequently suggested that the prayer might be useful to chaplains, and it was widely distributed in the Book of Prayer and Services for the Armed Forces, Prepared by the Commission on Worship of the FCCC and the Christian Commission for Camp and Defense. Perhaps to Niebuhr’s chagrin, the prayer was later so sentimentalized that it was even used on Hallmark cards (Sifton 2003, 294).

Niebuhr’s daughter observed that the prayer embodies sentiments similar to those that Harry Emerson Fosdick, the preacher at New York’s famed Riverside Church, composed for its dedicatory service known as “God of grace and God of glory.” The closing lines of both verses call upon God to “Grant us wisdom, grant us courage” (Sifton 2003, 175). Niebuhr, whose picture was once featured on the cover of Time, has been credit-ed with influencing such diverse individuals as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama and modern neoconservatives who supported the invasions of Iraq (Stevenson 2007).

See alsoFosdick, Harry Emerson; King, Martin Luther Jr; Rauschenbusch, Walter

FOR REFERENCESifton, Elisabeth. 2003. The Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in Times of Peace and War. New York: W.W.

Norton & Co; Stevenson, Greg. 2007. “A Man for All Reasons.” The Atlantic. November. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine.archive/2007/11/a-man-for-all-reasons/306337/

Sherwood, Diane, Prayer After Terrorist AttacksChristians typically pray in Jesus’s name. Catholics may further invoke Mary or other saints in their prayers.

Those who pray at interfaith events may choose either to pray using the typical terminology of their faith tradition or attempt more inclusive prayers.

A prayer that Dr. Diane Sherwood, who was the director of youth, InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, gave at a “walk for unity” at the Pentagon shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is a good example of the latter type of prayer. It is as follows: “Holy One, Great Mystery, known by a thousand names. We gather in sorrow, grieving for our dead and those who are injured. We open ourselves to deep healing courage and wisdom. We are Muslims and Sikhs, Catholics, Protestants and Jews, Hindus and Jains, Mormons and Buddhists and those who walk many different paths to truth. Our hearts are full of compassion as we pray with real humility. God Bless America” (Sherwood 2001; Moore 2005, 452 includes a somewhat more expanded version).

Although clearly intended to be ecumenical in spirit, the prayer’s reference to the “Holy one” seems distinct-ly monotheistic. Moreover, Mormons might question why Sherwood has singled them out from other Protes-tants, while agnostics and atheists might question the value of prayer altogether or feel omitted.

See alsoEcumenical Prayers; In Jesus’s Name; Pluralism

FOR REFERENCEMoore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleda;

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Sherwood, Diane. 2001. “America At War: Unity Among Youths.” The Washington Post. Oct. 8. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/01/nation/attack_sherwood1008.htm

Sikh, First to Pray in CongressOne way for members of Congress to provide recognition for members of minority religions that compose

their constituents is to invite one of their leaders to pray before Congress. The first such recognition of a member of the Sikh religion went to Giani Sukhvinder Singh, of the Gurdwara Philadelphia Sikh Society in Upper Darby, Pa. He was invited to pray before the U.S. Senate by Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania on Oct. 16, 2019, in a year that marked the 500th birthday of Guru Nanak, the founder of the movement in the nation now known as Pakistan. The Sikhs have about 30 million adherents, approximately 700,000 of whom are in the United States, and some members planned an interfaith event for later in the day.

Singh, like most male Sikhs, wore a full beard and a turban. Americans often confuse them with Muslims. Perhaps in this mistaken belief, in August 2012, a gunman killed six people at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wis., just south of Milwaukee (Yaccino, Schwirtz, and Santora 2012). After Singh prayed, Sen. Toomey explained that Nanak’s chief teachings were “that there is only one God, that people need not go through an intermediary, such as a priest, to access the one God, and that all people are created equal.” He further noted that Nanak “preached that his followers should meditate and remember God, that they should earn an honest living, and that they should share with those who are less fortunate than themselves” (Congressional Record, Oct. 16, 2019, Senate, S5805). Singh addressed God as the “One, Universal Creator God.” He asked that God would “Keep Your Divine Hand over the members of the Senate ... keep truth in our hearts, and sound judgment in our minds. Remind us of our purpose to love and serve one another and create a more peaceful world.” He further prayed that the senators would govern with “humility and courage, integrity and compas-sion.” He referred to “the entire human race as one” and asked God’s protection “over our Nation’s protectors.” He ended with, “In the name of Nanak, find everlasting optimism. With Your will, Almighty God, may there be welfare of all of humanity. Amen” (CR 2019, S5805).

See alsoPluralism

FOR REFERENCESingh, Giani Sukhvinder. Oct. 16, 2019. “Prayer.” Congressional Record. 116th Congress, First Session. U.S.

Senate. 165: S5805; Toomey, Patrick J. Oct. 16, 2019. “550th Birthday of Guru Nanak.” Congressional Record. 116th Congress. First Session. U.S. Senate 165:S805; Yaccino, Steven, Michael Schwirtz, and Marc Santora. 2012. “Gunman Kills 6 at a Sikh Temple Near Milwaukee. The New York Times. Aug. 5. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/us/shooting-reported-at-temple-in-wisconsin.html

Sinner’s PrayerPeople of faith have long included prayers for revival and the salvation of others in their prayers (Kidd 2007).

The sinner’s prayer is one of the most commonly known prayers in America, especially among fundamental and evangelical Christians. It has been the subject of numerous tracts and is often read for sinners to pray to convert during large revival meetings.

The prayer is intended as either a means or a sign of conversion. Although the prayer varies, one scholar has observed that it typically contains four elements: “(1) it begins with an emotive and personal statement addressed directly to the Christian deity; (2) the sinner confesses that he/she is imperfect; (3) the sinner professes specific belief in the miracle of Christ’s resurrection from the dead; and (4) the sinner performative-ly gives his/her life, soul, or heart to Jesus” (Howard 2005, 179). Sometimes the prayer is taken, or modeled, directly from Scripture. The words from Jesus’s description of the prayer of the tax collector in Luke 18:13—

“God be merciful to me a sinner”—the words of the thief on the cross with Jesus from Luke 23:42—“Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom”—and “prayers of repentance from the Psalms” are especially popular (Muller 2017, 38).

Professor Lincoln A. Mullen of George Mason University believes that the prominence of the prayer emerged during the revivals of the 1830s and 1840s led by Charles Finney (1792-1875) as churches began increasingly to stress the need for even those who had been educated in Christian doctrine to give their personal acknowledgement of this faith. He further observes, “Prayer went from being the preparation for faith to being the act of faith itself ” (Mullen 2017, 42). Those who uttered the prayer often reported being relieved of the doubts they had previously held about their salvation. Theologically, the prayer suggested that the process of conversion was instantaneous rather than gradual (Mullen 2017, 53). Many Sunday-school curricula and other religious materials were specifically aimed toward directing children toward conversion through such a prayer.

A study by Robert Glenn Howard published in 2005 noted that numerous versions of the prayer were found on websites, including some suggesting that the prayer was not only a means of achieving salvation but also of testifying of this faith to others. He thus cites one website that encourages readers to “Take the Sinner’s Prayer right now! Or accept Jesus as your Savior once again!” (2005, 182).

See alsoPrayer Meeting Revivals

REFERENCESHoward, Robert Glenn. 2005. “A Theory of Vernacular Rhetoric: The Case of the ‘Sinner’s Prayer’ Online.”

Folklore 116 (August): 172-188; Kidd, Thomas S. 2007. The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christi-anity in Colonial America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; Mullen, Lincoln A. 2017. The Chance of Salvation: A History of Conversion in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. See especially “Protestant Converts and the Sinner’s Prayer,” pp. 23-63.

Smith, BaileyDr. Bailey Smith (1939-2010) was the youngest man ever to serve as president of the Southern Baptist

Convention, which is the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. Smith’s election in 1980 reflected a resurgence of conservative influence initiated by Judge Paul Pressler of Houston and Paige Patterson, the president of the Criswell Center for Biblical Studies in Dallas (Borchert 2002, 188).

Smith and his allies usually phrased the divisions within the Southern Baptist faith as arising over whether Scriptures were, as they believed, inerrant (without error, at least in its original autographs) or subject to more liberal interpretations. Southern Baptists who identified themselves as moderates thought the real issue was

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that of the autonomy of believers, traditionally described as “the priesthood of all believers” (Borchert 2002, 191-192).

Smith’s presidency of the convention was probably best known for a controversial statement he made on Aug. 22, 1980, at a Religious Roundtable National Affairs Briefing in Dallas. There, in what appears to have been a spontaneous remark, he said:

“It’s interesting to me at great political battles how you have a Protestant to pray and a Catholic to pray and then you have a Jew to pray. With all due respect to those dear people, my friend, God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew. For how in the world can God hear the prayer of a man who says that Jesus Christ is not the true Messiah? It is blasphemy. It may be politically expedient, but no one can pray unless he prays through the name of Jesus Christ” (Kaylor 2019).

This comment drew considerable comment, much of it negative. Glenn Hinson, a professor of church history at Southern Theological Seminary, wrote “An Open Letter to Bailey Smith” linking similar comments to the Jewish Holocaust. Mike Smith, the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Murfreesboro, Tenn., who later coauthored a book with Rabbi Rami Shapiro, pointed out that Jesus was himself a 1st century Jew, as were his early followers, and “Certainly, God heard their prayers” (Kaylor 2010).

President Ronald Reagan observed that “Since both the Christian and Judaic religions are based on the same God, the God of Moses, I’m quite sure those prayers are heard. But I guess everyone can make his own interpretation of the Bible, and many individuals have been making different interpretations for a long time” (Kaylor 2010).

Although Smith never disavowed his statement, he did classify it as “an unfortunate remark.” He sought to justify it not as an expression of anti-Semitism, but as his interpretation of Jesus’s words in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (Allen 2019).

See also Ecumenical Prayers; Pluralism

FOR REFERENCEAllen, Bob. 2019. “SBC president who said God hears only Christian prayers dead at 79.” Baptistnews.com.

https://baptistnews.com/article/sbc-president-who-said-god-hears-only-christian-prayers-deat-at-79/#.Xm1D4nJKiUk; Borchert, Mark G. 2002. “The Southern Baptist Controversy and the Press.” Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media: Explorations in Media, Religion, and Culture, ed. Steward M. Hoover and Lynn Schofield Clark. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 188-200; Kaylor, Brian. 2010. “Anniversary of Bai-ley Smith’s Harmful Moment in Baptist-Jewish Relations.” Ethicsdaily.com. Aug. 23. https://ethicsdaily.com/anniversary-of-bailey-smiths-harmful-moment-in-baptist-jewish-relations-cms-16564/

Smoot, ReedAlthough chaplains, or visiting clerics, deliver prayers at the beginning of most congressional sessions, the

House and Senate floors are not typically places for public prayer. Sen. Reed Smoot (1862-1941) of Utah proved an exception to this rule when, as the U.S. Senate was

debating whether to approve President Woodrow Wilson’s call for a declaration of war against Germany on April 6, 1917, he rose to give what was anticipated to be a speech on the subject. Instead, according to a letter

he sent to the leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Joseph F. Smith, the following day, he offered the following prayer: “Mr. President, I rise to make this simple but earnest appeal: God bless and approve the action to be taken by the Senate this day. Oh father, preserve our Government and hasten the day when liberty will be enjoyed by all the people of the earth” (Merrill, 1950, 198).

Smoot was a unique and powerful senator who was also designated as an apostle of the LDS Church, which, even after it had repudiated the practice of polygamy, was often suspect. Indeed, the Senate had held extended hearings before deciding to seat Smoot, who it was feared might put the interests of his church over those of the nation (Smith 2009). As it turns out, Smoot was as well known for his “conservative capitalist views” as for his religious convictions (Merrill 1950, 197), which were, however, well respected. Noting that many senators would “have had ‘tongue in cheek’ if they had uttered these simple and moving words,” one writer had ob-served that Smoot “believed that the God of the universe was observing the Senate action, and that He was tremendously concerned about the preservation of the American Government, and that He was interested in the progress of liberty in the world. Of course, Reed Smoot, Republican politician, held the same views on this subject as Apostle Reed Smoot, but the definite religious element in this prayer turned the balance to the Apostle” (Merrill 1950, 198). In a letter to Joseph F. Smith dated April 7, 1917, Smoot reported that “I do not believe there has ever been a statement made to the Senate that had such an effect as the prayer had upon not only the senators, but everyone in the galleries” and that the vice president had invited him to lunch and congratulated him (Merrill 1950, 199). Professor Maryann Synder-Korber has identified this prayer as a

“Mormon Moment” in American politics (2018).Subsequent members of the LDS Church who have been invited to offer opening prayers in the U.S. Senate

are LDS Presidents George Albert Smith and Spencer W. Kimball, who prayed respectively on May 20, 1947, and Sept. 11, 1974. Elder D. Todd Christofferson, one of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, was also invited to pray on Dec. 7, 2016, as part of the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (Walch 2016).

See alsoCongress, Chaplains; Seagulls, Crickets, and Mormon History

FOR REFERENCEMerrill, Milton R. 1950. Reed Smoot, Apostle in Politics. Dissertation submitted for doctor of philosophy

in political science at Columbia University. September; Smith, Konden R. 2009. “The Reed Smoot Hearings and the Theology of Politics: Perceiving an ‘American’ identity.” Journal of Mormon History 33 (Summer): 118-162; Synder-Korber, Maryann. 2018. American Studies Journal. www.asjournal.org/65-2018/reed-smoots-prayer-and-the-mormon-moment-of-us-american-politics/; Walch, Tad. 2016. “Elder Christofferson prays in U.S. Senate, speaks at Library of Congress about Book of Mormon’s legacy.” Deseret News. Dec. 7. https://www.deseret.com/2016/12/7/20601924/elder-christofferson-prays-in-u-s-senate-speaks-at-library-of-con-gress-about-book-of-mormon-s-legacy#...

SportsSports stadiums often dominate city skylines once chiefly known for church spires or capitol buildings. They

also often dominate the landscapes of college campuses. Many sports fans embrace their teams with the same passion that religious adherents embrace their churches.

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In a chapter on Notre Dame University in Indiana, Margaret Grubiak observes that “To experience a Notre Dame football game is to make a pilgrimage to the stadium, attend a pregame mass, engage in tailgating fellowship, cheer with religious fervor, and pray for the success of a Hail Mary pass [one that is so sensational that it appears miraculous]” (Grubiak 2020, 15l). In a play on the doctrine of the “immaculate conception,” the idea that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virgin when she conceived Jesus, sportswriters and commenta-tors sometimes also refer to “immaculate reception,” which is particularly associated with an interception that resulted in a winning touchdown in a 1972 game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders.

Notre Dame is, of course, a highly respected Roman Catholic University, with avid sports fans throughout the nation who support the “Fighting Irish.” The campus may be best known for a huge mural, “The Word of Life,” which is on the side of its 13-story library and is visible from the football stadium. It portrays a gigantic picture of Christ radiating light against the background of a cross with 50-some figures of apostles, philoso-phers, and theologians below him and with Christ’s arms raised toward heaven.

Although those who commissioned the mural on a library meant to symbolize the importance of scholar-ship on the campus and the desire to transform Notre Dame into a major research university, from the view of the football field Christ appears much like a referee signaling a touchdown, and fans have accordingly designated him as “Touchdown Jesus.” Describing the mural as “an invitation and aid to prayer in this foot-ball-centered landscape of belief,” fans “‘have been known to implore the heavens for a victory for the Fight-ing Irish,” reciting the “‘Our Father’ and ‘Hail Mary’ as an appeal for Jesus to intercede on the field”; fans have also referred to the mural “as ‘the world’s largest holy card, an object of material religion more commonly the size of a playing card with images of Jesus and the saints used to focus religious devotion and memorialize the deceased” (Grubiak 2020, 21).

Although the Catholic Rev. Richard P. McBrien, a former chair of the theology department at Notre Dame, says such prayers are “all part of the Notre Dame myth,” and were fine “as long as these things aren’t taken seriously,” theologians generally agree that God should not be asked to intervene in sports events, other perhaps than in prayers for the safety and good sportsmanship of the players (Grubiak 2020, 24; Daly 2020). Prayers would appear particularly dicey when rival teams both have players who are believers, and might even be from universities within the same faith. Moreover, in addition to Protestant concerns about religious imagery, one might well question whether believers should ever consider prayer other than in a serious fashion.

It is common for players to point to heaven or kneel in prayer after a winning touchdown or to attribute their athletic successes to God, although some regard the former displays as exhibiting pride rather than reverence (Grubiak 2020, 24). In her essay, “Prayer Out of Bounds,” Shirl Hoffman observes that “prayers enacted as propaganda, whether to self-identify as a Christian athlete on the athletic field or to register opposition to abortion on the courthouse steps, too easily become victims of their ulterior motives” (2011, 48).

The U.S. Supreme Court limited public prayers at public school games in Santa Fe School District v. Doe (2000), and a lower court considered displays of prayer by a coach of a public school team to be inappropriate in the case of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2019), which the Supreme Court has decided to review.

The most common way of solemnizing public sports activities has not been through prayer but through the playing of the National Anthem. Even though this is largely considered to be a secular rather than a religious activity, recent years have seen controversies over decisions by some players to take a knee, typically in protest of police brutality against African-Americans, rather than stand during the playing of the anthem (Vile 2021).

Long before such protests, it was common for players on both college and professional teams to huddle in prayer before games. A statue of “The Christian Student” by Daniel Chester French on the campus

of Princeton University depicts Earl Dodge, who was the football captain for the class of 1879 (Putz 2018). The team of Centre College in Danville, Ky., was known as the “Praying Colonels.” As evangelical Christians increasingly put their faith front and center at sports events, organizations like the Pro Athletes Outreach and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes promoted prayer at games, and stars like quarterback Tim Tebow became known for kneeling in prayer to celebrate important plays (Putz 2018). Ironically, in 2018, in a mistake for which it later apologized, Fox News broadcast video of the Philadelphia Eagles kneeling in prayer in the mistaken notion that they were protesting police brutality rather than praying (Putz 2018).

Some sports events continue to open in prayer and often reflect the “militant masculinity” that has been increasingly characteristic in some American evangelical circles (Du Mez 2020, 187). Pastor Joe Nelms of the Family Baptist Church in Lebanon, Tenn., garnered audience applause and considerable outside criticism when at a National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) event in Nashville he interspersed his prayers with thanksgiving for various auto and tire makers, he added “Lord, I want to thank you for my smokin’ hot wife tonight, Lisa, and my two children, Eli and Emma, or as we like to call ‘The Little E’s’,” and ended, after invoking Jesus’s name, in imitation of broadcaster Darrell Waltrip’s introduction to each race, with “boogity boogity boogity, Amen” (Hoffman 2011). The prayer was largely patterned on the prayer of Ricky Bobby in the movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, in which Will Ferrell, playing Rickey Bobby, also thanked God for various sponsors, his own “red-hot smoking wife” and his sons “Walker and Texas Ranger.” Nelms’ prayer reminded some of the prayer by Richard Bailar of the United Church of Christ who at a Cincinnati Bengals-Miami Dolphins football game in 1974 addressed God as “Father and Mother of us all” and asked the Deity or protect the “gentle dolphins” from the “voracious beasts of prey” and limit

“the obfuscations of [sportscaster Howard] Cosell’s acidulous tongue, so that he may describe this night truly and grammatically as it is” (Hoffman 2011).

See alsoKennedy v. Bremerton; Santa Fe School District v. Doe; Taking a Knee

FOR REFERENCEBlazer, Annie. 2015. Playing for God: Evangelical Women and the Unintended Consequences of Sports Ministry.

New York University Press; Butterworth, Michael L. 2005. “Ritual in the ‘Church of Baseball’: Suppressing the Discourse of Democracy after 9/11.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 2 ( June): 107-129; Daly, Jim. 2020. “Should you pray for your team to win?” Fox News. Feb. 1. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/pray-for-your-team-to-win-jim-daly; Du Mez, Kristin Kobes. 2020. Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evan-gelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. New York: Liveright Publishing Corp; Eden, Scott. 2005. Touchdown Jesus: Faith and Fandom at Notre Dame. New York: Simon & Schuster; Forney, Craig A. 2007. The Holy Trinity of American Sports: Civil Religion in Football, Baseball, and Basketball. Macon, GA: Mercer Uni-versity Press; Grubiak, Margaret M. 2020. Landscapes of Faith and Doubt in America. Charlottesville: Universi-ty of Virginia Press; Hoffman, Shirl. 2011. “Prayer Out of Bounds.” Theology, Ethics and Transcendence in Sports. Ed. by Jim Parry, Mark Nesti, and Nick Watson. New York: Routledge, pp. 33-63; Hoffman, Shirl James. 2011. “Joe Nelms’ Prayer Perfect for NASCAR Event.” Huffpost. July 26. Updated Dec. 6, 2017. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-nelms-nascar-prayer_b_909747; Putz, Paul. 2018. “Football and the Political Act of Prayer.” Religion and Politics. Aug. 28. https://religionandpolitics.org/2018/08/28/football-and-the-political-act-of-prayer/; Vile, John R. 2021. America’s National Anthem: “The Star-spangled Banner” in U.S. History, Culture, and Law. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

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State Legislative PrayersIn Marsh v. Chambers (1983), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the practice whereby the Nebraska Legisla-

ture paid a Presbyterian minister to begin each legislative day with prayer, while noting that “there is no indication that the prayer opportunity has been exploited to proselytize or advance any one or disparage any other, faith or belief ” (Marsh v. Chambers 1983, 794-795). Although such a procedure would likely have failed the Lemon test, articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), whereby the Court required that legislation chal-lenged for establishment-clause violations must have a clear secular purpose, must neither advance nor inhibit religion, and must avoid excessive entanglement between church and state, the Court chose to accept the Nebraska practice on the basis of its long-established history. The Court focused chiefly on national prece-dents dating to the First Continental Congress, and including the First U.S. Congress that had proposed the Bill of Rights, but it also cited the practice of offering prayers in state legislatures and state constitutional conventions. The U.S. Supreme Court used this precedent to dismiss a case challenging the chaplaincy in the U.S. House of Representatives in Newdow v. Eagen in 2004.

In a subsequent decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014), the Court used similar reasoning to uphold the practice of beginning town meetings with prayer. However, U.S. circuit courts have subsequently split on the issue of whether this case should apply to county commission meetings, and, over the dissent of two justices, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in a case that might have resolved the issue, Rowan County v. Lund (2018). With the exception of a period in the 1850s, when congressmen were apparently concerned that chaplaincies might go to Roman Catholic priests, who they feared might be beholden to Rome (Lund 2009, 1187-1193), both houses of Congress have a fairly long history of paid chaplains. Despite the decision in Marsh v. Chambers, however, the practice in state legislatures appears much spottier. Some have dispensed with opening prayers, some have hired chaplains, some have allowed members to pray, and still others have drawn from different members of the local clergy. Even in the U.S. Congress, which employs chaplains, outside clerics are sometimes invited to pray.

A study of the Illinois Legislature by Professor John Zimmermann reports that the Legislature invited members of the clergy to pray before most sessions as well as at the 1818 and 1847-1848 constitutional conventions (Zimmerman 1992). As might be expected, these were generally members of larger Protestant denominations. Of 34 clerics who can be identified as offering such prayers from 1818 to 1860, “there were seventeen Methodists, seven Presbyterians, five Baptists, three Episcopalians, and one each for Methodist Protestants, Universalists, Campbellites [Church of Christ] and Roman Catholics” (Zimmermann 1992, 214-215). Indeed, although it was not adopted, in 1842 one legislature specifically proposed excluding Mor-mons from such a task (Zimmermann 1992, 216). In one fascinating development in 1850, after Congress had voted to strengthen the Fugitive Slave Clause, the Illinois Legislature actually invited pastor John Mason Peck to preach a sermon “showing that the obligations of American citizens to obey the Constitution and laws of our National Government do not conflict with any ‘higher law’ in the Sacred Scriptures” (Zimmerman 1992, 220).

A summary of other early state practices indicates that the Pennsylvania Legislature has never hired a chaplain, that Virginia abolished the position in 1803, reinstituted it, and abolished it again for a time; and that Tennessee and Ohio did not have chaplains in their early history, but that the practice was common in New England “and in some of the middle and Western States” (Kabala 2009, 91-92). Legislatures that did employ them sometimes encountered problems. Thus, after New Hampshire’s chaplain used his first prayer in 1798 to praise France while refusing to pray for President John Adams or the Congress, the Legislature fired

him (Kabala 2009, 92). Vermont legislators stirred controversy when in 1824 they chose a Universalist minis-ter, and New York legislators encountered opposition to bringing in clerics from Albany during the controver-sy over Sunday mail deliveries and fears of union between church and state, but eventually resumed the practice (Kabala 2009, 92). Kentucky restored prayer to its sessions in 1843, Ohio and Tennessee in 1845, Pennsylvania in 1837, and New York in 1844, while Georgia decided against appointing chaplains in 1853 (Kabala 2009, 100-101). Most such states accepted the notion of “nonsectarian Christianity” and “rejected the complete disentanglement of church and state” that some opponents of legislative prayer had advocated (Kabala 2009, 101). As of 2018, 19 state legislatures had appointed designated chaplains, while most others used visiting clerics (Murphy 2018). The National Conference of State Legislators reported that 50 U.S. states and territories offer daily prayers in one or both houses of their legislatures (Ayesh 2019).

Although paying chaplains from public monies might be considered a greater violation of the establishment clause than using visiting clerics, prayers by legislative members and by visitors, especially those from non-Christian denominations, have generally proven far more controversial in recent years. In 1996, an outside cleric, the Rev. Joe Wright of the Central Christian Church of Wichita, stirred controversy with a very politicized prayer that he offered before the Kansas Legislature. Although a prayer by a Hindu cleric before Congress in 2000 was without incident, a subsequent prayer by Rajan Zed in 2007 was interrupted by protesters because Zed was praying to what they considered to be false gods. Arizona ministers called upon a Baptist minister to pray when a visiting atheist didn’t pray to God, and there was controversy in Oklahoma in 2018 when the person in charge of prayers tried to exclude a local Muslim imam (Murphy 2018). In 2019, Stephanie Borowicz, a Pennsylvania legislator, soaked her prayers with references to Jesus on a day that the first Muslim representative was being seated. In 2020 Lee Moquino, a Native American, was disinvited from delivering a prayer to the New Mexico Senate after he offered a prayer before the state House accusing its members of being in “occupied indigenous space” and questioning other state policies (Chacon 2020).

It seems clear that legislators typically desire prayers that remind them of their duty to pursue the common good and that are more likely to unite than to divide members, while at the same time recognizing that inviting members of minority religions to pray is a way both of demonstrating religious freedom and celebrat-ing diversity. Members might also desire to have chaplains, such as those in Congress, who are expected not only to lead in prayer but also to minister to the spiritual needs of the legislators.

See also Borowicz, Stephanie, Prayer in Pennsylvania Legislature; Congress, Chaplains; Hindu Legislative Prayers;

Marsh v. Chambers; Native American Legislative Prayers; Rowan County v. Lund; Town of Greece v. Galloway; Wright, Joe, Prayer in Kansas Legislature

FOR REFERENCEAyesh, Rashaan. 2019. “NC legislature starts its day with prayer. Will more diverse members change who

they pray to?” The News & Observer, Raleigh. Originally published on Jan. 29; updated on Feb. 5. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article224920215.html; Chacon, Daniel J. 2020. “Native Activist whose prayer sparked ire in the House is disinvited from Senate.” Santa Fe New Mexican. Feb. 3. https://nmpoliticalreport.com/2020/02/03/native-activist-whose-prayer-sparked-ire-in-the-house-is-disin-vited-from-senate/; Kabala, James S. 2009. “‘Theocrats’ vs. ‘Infidels’: Marginalized Worldviews and Legislative Prayer in 1830s New York. Journal of Church and State 51, 1: 78-101; Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971); Lund, Christopher C. 2009. “The Congressional Chaplaincies,” William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal 17:

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1171-1214; Mallory, Jeremy G. 2004. If There Be a God Who Hears Prayer: An Ethical Account of the United States Chaplain. Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in Divinity. University of Chicago; Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983); Murphy, Sean. 2018. “Legislative prayers spark controversy, changes in Oklahoma.” Associated Press. March 7. https://apnews.com/0961b00ca79a4b739bf50b8ea4ef4f17/Legisla-tive-prayers-spark-controversy,-changes-in-Oklahoma; Newdow v. Eagen, 309 F. Supp. 2d 29 (D.D.C. 2004); Rowan County v. Lund, 138 S. Ct. 2564 (2018) ( Justice dissenting from denial of certiorari); Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565 (2014); West, Chad. 2019. “Legislative Prayer: Historical Tradition and Contempo-rary Issues.” Utah Law Review Vol. 2019, No. 3: 709-734; Zimmerman, John Herbert. 1992. Church-State Relations in Ante-Bellum Illinois. Dissertation submitted to Graduate School of Loyola University of Chicago for doctor of philosophy degree.

Stewart, Maria W.Maria W. Stewart (1803-1879) was an African-American woman who was born free in Hartford, Conn.,

but became a servant to a minister’s family when she was orphaned at age five. She got what little education she had from the family with whom she stayed and by attending Sunday school. She married in 1826, but her husband died in 1829. Even though he had served in the War of 1812, she faced difficulties getting the pension to which she was entitled.

Transformed by a conversion experience in 1830, Stewart was also influenced by the abolitionist David Walker. She was likely the first African-American woman ever to address a group composed of both men and women. In 1832 she wrote a series of Meditations, which were originally published by the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) and republished in 1879.

These meditations include a number of prayers, which, like her speeches, are suffused with biblical language, albeit without specific Scripture references or quotations. Professor Katherine Clay Bassard has suggested that

“her use of the Bible as a primary source for her writings is part of her prophetic persona and cultural perfor-mance” (2010, 51).

In the preface where she briefly described her life, Stewart identified herself with the hope for liberty: “All the nations of the earth are crying out for liberty and equality. Away, away with tyranny and oppression: And shall Afric’s sons be silent any longer? Far be it from me to recommend to you either to kill, burn, or destroy. But I would strongly recommend to you to improve your talents; let not one lie buried in the earth. Show forth your powers of mind. Prove to the world that

Though black your skins as shades of night,Your hearts are pure, your souls are white.” (Stewart 1879, 4).

She expressed similar sentiments in one of her essays: “This is the land of freedom. The press is at liberty. Every man has a right to express his opinion. Many think, because your skins are tinged with a sable hue that you are an inferior race of beings; but God does not consider you as such. He hath formed and fashioned you in His own glorious image, and hath bestowed upon you reason and strong powers of intellect” (Stewart 1879, 24).

In sentiments similar to those later echoed by Booker T. Washington and the modern Prosperity Gospel, Stewart constantly upbraided fellow African-Americans and exhorted them to better themselves. She thus observed that “my heart’s desire and prayer is that Ethiopia might stretch for her hands unto God. But we have a great work to do. Never; no, never will the chains of slavery and ignorance burst till we become united

as one and cultivate among ourselves the pure principles of piety, morality, and virtue” (Steward 1879, 25). In one of her prayers, Stewart, drawing from the biblical book of Ezekiel, implores: “Raise up sons and

daughters unto Abraham, and grant that there might come a mighty shaking of dry bones among us and a great ingathering of souls” (Stewart 1879, 28). She continued: “Have mercy on the benighted sons and daughters of Africa. Grant that we may soon become so distinguished for our moral and religious improve-ments, that the nations of the earth may take knowledge of us; and grant that our cries may come up before thy throne like holy incense. Grant that every daughter of Africa may consecrate her sons to thee from the birth ... and do grant that Ethiopia may soon stretch forth her hands unto thee” (Stewart 1873, 28). Although her primary interest was with discrimination based on race, she was also concerned about the place of women, asking in one place, “How long shall the fair daughters of Africa be compelled to bury their minds and talents beneath a load of iron pots and kettles?” (Stewart 1873, 32).

Stewart directed many of her prayers to the salvation of souls, as in one prayer where she implored God to “Open their eyes that they may see that they are going down to hell as fast as the wheels of time can carry them” (Stewart 1873, 43). Perhaps in contrast to Harriet Tubman, who once prayed for the death of her master, Stewart prayed: “Forgive my enemies. May I love them that hate me, and pray for them that despite-fully use and persecute me” (Stewart 1873, 50). In that same prayer, she implored: “Grant all prejudices and animosities may cease from among men” (Stewart 1873, 51). In another, she extended her prayer “for all the poor and needy, all widows and fatherless children, and for the stranger in distress” (Stewart 1873, 52).

See alsoEnemies, Prayers for; Tubman, Harriet

FOR REFERENCEBassard, Katherine Clay. 2010. Transforming Scriptures: African American Women Writers and the Bible.

Athens: University of Georgia Press; Cooper, Valerie C. 2011. Word, Like Fire: Maria Stewart, the Bible, and the Rights of African Americans. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press; Stewart, Maria W. 1879. Medita-tions from the pen of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart. Washington: Enterprise Publishing Co.

Stockton, Thomas HewlingsAlthough it is common to note that Edward Everett gave a two-hour speech on the day that Abraham

Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address to dedicate a federal graveyard Gettysburg, Pa., less notice has been given to a notable prayer by the Rev. Thomas Hewlings Stockton (1808-1868) that takes approximately 7½ minutes to read aloud.

Stockton, who was born in Mount Holly, N.J., became a Methodist minister, a poet, and the editor of a periodical called Christian World. Quite remarkably, the U.S. House of Representatives chose him to serve as its chaplain in 1833 when he was only 25 years old, and he was subsequently chosen again in 1835, and in 1861 (“Reverend Thomas Hewlings Stockton”). It was in this latter capacity that Stockton had been asked to deliver the opening prayer at the national cemetery dedication ceremony.

Given that his non-continuous service to Congress had extended over such a long period, Stockton may have had more institutional memory than many of its members. In a sermon delivered to Congress in 1860 in which he had extolled the Bible as a higher law that needed no amendments, Stockton had rattled off a litany of former members who had graced that body, as well as other notable statesmen of his youth (Stockton 1860).

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His prayer at Gettysburg, like his sermon in the House of Representatives, was clearly Christian, beginning with “O God our Father” and mentioning God’s Son and the Holy Spirit in his opening sentence.

Stockton noted the “blended brotherhood of people” at the ceremony representing “all classes, relations, and interests” but all under God’s care. Stockton excelled at lists. He thus observed that he offered his prayer “in emulations of all angels, in fellowship with all saints, and in sympathy with all sufferers.” Praying on “behalf of all humanity, whose ideal is divine, whose first memory in Thine image lost, and whose last hope is Thine image restored,” Stockton said God had especially smiled upon the American nation, “whose history has been so favored, whose position is so peerless, whose mission is so sublime, and whose future is so attractive.”

He took his images of the Gettysburg battlefield from Scripture referring to “this Altar of Sacrifice,” “this Field of Deliverance,” “this Mount of Salvation,” and these “munitions of rock.” Charting the days when the enemies of the Union had grown strong and bold as they invaded Pennsylvania with the hope of casting “the chain of Slavery around the form of Freedom, binding life and death together forever,” Stockton recounted the early part of the battle in which they appeared to prevail. After Union forces took their stand on the hills,

“their enemies recoiled, retired, and disappeared.” Recognizing the great toll this battle had taken on human life, Stockton observed that men from all parts of

the nation had “died for us.” Those dedicating the cemetery came in “the humility of prayer, with the pathetic eloquence of venerable wisdom, with the tender beauty of poetry, with the plaintive harmony of music, with the honest tribute of our Chief Magistrate, and with all this honorable attendance” to ask for God’s blessing. He further observed that “as the trees are not dead, though their foliage is gone, so our heroes are not dead, though their forms have fallen. In their proper personality, they are all with Thee.” Their memory should lead to increased devotion “to liberty, religion and God.” Stockton ended with the Lord’s Prayer.

Henry Clay lauded Stockton for his eloquence and Lincoln reportedly “said he had never heard such an utterance from mortal lips as Stockton’s prayer” (“Reverend Thomas Hewlings Stockton”).

See alsoCongress, Chaplains; Military Language; Providentialism

FOR REFERENCE“Reverend Thomas Hewlings Stockton (1808-1868).” FOMMCI. Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery.

https://www.Friendsofmountmoriahcemetery.org/reverend-thomas-hewlings-stockton-1808-1868/; Stockton, Thomas H. 1863. “Prayer at the Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg by Reverend Thomas H. Stockton, Chaplain of the House of Representatives.” Nov. 19. http://www.pscwrt.org/PDF/Prayer%20Gettysburg%2011191863.pdf; Stockton, Thomas H. 1860. Sermon From the Capitol on The Imperishable and Saving Works of Christ delivered in the Hall of the U.S. House of Representatives, on Sabbath Morning, March 16, 1860. Washington: Lemuel Towers. Posted on Wallbuilders. https://wallbuilders.com/ser-mon-house-representatives-1860/#

Swearing-in Ceremonies for Supreme Court JusticesSupreme Court justices are often called upon to deal with such issues as prayer and Bible reading in public

schools and religious symbols in public displays. The process of swearing in new Supreme Court justices has changed over time. The U.S. president appoints justices and other federal judges with the “advice and consent,”

or approval, of the Senate. After this is secured, justices take two oaths, the constitutional oath and the judicial oath. In early American history it was typical for the chief justice or the senior associate justice to administer the oath to an incoming justice at a private ceremony that typically took place in the Justices’ Consultation Room in the U.S. Capitol Building. A clerk, in turn, administered the judicial oath in open court before the incoming justice took a seat on the bench (“Supreme Court Oaths History and Traditions”).

This procedure was altered when President Franklin D. Roosevelt invited Frank Murphy to take his oath at the White House in 1940, after which the ceremony reverted back to the Court. At the end of the Supreme Court’s session on June 23, 1969, outgoing Chief Justice Earl Warren administered a combined oath to incoming Chief Justice Warren E. Burger. Thereafter, this “investiture” ceremony consisted of the chief justice administering the constitutional oath in the Justices’ Conference room and the judicial oath in the courtroom (“Supreme Court Oaths History and Traditions).

In 1986, however, President Ronald Reagan revived the practice of holding the constitutional oath ceremo-ny in the White House, although this practice is not always followed. In recent years, the judicial oath has been broadcast live from the East Conference Room at the Supreme Court. Justices, like presidents, typically add the words “So help me God” to their oaths.

At the historic swearing in of William Rehnquist as chief justice and Antonin Scalia as associate justice on Sept. 16, 1988, after thanking the president for nominating him, Rehnquist ended his remarks by saying, “And I pray that God will grant me the patience, the wisdom, and the fortitude to worthily follow in the footsteps of my illustrious predecessors in discharging the responsibilities of this high office” (“Remarks at the Swearing-In Ceremony…”). When Chief Justice John Roberts took his constitutional oath at the White House on Sept. 29, 2005, he concluded his remarks by observing, “Over the past ten weeks, many people who I did not know came up to me and offered encouragement and support. Many of them told me that I and my family was in their prayers and in their hopes. I want to thank all of these people. I will need in the months and years ahead that encouragement and those prayers” (“President’s Remarks at Swearing-in Ceremony of Chief Justice Roberts”).

After Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice and took his oath after a very contentious hearing in which he had been accused of sexual assault, a group of professed witches announced that they were gathering at an occult bookstore in Brooklyn, N.Y., to put a hex on him. In response, the Rev. Gary Thomas, a Catholic priest who had been trained in exorcisms, announced that he would be offering special prayers for Kavanaugh at a regularly scheduled Mass. (Kuruvilla 2018).

See alsoPrayer and Bible Reading in Public Schools

FOR REFERENCE.Kuruvilla, Carol. 2018. “Catholic Exorcist Prays For Brett Kavanaugh In Response To Witches’ Planned

Hex.” Oct. 19. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/catholic-exorcist-brett-kavanaugh-witches-hex_n_ 5bca0b45e4b055bc94803fde; “President’s Remarks at Swearing-In Ceremony of Chief Justice Roberts.” Sept. 29, 2005. The White House. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releas-es/2005/09/20050920-3.html; “Remarks at the Swearing-in Ceremony for William H. Rehnquist as Chief Justice and Antonin Scalia as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.” Sept. 26, 1986. Reagan Library. https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/research/speeches/092686a; “Supreme Court Oaths History and Traditions.” https://www.supremecourt/gov/about/oath/oathshistoryandtraditions.aspx

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T

Taking a KneeAs they pray, many people close their eyes and/or fold their hands. Others

lift their hands as if to heaven; some simply sit, stand, or pray silently as they lie down for sleep; some bow often (as in Islam) in a particular direction, and some kneel. The posture of kneeling is generally more associated with liturgical denominations like Roman Catholics and Episcopalians than with Protes-tant denominations, especially those that derived in part from Puritanism.

In modern America, taking a knee is often used by athletes who choose to bend on one knee as others are standing for the playing or singing of the national anthem at the start of games. When such protesters originally sat, they were condemned for being disrespectful, and they accordingly adopted the stance on one knee as a more appropriate response—few were protesting

the flag or the national anthem itself but what they regarded as flaws in the administration of the government that these symbols represented.

On May 25, 2020, a white Minneapolis police officer placed a knee for several minutes on the neck of George Floyd, an African-American who had been arrested for reportedly trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill, and he died as an apparent result. In combination with previous incidents in other cities where white police officers had killed unarmed blacks, this set off both peaceful demonstrations and riots in Minneapolis and many other U.S. cities. As the violence continued to spread, police increasingly encountered participants and were sometime accused of using excessive force in attempting to gain control of situations involving life and property. Many of the police, however, themselves agreed that the Minneapolis officers had acted improperly in dealing with Floyd, and he was convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter. In a number of cities, including Oklahoma City; Des Moines, Iowa; New York City; and Coral Gables, Fla., officers, sometimes at the request of peaceful demonstrators, took a knee in solidarity with the protesters. Many also bowed their heads and a few even offered verbal prayers.

A week after Floyd’s death, his brother Terrence Floyd, arrived at the intersection in Minneapolis where his brother had been killed and knelt in prayer. After chants of “Take a knee!,” about 50 people joined him in prayer. Decrying the violence that was destroying local communities, Terrence urged bystanders to engage in more constructive actions and led a chant of “Peace on the left and justice on the right” (Ross 2020).

These responses by both police officers and family members were widely lauded and tended to placate the demonstrators on a day when President Trump excoriated governors for not making tougher responses. One aspect of community policing in Chicago involved police officers participating in prayer vigils in high-crime neighborhoods (Meares 2002, 1612-1624).

See also Liturgical Versus Spontaneous Prayers; Prayer Vigils; Sports

FOR REFERENCEGruber-Miller, Stephen, and Robin Opsahl. 2020. “‘Take a knee’: Protest at Des Moines police station ends

with officers, protesters kneeling.” Des Moines Register. May 31. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2020/05/31/des-moines-police-take-a-knee-george-floyd-protests-cheers-crowd-dispers-es/5304479002/; Johnson, Alex. 2020. “Some police step out to show support for George Floyd demonstra-tors.” NBC News. June 1. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/many-police-step-out-show-support-george-floyd-demonstrators-n1220731; Meares, Tracey L. 2002. “Praying for Community Policing.” California Law Review 90 (October): 1593-1614; Ross, Jannell. 2020. “‘That’s not going to bring my brother back’: George Floyd’s brother calls for end to violence.” NBC News. June 1. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/s-not-going-bring-my-brother-back-george-floyd-s-n1221306; Waldrop, Theresa. 2020. ”New York police officers kneel with protestors.” CNN. May 31. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/31/us/nypd-officers-kneel-with-protesters-trnd/index.html

TelevisionWatching television remains a primary way for Americans of all ages to become informed and entertained.

A number of religious leaders have established their reputations through television broadcasting, and many have included instruction on prayer. Pastors who focus largely on the Prosperity Gospel are known for in-structing followers to pray for health and wealth, and often promise a variety of blessings to individuals who give to their ministries.

Quite apart from explicit religious instruction, viewers might expect to see their own practices reflected in television shows, and such portrayals might, in turn, influence their own prayer practices. The scholarly consensus is that depictions of prayer on television are far less common than the actuality of prayer in real lives. Margaret Lyons, a television expert, thus observes that prayer is “extremely common in life but compara-tively rare on TV” (Lyons and Poniewozik 2016). She further notes that television often portrays “fringe or particularly extreme religious practice ... because it’s just more interesting than common religious expression” (Lyons and Poniewozik 2016).

A somewhat dated study that examined fictional television programming during a five-week period in 1990 observed that “the infrequent presentation of religion and spirituality tends to symbolically convey the message that religion is not very important because it is rarely a factor in the lives of the people on TV or the social setting in which they are portrayed” (Skill, Robinson, Lyons, and Larson 1994, 251). The part of their study that focused specifically on prayer found that there was about one prayer “for every 63 minutes of prime time programming,” typically including “prayers that come when disasters, both big and small, have been avoided or resolved” (Skill, Robinson, Lyons, and Larson 1994, 262). They did note that “when prayer does occur the valence tends to be positive (69.2%) and rarely negative (4.6%); the behavior is only occasionally central to the storyline (18.5%); and the context favors a serious approach—just under 11% of the occurrences were placed in a humorous frame” (Skill, Robinson, Lyons, and Larson 1994, 262).

Some television programming bucks the trend. The series Blue Bloods, a program on the CBS network that portrays a fictional New York Roman Catholic family, the Reagans, with several police officers among its members, regularly includes depictions of a family meal, which is preceded by a short prayer and family members making the sign of the cross. The Canadian series Murdock Mysteries features a Roman Catholic police detective who crosses himself every time he is called to the scene of a dead body. God Friended Me,

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another CBS show, highlighted the atheist son of an Episcopal bishop who follows instructions from a so-called God Account, who lets him know of individuals in need. In Young Sheldon, the child prodigy often questions the efficacy of religion in general, or prayer in particular.

A number of animated sitcoms, most notably The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy, have routinely presented satirical depictions of American religions. In a study that primarily focuses on their treatment of God, Jesus, and the Bible, Professor David Feltmate cites some examples where characters pray. Thus Ned in The Simpsons prays for a perfect strike as he bowls, and after his home is destroyed in a hurricane and the neighbor’s house is spared, he asks: “Why me, Lord? I’ve always been nice to people, I don’t drink or dance or swear. I’ve even kept kosher just to be on the safe side. I’ve done everything the Bible says, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff! What more could I do?” (Feltmate 2017, 117, 141). Despite such satire, Feltmate observes that “the program’s creators demonstrate that they recognize that evangelicals can find meaningful answers to difficult problems in their religious traditions through the way that Ned copes with pain” (2017, 144).

See alsoEnemies, Prayer for; Films and Movies; Prosperity Gospel

FOR REFERENCEFeltmate, David. 2017. Drawn to the Gods: Religion and Humor in The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy.

New York: New York University Press; Lyons, Margaret and James Poniewozik. 2016. “Where is God on the Small Screen?” The New York Times. Aug. 24. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/arts/television/greenleaf-oprah-winfrey-transparent-the-path.html; Skill, Thomas, James D. Robinson, John S. Lyons and David Larson. 1994. “The Portrayal of Religion and Spirituality on Fictional Network Television.” Review of Reli-gious Research. 35 (March): 251-267.

Thoughts and PrayersOne common way of expressing empathy with individuals undergoing grief or loss is to indicate that one’s

thoughts and prayers are with them. Often the expression is used when individuals can literally think of no other way of helping, but sometimes the expression can also become a substitute for additional action. Charges that words have become such a substitute have been particularly prominent in American debates over gun control.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides for “the right to bear arms.” Many Americans pride themselves on owning guns for sport (especially hunting) and for self-protection. As the Second Amendment indicates, historically the right to own guns was also connected to national defense.

Gun violence is one of the most visible and unsettling public health problems in American society. Each year some 40,000 people die from gun violence, with mass shootings often receiving extensive news coverage.

Many politicians, often with strong support from the National Rifle Association and other groups, have said that their thoughts and prayers are with the victims of gun violence and have continued to oppose gun-con-trol legislation. Although critics have claimed that this expression of sympathy is not genuine, many oppo-nents of restricting gun purchases believe that the best way to prevent future catastrophes is to increase the number of individuals who can respond with force, or to impose stiffer penalties on those who carry out crimes with guns. After a number of school shootings, some politicians have suggested that it is time to arm

teachers, who could respond appropriately in cases of emergency, and some colleges and universities now permit individuals to carry guns on campuses.

In recent years, a number of commentators have responded derisively to expressions of “thoughts and prayers,” not so much, perhaps, because they think that prayer is ineffectual, but because the words of concern seem hollow without corresponding legislative actions. In an article in the Daily Beast, theologian Candida Moss suggests that biblical theology almost always combines prayer with other concrete actions (Moss 2019). She notes that individuals opposed to abortion on demand rarely consider that thoughts and prayers are in and of themselves sufficient. She further observes that because people of faith typically believe in free will,

“when it comes to human violence, prayer cannot reliably act as mind control that forces others to behave in a certain way” (Moss 2019). She notes that in the movie Bruce Almighty, the main character causes all kinds of chaos by attempting to say yes to every petitionary prayer that he receives. She concludes that “The problem isn’t prayer, which is enormously helpful to millions of people. The problem is that the theology of prayer” that those who evoke only thoughts and prayers are offering “is one in which God demands nothing other than prayer. Not only does this perspective disregard how prayer works, it abdicates responsibility for fixing societal problems, and tries to absolve us of past sins by revising our history” (Moss 2019). In a kind of affirmation of Moss’s perspective, In July 2019 the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) appointed the Rev. Deanna Hollas as its first minister of gun-violence prevention (Hassan 2019).

In his classic work on The Meaning of Prayer, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick argued that the three primary means for cooperating with God were “thinking, working, and praying” (1920, 126). He further argued that

“no one of these three can ever take the place of another” (1920, 126). He illustrated with Oliver Cromwell’s instruction to “Trust God and keep your powder dry,” and Charles Spurgeon’s advice to “Pray to God but keep the hammer going” (1020, 127). Responding to the social media phenomenon of #prayershaming, Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Conven-tion, observed, “If you shame away the most human aspects of public life—such as the call to pray for one another—you will find this situation worsening, not getting better. After all, we learn to listen to one another, and even work together, because we see one another as fellow humans, fellow citizens, as people of goodwill, not just as avatars to be warred against on a screen” (Bruinius 2015).

Amid the coronavirus pandemic on May 24, 2002, G.B. Trudeau, the creator of the cartoon Doonesbury, posted a series of tweets attributed to his character Roland B. Hedley Jr. One pronounced that “White House announces first division of responsibilities in Coronavirus Task Force. Deb Birx [a physician on the coronavi-rus task force]: Thoughts. Mike Pence [Vice president]. Prayers.” In October 2020, President Donald Trump participated in a “Call to Prayer” phone conference for people affected by COVID-19. Noting that “People have lost loved ones, it should never have happened,” Trump, who had himself been infected with the virus, encouraged fellow participants by saying that “God hears our prayers” and “He’s always with us and He’ll help us overcome the challenge” (Quintanilla 2020).

In her first day of testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Amy Coney Barrett, a devout Roman Catholic whom Trump had nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court after Justice Ruth Bader Gins-burg’s death, thanked Americans for their prayers and messages of support. She noted, “I believe in the power of prayer, and it has been uplifting to hear that so many people are praying for me” (Foust 2020).

See alsoPetitionary Prayer; Pray to God but Keep Your Powder Dry

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FOR REFERENCEBruinius, Harry. 2015. “Prayer shaming: Are prayer and political action at odds?” Christian Science Monitor.

Dec. 3. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2015/1203/Prayer-shaming-Are-prayer-and-politial-ac-tion-at-odds; Cotte, Thomas J. 2010. “Our Thoughts and Our Prayers.” The Antioch Review. 68 (Spring): 232-238; Fosdick, Harry Emerson. 1920. The Meaning of Prayer. New York: Association Press; Foust, Michael. 2020. “‘I Believe in the Power of Prayer’: Amy Coney Barrett Thanks Americans for Encouragement.” Oct. 12. https://www.christianheadlines.com/contributors/michael-foust/i-believe-in-the-power-of-prayer-amy-coney-barrett-thanks-americans-for-encouragement.html; Hassan, Adeel. 2019. “‘Thoughts and Prayers’ Aren’t Enough, America’s First Gun Violence Minister says.” The New York Times. July 28; Lewis, C.S. “Work and Prayer by C.S. Lewis” [from The World’s Last Night and Other Essays, posted by Jeremy Myers]. https://redeeminggod.com/work-and-prayer-by-c-s-lewis/; Moss, Candida. 2019. “The Problematic Theology of ‘Thoughts and Prayers.’” The Daily Beast. Aug. 11. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-problematic-theology-of-thought-and-prayers; O’Shaughnessy, William. “Las Vegas Shooting: Another ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ Day.” Radio Active, by William O’Shaughnessy. New York: Fordham University Press, 631-633; Quintanilla, Milton. 2020. “‘God Hears Our Prayers’: President Trump Asks God for Wisdom, Grace in Leading America.” Christian Headlines. Oct. 13. https://www.christian-headlines.com/contributors/milton-quintanilla/god-hears-our-prayers-president-trump-asks-god-for-wis-dom-grace-in-leading-america.html

Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014)Although scholars have paid far more attention to the issue of public prayer in state schools, in Engel v.

Vitale (1962) and subsequent cases, the Supreme Court upheld the practice of allowing legislative chaplains to begin each day in prayer in Marsh v. Chambers (1983). This decision, in turn, provided a precedent for a decision by five of nine justices in Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014) upholding prayers at the beginning of town board meetings.

This case arose in the town of Greece, which is near Rochester, N.Y. After previously opening with a moment of silence, the town decided in 1999 to begin the practice of the county legislature and invite a member of the local clergy to deliver an invocation. According to the Supreme Court’s summary, the inten-tion was “to place town board members in a solemn and deliberative frame of mind, invoke divine guidance in town affairs, and follow a tradition practiced by Congress and dozens of state legislatures” (Town of Greece, 570). Members of the clergy, who sometimes asked members of the audience to stand or to bow their heads, were selected from local directories, and the town neither reviewed the prayers in advance nor provided any guidance as to their content.

After Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens, who attended these meetings, objected that the prayers had been uniformly Christian, the council invited a Jewish layman, the chair of a local Baha’i temple, and even a Wiccan priestess, but most prayers remained Christian, and many were specifically delivered “in Jesus’s name.” Galloway and Stephens subsequently requested an injunction that permitted only prayers that referred only to a “generic God” rather than with one identified with a particular faith.

The U.S. district court issued a summary judgment rejecting the call and said that the town was under no obligation to widen the base of clergy members invited to attend by inviting those from beyond the town’s borders. It further ruled that references to Jesus remained permissible under Marsh guidelines, as long as the

prayers neither sought to proselytize or advance one religion over another or to disparage members of other faiths. By contrast, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, applying a totality-of-the-circumstances test, decided that a reasonable observer could conclude that the town was endorsing Christianity, and therefore ruled that its practice was unconstitutional.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion for the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overruled this circuit court. Relying chiefly on the precedent in Marsh v. Chambers, Kennedy pointed to prayers within Congress that dated to its beginnings. Moreover, he denied that this precedent required a “nonsectarian or ecumenical prayer as a single, fixed standard” (Town of Greece, 578) or that distinctly Christian prayers had to

“be dismissed as the relic of a time when our Nation was less pluralistic than it is today” (Town of Greece, 479). He pointed out that monks and rabbis had addressed God in their own way when they prayed before Con-gress. Dismissing language in County of Allegheny (1989), a case involving placing religious symbols in public places, that suggested that prayer must be nonsectarian or generic, as a dictum that the Court had subse-quently repudiated, Kennedy said this standard was itself ahistorical, and that the legitimacy of legislative prayer did not depend “on the neutrality of its content” (Town of Greece, 580). Moreover, requiring the town to preview prayers would put it in the unconstitutional role of a censor and excessively entangle it in such matters. Further reviewing the history of legislative prayers, Kennedy found that the town’s practices fell within this tradition. The town remained on solid footing as long as it maintained a policy of nondiscrimina-tion.

In a section of the opinion that Kennedy did not author, the Court further ruled that the prayers did not exert coercion over members of the audience, who could be reasonably presumed to be familiar with the nature of the ceremony. Moreover, while some visitors might have been offended, this did not, in and of itself, amount to coercion. Members of the audience in this case were neither under the same supervision, nor were they of the same age, as the students in the case of Lee v. Weisman (1992), and the town prayers were conduct-ed during the ceremonial parts of the meeting that preceded actual deliberations.

Justice Samuel Alito authored a concurring opinion in which he addressed most of his arguments to the principal dissent. He emphasized that the town was neither required to go beyond its own borders in recruit-ing members of the clergy nor to screen prayers or issue guidelines. He was wary of saddling local govern-ments, many of whose jobs were only part-time, with additional regulations. He also denied the idea that the decision in Marsh v. Chambers had been predicated on the view that such prayers were a mere formality to which its members paid little attention. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote another concurring opinion in which he reiterated arguments he had made elsewhere interpreting the establishment clause as a federalism require-ment that could not be applied directly to the states. He further thought that the only type of coercion that counts under the establishment clause “is actual legal coercion” rather than “subtle coercive pressures, allegedly felt by respondents in this case” (Town of Greece, 610).

Justice Steven Breyer authored a dissent in which he observed that since not everyone in the town of Greece was a Christian, the prayers did not represent this diversity. He further noted that the U.S. House of Repre-sentatives had issued guidelines calling for inclusive nonpartisan prayers, whereas the town of Greece had not.

Justice Elena Kagan delivered a much lengthier dissent, which began with a number of hypotheticals designed to show how members of minority religions might feel excluded by the policies of the town of Greece. Although chaplains in Congress were addressing that specific body, Greece had nongovernment individuals in its audience and almost all of its prayers were Christian in orientation, which might lead those of no faith, or other faiths, to feel excluded, contrary to the intentions of America’s Founders.

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Circuit courts have split in two subsequent cases involving prayer at public meetings. In Lund v. Rowan County (2017), the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that prayers by members of the Rowan County, N.C., Board of Commissioners were unconstitutional, but in Bormuth v. City of Jackson (2017), the 6th Circuit allowed public prayer by commissioners of Jackson County, Mich. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gor-such both dissented from a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Rowan County v. Lund (2018) rejecting review of the former decision, which both justices thought was inconsistent with Marsh v. Chambers and Town of Greece v. Galloway.

See alsoEngel v. Vitale (1962); Lee v. Weisman (1992); Rowan County v. Lund (2018); Marsh v. Chambers (1983);

Rowan County v. Lund (2018)

FOR REFERENCEBartrum, Ian C. 2014. “The Curious Case of Legislative Prayer: Town of Greece v. Galloway.” Northwestern

Law Review 108:218-228; Bormuth v. City of Jackson, 870 f.3d 494 (6th Cir. 2017) (en banc); County of Alleghe-ny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573 (1989); Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1961); Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992); Lund v. Rowan Cty., 863 F.3d 268 (4th Cir. 2017) (en banc); Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983); Rowan County v. Lund, 138 S.Ct. 2564, (2018) (Thomas, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari); Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565 (2014).

Truman, Harry S.Harry S. Truman was sworn in as the 33rd president of the United States on April 12, 1945, after the

unexpected death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt of a cerebral hemorrhage. As reporters gathered after his swearing in at the White House Oval Office, he told a group of them, “If you ever pray, pray for me now” (Glass 2018). The next day, he said that when he heard the news of Roosevelt’s death, “I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me” (Glass 2018). At the time, America was still at war, and, unbeknownst to Truman, was engaged in a secret project to produce an atomic bomb that it hoped would end the war.

On April 16, the day after Roosevelt’s funeral, Truman addressed Congress. Speaking from a “heavy heart,” Truman noted that “Almighty God has seen fit to take from us a great man who loved, and was beloved by, all humanity,” and “tragic fate” had left the nation with “grave responsibilities.”

Reiterating that the United States would continue to press for victory and unconditional surrender on the part of its enemies, Truman promised never to forget the sacrifices that had been made to preserve “religious tolerance, political freedom and economic opportunity.” He urged support for the establishment of the United Nations, pointing back to the nation’s “glorious heritage” and forward “to peace and prosperity.”

Truman ended with a prayer, which drew from the words of King Solomon as recorded in I Kings 3:9 and ended with words from one of the parables of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 25:21: “At this moment, I have in my heart a prayer. As I have assumed my heavy duties, I humbly pray Almighty God, in the words of King Solomon: ‘Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad; for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?’ I ask only to be a good and faithful servant of my Lord and my people” (Truman 1945).

After Japan unconditionally surrendered, Truman declared Aug. 19, 1945, a national day of prayer. He

observed that the victory “has come with the help of God, who was with us in the early days of adversity and disaster, and Who has now brought us to this glorious day of triumph. Let us give thanks to Him, and remember that we have now dedicated ourselves to follow in His ways to a lasting and just peace and to a better world” (Edwards 2020).

Truman was disturbed when Billy Graham later recreated the prayer that he had said with Truman for reporters, but signed the congressional legislation that called for creating a yearly national day of prayer.

See alsoGraham, Billy; National Day of Prayer; Roosevelt, Franklin D., D-Day Prayer

FOR REFERENCEEdwards, Lee. 2020. “Presidential Prayers: Turning to God in Times of Need.” The Daily Signal. April 6.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/04/06/presidential-prayers-turning-to-god-in-times-of-need/; Glass, Andrew. 2018. “Truman sworn in as 33rd president, April 12. 1945.” April 12. Politico. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/12/harry-truman-sworn-in-as-33rd-president-april-12-1945-511037; Truman, Harry S. 1945. “April 16, 1945: First Speech To Congress.” https://millercdnter.org/the-presidency/presiden-tial-speeches/april-16-1945-first-speech-congress.

Trump, Donald, and Nancy PelosiPolitics often brings out deep antagonisms among political opponents, which can be aggravated by periods

of divided government in the United States in which the president is from one political party and a majority of one or both houses of Congress are members of another.

As a result of the 2018 elections, Democrats regained a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, allowing them to elevate Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California to the position of speaker, which she had held previously. Although she did not initially favor impeaching Republican President Donald J. Trump, she changed her mind after it was revealed that he appeared to have conditioned military aid to Ukraine, which was facing incursions from Russia, on the Ukrainian leader’s willingness to announce an investigation of the activities of Democrat Joe Biden (who would be Trump’s rival for the presidency in 2020) and his son’s position on a corporate board in Ukraine.

After Pelosi announced plans to proceed with impeachment, a reporter, James Rosen, asked whether she hated the president. She angrily responded, “This is about the Constitution of the United States and the facts that led to the president’s violation of his oath of office. As a Catholic, I resent your using the word ‘hate’ in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone. I was raised in a way that is a heart full of love, and always pray for the president. And I still pray for the president. I pray for the president all the time” (Shear 2019). Trump subsequently posted a tweet saying he did not believe her. In a prior meeting in October, Trump had tweeted that “Nancy Pelosi needs help fast! There is either something wrong with her ‘upstairs,’ or she just plain doesn’t like our great Country. She had a total meltdown in the White House today. It was very sad to watch. Pray for her, she is a very sick person!” (Shear 2019).

At the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., in February 2020, after a highly partisan vote in the Senate failed to convict Trump, a fairly exuberant Trump, with Pelosi seated quite close to him on the stage, attacked both Pelosi and Republican Mitt Romney of Utah, who had voted for one of two articles of im-

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peachment. Trump said, “I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong. Nor do I like people who say ‘I pray for you’ when they know that’s not so” (Samuels 2020). Ironically, Harvard’s Arthur Brooks, who was the breakfast’s keynote speaker, had warned against the spread of national contempt. Two days before this, Trump appeared to reject a handshake from Pelosi before his State of the Union Address before Congress, and she, in turn, tore up his prepared remarks at the end of his speech.

In March 2020, Pelosi reported that, citing Pope Francis’ call for world prayer, she had proposed starting a Sunday morning meeting with Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and a number of fellow senators with prayer. She further reported that Mnuchin subsequently said, “Well, you’ve quoted St. Francis, I mean Pope Francis. I’ll quote the markets” ( Jones 2020).

See alsoNational Prayer Breakfast

FOR REFERENCEJones, Susan 2020. “Pelosi: ‘Why Don’t We Begin With a Prayer.’” March 26. CNS News. https://www.

cnsnews.com/article/washington/susan-jones/pelosi-why-dont-we-begin-prayer; Samuels, Brett. 2020. “Trump hits Romney, Pelosi for invoking religion during impeachment.” The Hill. Feb. 6. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/481800-trump-hits-romney-pelosi-for-invoking-religion-during-impeachment; Shear, Michael D. 2019. “Pelosi Denies ‘Hate’ for Trump, Who Accuses Her of Having a ‘Nervous fit.’” The New York Times. Dec. 5.

Trump, Donald, Guidelines on Prayer and Public SchoolsEvangelical Christians have been among Donald Trump’s strongest supporters, and Trump has continued to

appeal to these and other religious groups by emphasizing the importance of religious freedom and his attempts to protect it.

This was very much in evidence on Jan. 16, 2020, which is National Religious Freedom Day. From the Oval Office in the White House, Trump highlighted some individuals who had been victims of religious discrimi-nation in public schools and unveiled a revised set of guidelines emphasizing the degree to which individuals retain their First Amendment rights within the public-school setting. The guidelines were substantially drawn from previous memoranda by President Bill Clinton in 1995 and by the Department of Education in 1998. President Trump referred to these revised guidelines as “the right to pray” (Vazquez 2020). Many were based on the Equal Access Act of 1984.

Largely constrained by existing judicial decisions, it is not clear that the new guidelines did much more than hold schools somewhat more responsible for providing prompt redress for violations. Resting firmly on such decisions as Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington v. Schempp (1963), the laws continue to prevent public schools from endorsing, requiring, or even encouraging prayers or other devotional activities in classrooms or at official school activities like graduations or ballgames. By the same token, the guidelines reiterated that, subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, individuals can still engage during non-class times in prayer, Bible or other devotional reading, and religious expression, especially in cases where schools have created limited public forums allowing other groups to express themselves.

These rights also apply to teachers as long as they are not acting as school representatives. As to student

speakers, when they are speaking on their own behalf, they are permitted to address religious subjects as long as they “are selected on the basis of genuinely content-neutral, evenhanded criteria and retain primary control over the content of their expression.” In these and similar cases, “school officials may make appropriate, neutral disclaimers to clarify that such speech (whether religious or nonreligious) is the speaker’s and not the school’s speech” (“Guidance on Constitutionally Protected Prayer…, 2020).

As Trump announced the revised guidelines, he provided an opportunity for various individuals to describe how they believed they had been discriminated against. These individuals included the following: Hannah Allen, a Texas student whose principal had reprimanded her for praying for an injured classmate’s brother; Marilyn Rhames, a former teacher who had founded Teachers Who Pray; William McLeod, from a predom-inately Mormon Utah school, whose teacher had required him to remove from his forehead the mark of the cross from an Ash Wednesday service at a Roman Catholic church; Chase Windebank, whose school had attempted to stop a student prayer group he had formed from praying at lunch; Malak Hijaz, a Muslim student who was ridiculed for wearing a hijab to school; Ariana Hoblin, a Jewish student who had been subjected to harassment; Joseph A. Kennedy, who had lost his job as an assistant high school football coach for praying at the 50-yard line after games; and Emily Chaney, who had been asked to take down a prayer locker, where students could place prayer requests (“Remarks” 2020). Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, Pastor Paula White, and others also attended, but after presentations about prayer, the briefing turned to questions about individuals who would be mentioned during Trump’s subsequent impeachment hearings before Congress, most allegations of which Trump dismissed as a “hoax.”

The Freedom from Religion Foundation and others criticized Trump for not emphasizing the ways in which school officials were prevented from imposing their beliefs on others (Vazquez 2020).

See alsoAbington v. Schempp; Engel v. Vitale; Kennedy v. Bremerton School District

FOR REFERENCE“Guidance on Constitutionally Protected Prayer and Religious Expression in Public Elementary and

Secondary Schools.” Jan. 16, 2020. https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/religionandschools/prayer_guid-ance.html; “Remarks by President Trump on the Announcement of Guidance on Constitutional Prayer in Public Schools.” 2020. Law & Justice. Jan. 16. https://www.whitehouse-gov/briefings-statements/re-marks-president-trump-announcement-guidance-constitutional-prayer-public-schools/; Vazquez, Meagan. 2020. “Trump administration updates public school prayer guidance on National Religious Freedom Day.” CNN. Jan. 16. https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/16/politics/school-prayer-religious-freedom-trump-adminis-tration-update/index.html; Zimmerman, Carol. 2020. “President Trump issues new guidance on prayer in public schools.” Jan. 17. Catholic News Service. https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/01/17/presi-dent-trump-issues-new-guidance-prayer-public-schools

Tubman, HarrietHarriet Tubman (c. 1820-1913) was born into slavery in Dorchester County, Md., and named Araminta

Harriet Ross, but she acquired the nickname “Minty.” As an adolescent, Tubman was struck in the head by an object thrown by a slaveowner seeking to enlist her help in restraining a fellow slave. This was the likely physical cause of her future trances, in which she often had visions through which she believed God communicated

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with her, but which made her owners think she was lacking in intelligence.After learning that she was going to be sold further South, Harriet escaped and successfully made a 90-mile

trip to Pennsylvania, where she became acquainted with the Anti-Slavery Society and the Underground Railroad, which sought to bring slaves to safety. She subsequently returned to Maryland 19 times in order to bring about 70 others, many relatives, from slavery to freedom. After the adoption of the Fugitive Slave Laws of 1850, these trips focused not simply on moving slaves into Northern states but taking them all the way to Canada, where they were not subject to slave catchers. During the Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy and helped lead the Combahee River Raid, which helped liberate about 700 slaves in South Carolina (“Harriett Tubman”).

Because Tubman never learned to read or write, she depended on others to publicize her written story. A white woman from Geneva, N.Y., Sarah Bradford (1818-1912), published two accounts of Tubman’s life. Bradford published the 1869 version, which arguably came closer to expressing Tubman’s own sentiments, under the title Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, and Harriet, the Moses of Her People in 1886.

Although there are a number of variations in the story, Tubman appears to have prayed for her master’s death after she learned of his plans to sell her. She may have further suffered feelings of guilt when he died shortly thereafter. These and other stories of her antislavery activism “clearly emphasize guidance by direct unmediated contact with the divine—both through spontaneous gifts of prophetic foresight (often occurring in dreams and waking visions), and through miraculous protection in response to prayer” (Humez 1993, 173). Although she believed strongly in God, she was frequently armed when leading escapes and even threatened to kill those who decided they wanted to abandon the plan.

Tubman’s first husband, who was a free man, refused to join her escape and remarried when she did so. She in turn married a Civil War veteran and moved to Auburn, N.Y., where she supported family members whose freedom she had helped to secure in part through the sale of her biographies.

Tubman’s life was the subject of the movie Harriet, which was released in 2019 and directed by Kasi Lem-mons. It highlighted Tubman’s faith, and connected both to her visions and her prayers to a number of miraculous escapes. In the movie, slaves communicate coded messages through African-American spirituals.

If a plan announced in 2016 to replace the picture of Andrew Jackson with that of Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill goes into effect (possibly in 2026), Tubman would become the first American woman so honored.

See alsoAfrican-American Spirituals

FOR REFERENCEEllis, Mark. 2016. “Harriet Tubman followed the voice of God.” https://www.godreports.com/2016/04/

harriet-tubman-she-followed-the-voice-of-god/; “Harriet Tubman.” Biography. https://www.biography.com/activist/harriet-tubman; Humez, Jean M. 1993. “In Search of Harriet Tubman’s Spiritual Autobiography.” NWSA Journal 5 (Summer): 162-182.

Twain, Mark, “The War Prayer”Samuel Clemens (1835-1910), better known by his pen name, Mark Twain, was not only one of America’s

greatest novelists but also one of its greatest humorists. There were times, however, when he could be deadly serious.

One such occasion centered on the sentiments that had been stirred in America by the Spanish-American War and America’s subsequent decision to take control over the Philippines, which the Spanish had previous-ly held as a colony. In 1904, Twain wrote a story, “The War Prayer,” which he intended to publish in Harper’s Bazaar but which the magazine rejected because the editor, Elizabeth Jordon, thought it was “not quite suited to a woman’s magazine” (Eastman 2016, 79). Twain mused in a letter to a friend, “I don’t think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth,” and, indeed, his story was not published until 1923 (East 2016, 79).

The story is set on the eve of an unspecified war and at a time of great excitement in which people are in high spirits in anticipation of a great victory. On Sunday morning they gather at church, where a chapter from the Old Testament is read, followed by a burst from the organ, an invocation to “God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy Sword!” followed by a long prayer (Twain 1904). Ad-dressed to “an ever-merciful and benignant Father,” the prayer invokes God’s blessings upon those fighting on behalf of the national cause.

As the prayer continues, “an aged stranger” enters the sanctuary in a long robe with white hair and a pale face who could easily be one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Saying that “I come from the Throne—bearing a message from Almighty God,” the messenger suggests that the pastor does not understand his own prayer. The messenger explains, “If you beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! Lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time” (Twain 1904). He says the pastor might as well have prayed that Americans would “help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst” (Twain 1904). He ends by invoking “the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love.”

After asking the pastor whether he still wants to repeat his prayer, Twain notes that “It was believed after-ward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said” (Twain 1904). It would appear that these words reflect the sentiments of the audience rather than of Twain himself.

In part because Twain did not specifically link this essay to a particular time or place, it has subsequently been adopted by a number of groups opposing war. Recent film adaptations of the story (which sometimes portray the messenger as a homeless war veteran), include an animated short that Markos Kounalakis com-pleted in 2006 and that was used to commemorate Hungary’s UN Human Rights Day in 2010, a 10-minute live action film by Lyceum film, Mark Twain’s The War Prayer in 2007, and an earlier Blasko film production of 2003 (Eastman 2916).

Twain’s story and its subsequent adaptations stand as testimony to Abraham Lincoln’s observation in his famed Second Inaugural Address that in the Civil War both Northerners and Southerners read the same Bible and prayed to the same God, making it impossible for God to satisfy both of them.

See alsoFilms and Movies; Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address; Military Language; Enemies, Prayers for

REFERENCES Eastman, Susan Lyn. 2016. “Mark Twain’s ‘The War Prayer’ in Film and Social Media.” The Mark Twain

Annual. 14, 1: 78-92; Twain, Mark. 1904. “The War Prayer.” https://www.antiwar/com/orig/train1.html.

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U

U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787The United States Constitution was hammered out in a convention held in

Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, which 55 delegates from 12 states (all but Rhode Island) attended. The document was subsequently ratified, accord-ing to its own specifications, by special conventions called within each of the states. The document specified that it would not go into effect unless and until it was ratified by nine or more states, and then only among those that did so.

The convention, which had been called to revise the existing Articles of Confederation, decided instead to devise a new plan of government. This plan significantly increased the powers of Congress, replacing a unicameral body with one with two houses, one of which was based on population rather than on state equality. It further created three branches of government rather

than one, including an independently elected president and a judiciary whose members were appointed and confirmed for life. The convention dealt with such contentious issues as the method by which states would be represented in Congress, the relationship between state and national powers, issues surrounding slavery, the selection of the presidency, plans for future amendments, and the like.

There is a common belief that the convention, which was not open to the public but which can be amply documented through notes that James Madison and other delegates took, began each day with prayer. The matter was certainly a topic of discussion, albeit not until June 28 when the convention was more than a month into its deliberations. Facing particularly contentious debates over the issue of whether states would be represented equally (as under the Articles and as the so-called New Jersey Plan had proposed) or by popula-tion (as the Virginia Plan had proposed), the convention’s oldest delegate, Benjamin Franklin, asked, “How has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings?” (Farrand, I: 451). Observing that Congress had continually appealed to God during the Revolutionary War, he further opined that “Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggles must have observed frequent instances of a Superin-tending providence in our favor” (Farrand, I: 451). Asking whether the convention had “forgotten that power-ful friend” or imagined “that we no longer need his assistance,” after pointing to his old age, Franklin contin-ued in a vein that would have warmed the hearts of many contemporary preachers:

“The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages” (Farrand 1, 451-452).

Although Connecticut’s pious Roger Sherman seconded the motion, contrary to many a contemporary sermon, the convention was at this point so divided that it did not pass. There was not much recorded discus-sion, but Alexander Hamilton observed that “however proper such a resolution might have been at the beginning of the convention, it might at this late day, 1. Bring on it some disagreeable animadversions. & 2. Lead the public to believe that the embarrassments and dissentions within the convention, had [and they had!] suggested the measure” (Farrand, 1966, I: 452). Perhaps even more to the point, North Carolina’s Hugh Williamson observed that “the true cause of the omission could not be mistaken. The Convention had no funds” (Farrand 1966, I: 452).

Edmund Randolph of Virginia proposed that a sermon should be preached on July 4, after which the convention should begin each day with prayer, but the convention adjourned without voting on the motion (Farrand 1966, I: 452). Although there is no record that the convention began subsequent days with prayer, the Rev. James Campbell did give an oration at the Reformed Calvinist Church in Philadelphia on July 4, which was published by the Pennsylvania Society of the Cincinnati, a group of Revolutionary War veterans. It was, in turn prefaced with a lengthy prayer by the Rev. William Rogers.

This prayer began by extolling the majesty of the Triune God, with vivid descriptions of his majesty, which were drawn from Scriptures. It offered thanksgiving for the nation’s independence and for those who had fought to secure it. It asked for blessings both on Congress and on each state within the Union. After request-ing that “those who are in authority rule in thy fear; prove a terror to evil doers and a praise to them who do well,” it also directed special attention to the Constitutional Convention:

“As this is a period, O LORD! big with events, impenetrable by any human scrutiny, we fervently recom-mend to thy Fatherly notice that august Body, assembled in this city, who compose our FOEDERAL Con-vention; will it please THEE, O THOU ETERNAL I AM! to favour them from day to day with thy imme-diate presence; be thou their wisdom and their strength. Enable them to devise such measures as may prove happily instrumental for healing all divisions and promoting the good of the great WHOLE; incline the hearts of all the people to receive with pleasure, combined with a determination to carry into execution, whatever these thy servants may wisely recommend; That the United States of America may furnish the world with ONE example of a free and permanent government, which shall be the result of human and mutual deliberation, and which shall not, like all other governments, whether ancient or modern, spring out of mere chance or be established by force.—May we triumph in the chearing [sic] prospect of being completely delivered from anarchy; and continue, under the influence of republican virtue, to partake of all the blessings of cultivated and civilized society!” (Oration 1787, 5-6)

After further prayers for the officials of the state of Pennsylvania and for seminaries of learning, Rogers ended with the Lord’s Prayer.

In the opening days of the Congress created by the new Constitution, representatives appointed a chaplain for each of the two houses, one of whom delivered a public prayer at the first inauguration. A number of states have opened their state conventions with prayers, sometimes led by one of the members.

See alsoFranklin, Benjamin; Inaugural Prayers; Lord’s Prayer; Madison, James

FURTHER READINGCampbell, James and William Rogers. 1787. AN ORATION, IN COMMEMORATION OF THE INDE-

PENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH-AMERICA, DELIVERED JULY 4, 1787, At the

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Reformed Calvinist Church in Philadelphia, BY JAMES CAMPBELL, ESQUIRE, TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, AN INTRODUCTORY PRAYER, DELIVERED ON THE SAME OCCASION, BY THE REV. WILLIAM ROGERS, A.M., PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE PENNSYLVANIA SOCIETY OF THE CINCIN-NATI. Philadelphia: Prichard and Hall; Farrand, Max, ed. 1966. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. 4 vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; Vile, John R. 2016. The Constitutional Convention of 1787: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of America’s Founding, Rev. 2nd ed. Clark, NJ. Talbot Publishing.

U.S. Space ProgramOne of America’s greatest scientific accomplishments during the 20th century was sending men to the moon

and back, a dream initially accomplished during President Richard M. Nixon’s first presidential term in 1969 after having been announced by President John F. Kennedy and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Before stepping on the moon, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, a Presbyterian elder, took part in communion, which he had prepared for the occasion (Blakemore 2019). At a White House service held when Apollo 11 first landed on the moon, Sen. Mark Hatfield of Oregon offered a prayer for the astronauts and their families that included a plea that God would “Excite our imagination to transfer the genius of cooperation and spirit of teamwork to our many other needs, lest our success on the moon mock our failures on the earth” (Moore 2008, 95).

The space program was in part inspired by America’s desire to show its dominance over the communist Soviet Union, which had been first to launch a man in space and whose cosmonauts had reported that that they had neither seen God nor angels (Oliver 2013, 118). When American astronauts launched the first orbital trip around the moon in Apollo 8 in 1968, they brought thrills to believers and some criticism among nonbelievers for reading from the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis. The nation subsequently issued a stamp of a picture of earth suspended in space with the words, “In the beginning …”

Just as the expression “on a wing and a prayer” captured the mix of science and faith that often guided those who took to flight, so too astronauts often prayed, and accepted the prayers, of those who interceded on their behalf.

Although he would later claim to have been misquoted, the earlier American astronaut to leave Earth’s orbit, Alan Shepard, is reputed to have prayed, “Dear Lord, please don’t let me f- up” (Patterson 2011). An individu-al who is dubbed the “Quote Investigator” (QI) observes that Shepard, John Glenn and a host of other individuals have also been quoted as musing as they were on the launch pad that the space capsule, and/or its component parts, had been made by the lowest bidder!

The space flight that was probably subject to the most prayers was that of Apollo 13 in 1970, in which tragedy was barely averted after an oxygen tank failed and the crew returned without landing on the moon. The safety of the crew was the subject of prayers throughout the world. Similarly, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded in February 1986, killing seven astronauts, Pope John II was among those who prayed that God would receive their souls into heaven. Astronaut Eileen Collins, who was aboard the Discovery, offered a similar prayer to honor those who died in the 2003 Columbia disaster (Patterson 2011). Ilan Roman, an astronaut from Israel who joined Americans on that flight, had copied the Jewish blessing Shabbat Kid-dush into his diary to pray in space, while Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, a Muslim cosmonaut from Malasia, offered daily prayers on the International Space Station in 2005 (Patterson 2011).

See also “On a Wing and a Prayer”

FOR REFERENCEBarber, Chris. 2016. “Behind the Scenes of Apollo 13.” April 11. https://www.nixonfoundation.

org/2016/04/behind-scenes-apollo-13/; Blakemore, Erin. 2018. Sept. 6 [original published on July 31, 2018]. “Buzz Aldrin Took Holy Communion on the Moon. NASA Kept it Quiet.” History.com; Moore, James P. Jr. 2008. The Crossings Treasury of American Prayers. New York: Crossing Book Club; Oliver, Kendrick. 2013. “The Apollo 8 Genesis Reading and Religion in the Space Age.” Astropolitics: The International Journal of Space Politics & Policy. 11:1-2,116-121; Patterson, Thom. CNN. “The surprising history of prayer in space.” https://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/07/the-surprising-history-of-prayer-in-space-comment-page-1/; Quote Investigator. “My Life Depended on 150,000 Pieces of Equipment—Each Bought from the Lowest Bidder.” https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/06/27/lowest-bidder/

U.S. State PrayersAlthough it is probably more typical for Americans to pray for the president and other officials of the U.S.

government than for governors and state leaders, in a federal system these leaders also play an important part.U.S. states have their own flags and well as numerous other symbols, including one or more state songs. Few

of these are as well known as such prayer-infused songs as “God Bless America” or “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” Similarly, prayers for the nation are more commonly circulated than prayers for individual states.

Nevertheless, the Rev. Frances B. Sayres, a grandson of President Woodrow Wilson, who served as dean of National Cathedral from 1951 to 1978, has composed a prayer for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Moreover, since 1972, the cathedral has dedicated one Sunday of each year to each of these entities in which the congregation participates in congregational recitations of its prayer (Moore 2008, 238).

The prayers, some of which include embedded poems, focus on unique aspects of each state. For example, the prayer for California begins with the words, “Golden gate, Golden state” (217); the prayer for Delaware says it was “first to wear the Constitution of American freedom” (219); the prayer for Hawaii mentions volcanoes (220); the prayer for Maryland says that while its “domain [was] named for a queen, [it] yet wor-ships the King who is the father of us all” (225); the prayer for Massachusetts mentions the Pilgrims; the prayer for Utah calls upon God “in storm or danger, in drought or plague” to send “sweet birds of mercy to keep Thy Utah folk in safety”; and that for Virginia notes how God has “raised up such leaders of liberty” (236).

Just as both houses of Congress have chaplains, so too do most state legislatures. The Supreme Court affirmed in Marsh v. Chambers that states have the right to employ such individuals to begin legislative sessions in prayer.

See alsoMarsh v. Chambers (1983); National Cathedral

FOR REFERENCE Moore, James P. Jr. 2008. The Crossing Treasury of American Prayers. New York: Crossing Book Club.

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V

VigilsIn the aftermath of tragedies, like the deaths of prominent individuals,

mass shootings, and other acts of terrorism, it is common for people to come together in prayer vigils. Generally understood as a period of wakeful-ness, such vigils were often kept on the night before a religious feast and were typically accompanied, as they continue to be today, with prayers, the lighting of candles, and hymns and songs.

Vigils may also be conducted, like the one held before the U.S. Supreme Court building in 2012 in anticipation of a decision with respect to an Arizona law that would have required law enforcement officials to check on the immigrant status of anyone who was arrested. That vigil included a

“Jericho march,” in which participants circled the Supreme Court building as Joshua had marched around Jericho as recorded in the Bible (Nazworth 2012). A Sunday afternoon service called “A Prayer for Citizenship” held in Indianapolis in September 2013 was designed to encourage members of Congress to vote for immigration reform (Quiigley 2015, 125-134). In the 1950s and 1960s, civil rights groups often engaged in similar prayer meetings and vigils.

Vigils are often conducted in the wake of tragedies. One such vigil occurred in Newtown, Conn., in 2012 after the massacre of children at the Sandy Hill Elementary School. President Barack Obama delivered a speech on the occasion that ended in the following prayer: “May God bless and keep those we’ve lost in His heavenly place. May He grace those we still have with His holy comfort. And may He bless and watch over this community, and the United States of America” (Obama 2012).

Although prayers are often identified as a unifying activity during such times, on occasion religious elements of such vigils, especially when conducted on public property or organized by public officials, can themselves become controversial. Thus a U.S district court ruled in Rojas v. City of Ocala (2018) that the chief of police of Ocala, Fla., who had promoted a community prayer on the public square after a shooting spree that had wounded several children, had the primary purpose and effect of aiding religion in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment (Hudson 2018).

Current case law would likely allow prayer vigils on public property considered to be an open forum that would be open to both religious and nonreligious events. Given decisions in Engel v. Vitale and subsequent cases related to prayer in public schools, however, events held at such schools featuring prayers by teachers could convey the idea that the school supported their particular beliefs, in violation of the establishment clause. Thus, four current and retired school superintendents responding to a scenario outlined in a school administrative magazine questioned a decision by a South Carolina high school principal to hold a prayer vigil on a public school campus after the death of a prominent faculty member (Berman, Jerome, Lopez, and Ventura 2017). Such reservations would not apply to similar events sponsored by private organizations and held on private or church property.

See alsoEngel v. Vitale; Performative Prayers

FOR REFERENCEBerman, Shelley, Sarah Jerome, Maggie Lopez, and Mario Ventura. 2017. “Praying for a Colleague.” School

Administrator. April. https://my.aasa.org/AASA/Resources/SAMag/2017/Apr17/Ethics.aspx; Hudson, David L. Jr. 2018. “Florida judge: Government officials cannot promote prayer vigil in Ocala shooting.” The First Amendment Encyclopedia. https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/post/142/florida-judge-govern-ment-officials-cannot-promote-prayer-vigil-in-ocala-shooting; Nazworth, Napp. 2012. “Religious Left Holds Prayer Vigil at Supreme Court Over Immigration Law.” Christian Post. April 25. https://www.christianpost.com/news/religiou-left-holds-prayer-vigil-at-supreme-court-over-immigration-law.html; Obama, Barack. 2012. “Transcript: President Obama At Sandy Hook Prayer Vigil.” NPR. Dec. 16. https://www.npr.org/2012/12/16/167412995/transcript-president-obama-at-sandy-hook-prayer-vigil; Quigley, Fran. 2013. If We Can Win Here: The New Front Lines of the Labor Movement. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press; Rojas v. City of Ocala, 315 F.Supp.3d 1256 (2018).

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W

Wallace v. Jaffree (1985)In Wallace v. Jaffree, by a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court joined lower

courts in invalidating an Alabama law authorizing a period of silence in public schools “for meditation or prayer.” The law was a successor to an earlier law that had authorized such a moment “for meditation,” and had been followed by an even more explicit law allowing teachers to lead willing children in a prescribed prayer.

Ishmael Jaffree of Mobile County, Ala., had challenged this law (defended by Gov. George Wallace) on children, whom he said faced the choice of either participating in prayer or facing social ostracism. In the lower court, State Sen. Donald G. Holmes had testified that the sole purpose in adding the words “prayer” to the law was to encourage the voluntary return of such

prayer to the public schools, which would contradict the Supreme Court decisions in Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington v. Schempp (1963).

The case took an unusual turn when the district court decided that the First Amendment did not prohibit states from establishing their own religion, which, had the Supreme Court accepted this interpretation, would therefore have been exempt from this provision of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court, however, unanimously rejected this interpretation, which was inconsistent with decisions from Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940) forward.

Writing for the Court majority, Justice John Paul Stevens cited the Court’s decision striking down compul-sory flag salutes in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), affirming that the right to speak also included a right not to speak. Outlining the three-part Lemon test that it typically applied to cases involving the establishment clause, Justice Stevens said the law failed the first prong of this test calling for a “secular legislative purpose.” Largely relying on the statements by Sen. Holmes, Stevens observed that “The legislative intent to return prayer to the public schools is, of course, quite different from merely protecting every stu-dent’s right to engage in voluntary prayer during an appropriate moment of silence during the schoolday” (1985, 59).

The case contains a number of notable concurring and dissenting opinions that indicate the manner in which this case divided the Court and that caution that the decision does not necessarily apply to laws that simply allow for a moment of silence. Justice Lewis Powell specifically noted that he agreed with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s opnion “that some moment-of-silence statutes may be constitutional” (1985, 62), but was chiefly concerned with defending the Lemon test, which others on the Court were questioning.

Justice O’Connor’s concurring opinion, while unwilling to abandon the Lemon test, proposed greater consideration of the endorsement test, which would focus in establishment clause cases on “whether govern-ment’s purpose is to endorse religion and whether the statute actually conveys a message of endorsement” (1985, 69). She explained that “The endorsement test does not preclude the government from acknowledging

religion or from taking it into account in making law and policy. It does preclude government from conveying or attempting to convey a message that religion or a particular religious belief is favored or preferred” (1985, 70). Noting that 25 states had moment-of-silence laws on their books, O’Connor said she did not believe that such laws were in and of themselves included under Engel v. Vitale and subsequent precedents, both because such a moment was “not inherently religious” and because students who chose not to pray did not have to compromise their beliefs. Although she issued similar cautions about psychoanalyzing legislators in looking for the law’s primary intent, she noted that the preexisting moment-of-silence law did nothing to prohibit prayer and doubted whether the presidential proclamations of prayer and thanksgiving that Justice William Rehnquist cited in his dissent were applicable to public schoolchildren. She reiterated her view that a mo-ment-of-silence law, standing alone, would be constitutional.

Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote a dissent noting that the Court opened its own sessions with an appeal to God, as did both Houses of Congress. He said, “To suggest that a moment-of-silence statute that includes the word ‘prayer’ unconstitutionally endorses religion, while one that simply provides for a moment of silence does not, manifests not neutrality but hostility toward religion” (1985, 85). He thought that it was better to ascertain legislative intent from the words of the statute than from a comment made by a legislator more than a year after it was adopted.

In a shorter dissent, Justice Byron White viewed the Alabama law at issue as little more than clarifying that a moment of silence could be used for prayer if one so desired.

Justice Rehnquist’s dissent focused clearly on contesting the analogy of a wall of separation between church and state that Justice Hugo Black, repeating the words of Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Associa-tion, had introduced in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), which had dealt with state aid to parochial schools. Rehnquist further portrayed James Madison’s arguments for the Bill of Rights as less an attempt to create such a wall than a prudential measure designed to allay fears among Anti-Federalists who had opposed adoption of the U.S. Constitution. After reviewing the history of the establishment clause, Rehnquist argued that it had two primary purposes, namely, the prohibition of a national religion and a requirement for neutral-ity among sects, neither of which he thought was implicated in this case (1985, 98). Rehnquist cited presidential proclamations of prayer and thanksgiving, commentaries by Joseph Story and Thomas Cooley and others to show that there had never been a rigid separation of church and state in the U.S. He further noted that the Court had not consistently followed the Lemon test, leading to a great deal of ambiguity in its decisions.

See alsoAbington v. Schempp; Engel v. Vitale; God Save the United States and This Honorable Court; Presidential

Proclamations of Prayer and Thanksgiving

FOR REFERENCEAbington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 202 (1963); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940);

Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947); Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1961); Greenawalt, Kent. 2005. Does God Belong in Public Schools? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; Malone, Patrick. 1985. “Prayers for Relief in the Supreme Court.” ABA Journal 71 (April): 60-64; Smith, Steven D. 1987. “Symbols, Percep-tions, and Doctrinal Illusions: Establishment Neutrality and the ‘No Endorsement’ Test.” Michigan Law Review 86: 266-332; Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985).

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War BondsThe expression “there are no atheists in foxholes” underlines the popular notion that war often drives

combatants to seek a closer relationship to God. It is common to hear prayers asking God to protect Ameri-can soldiers and others on the front line of various crises, including first responders after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and medical personnel who served, often without adequate personal protective equipment, during the coronavirus outbreak that began in 2020. Although some like Mark Twain have parodied those who pray for victory for one side with little regard to the devastation that it would cause to one’s enemies, Abraham Lincoln recognized that combatants on different sides often prayed to the same God, making it impossible for Him to grant either side what it fully desired.

During both world wars of the 20th century, the U.S. government sought to sell bonds to finance the conflicts. Posters for such bonds often used such patriotic images as the U.S. flag, the Statue of Liberty, and the Liberty Bell. One striking poster issued by the U.S. Treasury Department during World War I was titled

“My Soldier.” Printed with a blue top with pictures of airplanes on both sides and alternating red and white stripes down the bottom, it included an oval image of a child on her knees praying with her mother before bedtime, and followed with a variation on a well-known bedtime prayer, namely:

Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep God bless my brother gone to war Across the seas, in France, so far. Oh, may his fight for Liberty Save millions more than little me From cruel fates or ruthless blast,— And bring him safely home at last.

Printed in black at the bottom were the words: BUY UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT BONDS THIRD LIBERTY LOAN. In a similar vein, a popular song of the day about a woman holding a baby that her husband who was

fighting overseas had never seen was, “Let Us Say a Prayer for Daddy,” and ended with the lines: Tho’ you have your mother with you baby Pray that dad will soon be here (Moore 2005, 262). In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered a speech in which he had praised four freedoms, namely,

freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of speech, and freedom to worship. The artist Norman Rockwell (1894-1976) subsequently produced four paintings depicting each of these freedoms. The one on freedom to worship, which portrayed individuals worshipping with their hands clasped in prayer, was among the images issued during World War II to sell war bonds.

During the Cold War that followed World War II, the nation further sought, by adopting “In God We Trust” as the national motto and including the word “Under God” in the pledge to the American flag, to distinguish itself from its atheist communist enemies.

See alsoFoxhole Prayers; Lincoln, Abraham, Second Inaugural Address; Twain, Mark, The War Prayer

FOR REFERENCEMoore, James P. Moore Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Dou-

bleday; “My Soldier.” Poster. Hoover Institution. https://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/33159

Washington, George, Circular letter to the StatesUnlike many leaders who have headed revolutions, George Washington, commander-in-chief of American

forces during the Revolutionary War, symbolically handed back his sword to Congress and announced in June 1783 that he was retiring to private life. Not long before, on March 15, Washington had headed off a poten-tial military takeover by urging soldiers to be patient as Congress sought just compensation for them. On this occasion, he had brought the hardened group to tears by pulling out his glasses, which members of his audience had never seen him use, to read a letter and saying “Gentlemen, you must pardon me, for I have grown not only gray but blind in the service of my country” (Miller 2010).

In a letter dated June 8, 1783, Washington sent a circular letter to state governors, announcing his formal retirement and encouraging states to continue working together now that the war was over. His letter con-tained a number of references to God and His Providence. They included a reference to “the glorious events which Heaven has been pleased to produce in our favor,” to “the lot which Providence has assigned us,” the stage “peculiarly designated by Providence for the display of human greatness and felicity,” “the pure and benign light of Revelation,” and “the Cup of blessing” that the nation had received (Washington, 1783).

Washington believed that the nation had been divinely blessed and was posed for future greatness. In one of the most-quoted phrases in the letter, Washington observed that:

“The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy Age of ignorance and superstition, but at an Epocha when the rights of Mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period—The researches of the human Mind after social happiness have been carried to a great extent, the treasures of knowledge acquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislators, through a long succes-sion of years, are laid open for our use and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the establishment of our forms of Government” (Washington 1783).

Washington addressed three specific issues. The first centered on his desire for the continuation of “An indissoluble Union of the States under one federal head.” The second was concern for “A sacred regard to public justice.” The third was for “The adoption of a proper Peace Establishment,” by which he primarily meant a well-regulated militia, and the fourth was for a continuation of “The prevalence of that pacific and friendly disposition among the people of the United States, which will induce them to forget their local prejudices and policies, to make those mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosperity, and, in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the community” (Washington 1783).

Washington ended with a prayer, having in the previous sentence referred to a “divine benediction” upon his retirement. This prayer, which has been modified to replace a reference to the governors and citizens of the states to “the United States,” is now read each day at the public wreath-laying at Washington’s grave outside his home at Mount Vernon, Va.:

“I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have the United States in his holy protection, that he

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would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most gra-ciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation” (“George Washington’s Prayer for His Country”).

Although he rarely cited chapter and verse, Washington frequently relied on biblical analogies and passages (Dreisbach 2014, 154-155). Washington took part of his prayer from Micah 6:8, in which the prophet says that God requires individuals “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” Moreover, though Washington rarely referred to Jesus, his reference to the “humility and pacific temper of mind ... of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion” is almost surely a reference to Jesus, and not far from the Christian custom of ending prayers to God “in Jesus’s Name.”

With minor variations, this prayer is regularly used at the President’s Chapel of George Washington University in the nation’s capital. The Daughters of the American Revolution contributed a broadside to the university with this prayer in 1919 (“A Prayer by George Washington”).

A version of the prayer that begins with a reference to “Almighty God” and ends with “Grant our supplica-tion, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen” is found on plaques located in St. Paul’s Chapel in New York City and in Pohick Church in Fairfax County, Va., where Washington served for 12 years as a vestryman (Federer 1996, 647).

See AlsoIn Jesus’s Name

FOR FURTHER REFERENCEDreisbach, Daniel L. 2014. “The Bible and the Political Culture of the American Founding.” Faith and the

Founders of the American Republic, ed. by Daniel L. Dreisbach and Mark David Hall. New York: Oxford University Press, 133-173; Federer, William J., ed. 1996. America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations. N.p.: FAME Publishing, Inc; Miller, John R. 2019. “George Washington’s Tear-Jerker.” The New York Times. Feb. 14; Washington, George. “From George Washington to the States, 8 June 1783.” Founders Online. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-11404; Washington, George. “George Washington’s Prayer for His Country.” Mount Vernon. https://www.mountvernon.org/the-estate-gardens/the-tombs/george-washingtons-prayer-for-his-country/; “A Prayer by George Washington.” Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.20803000/?st=text

Washington, George, Correspondence with Moses SeixasOne of America’s greatest legacies is that of religious freedom. This legacy is incorporated within the First

Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits a national establishment of religion while guaranteeing citizens the right to its free exercise.

As the nation’s first president, George Washington played a prominent role in making Jews feel welcome in a nation most of whose citizens identified as Christians. On Aug. 17, 1790, Moses Seixas, the warden of the

Hebrew Congregation in Newport, R.I., (the last state to ratify the U.S. Constitution under which Washing-ton had become president), joined others on behalf of “the children of the stock of Abraham” in welcoming Washington and expressing gratitude to God for “a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance—but generously affording to all Liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizen-ship:—deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language equal parts of the great governmental Machine” (Letters 1790). His greeting ended with a form of prayer:

“… to send up our thanks to the Ancient of Days, the great preserver of Men—beseeching him, that the Angel who conducted our forefathers through the wilderness into the promised Land, may graciously conduct you through all the difficulties and dangers of this mortal life:—And, when, like Joshua full of days and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of life, and the tree of immortality.” (Letters 1790)

One of the most intriguing features of this welcome was the manner in which it identified America, rather than Palestine (which was not at the time controlled by Jews) as “the promised Land.” By implication, this suggests that Washington was not only a new Joshua but also a new Moses.

Washington responded graciously by letter, repeating word for word Seixas’s sentiments with regard to the nation’s renunciation of bigotry and persecution. His final paragraph, like that in his Circular Letter to the States in 1783, resembled a prayer and utilized a number of images from the Hebrew Scriptures, or Christian Old Testament: “May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the Father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.” (Letters 1790)

Washington had expressed similar sentiments in a letter to a Jewish congregation in Savannah, Ga., on June 14, 1790, when he seemed to describe America as a new promised land:

“May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian Oppres-sors planted them in the promised land—whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establish-ing these United States as an independent nation—still continue to water them with the dews of Heaven and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.” (Washington, “From George Washington …”)

See alsoProvidentialism; Washington’s Circular Letter to the States

REFERENCESBelmore, Ryan. 2019. “Today in Newport History: August 17, 1790—George Washington Arrives in Newport.”

Aug. 17. What’s Up News. https://whatsupnewp.com/2019/08/today-in-newport-history-august-17-1790-george-washington-arrives-in-newport/; Letters of Moses Seixas and George Washington. August 1790. American Treasures of the Library of Congress website. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm006.html; Minow, Martha. 2017. “Dialogue, Respect, and Inclusion: What Moses Seixas and George Washington Can Teach Us Today.” https://today.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Touro-Synagogue-August-19- 2017clean.pdf; Washington, George. “From George Washington to the Savannah, GA., Hebrew Congrega-tion, 14 June 1790). Founders Online. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-05-02-0279.

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Washington, George, First Inaugural AddressThere has been considerable scholarly commentary on whether George Washington, having pledged to

“execute the Office of the President of the United States” and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitu-tion of the United States” as prescribed in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, added the words “so help me God,” a kind of prayer for divine aid that is not prescribed in the U.S. Constitution, but that was part of the English coronation service (Medhurst 1980, 62). The best available scholarly evidence on the subject suggests that he did not use these specific words but that he did kiss the Bible (Vile, “So Help Me God”).

Samuel Provoost (who would later become the third bishop of the Episcopal Church in America), the Senate chaplain, also offered a prayer at the inauguration, although the specific words do not appear to have been preserved.

Much as he had done in his earlier Circular Letter to the States, however, Washington incorporated a prayer, and a fairly long one at that, in his inaugural address. Indeed, he observed that “it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that this benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes: and may enable every instrument em-ployed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to his charge” (Washington 1789).

Expressing confidence that he was reflecting not only his personal sentiments but those of the nation as well, Washington proceeded to connect God’s Providence to the nation’s success: “No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency” (Washington 1789). After further comparing

“the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent” to the means through which other nations had been estab-lished, Washington suggested that this called for “some return of pious gratitude along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage” and that “these reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed” (Washington 1789).

As if to add a benediction to his address, Washington ended by refusing to take leave of his audience “without resorting once more to the benign parent of the human race, in humble supplication that since he has been pleased to favour the American people, with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquility, and dispositions for deciding with unparellelled [sic] unanimity on a form of Government, for the security of their Union, and the advancement of their happiness, so his divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate constitutions, and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend” (Washington 1789).

In Washington’s Farewell Address, which is considerably longer than either of his inaugural speeches, after reflecting upon the support he had received throughout his presidency, Washington described his vows for the nation much like a prayer:

“… that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete, by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing, as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation, which is yet a stranger to it” (Washington 1796).

As he neared the end of the speech, after professing not to have made any “intentional error” during his administration but acknowledging that “I may have committed many errors,” he added that “I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend” (Washington 1796).

See alsoCongress, First Prayer in; Washington’s Circular Letter to the States

FOR REFERENCEMedhurst, Martin Jay. 1980. ‘God Bless the President’: The Rhetoric of Inaugural Prayer. Thesis submitted

for doctor of philosophy degree from the Graduate School in the Department of Speech Communication at Pennsylvania State University. August; Strauch, Tara Thompson. 2013. Taking Oaths and Giving Thanks: Ritual and Religion in Revolutionary America. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy in history in the College of Arts and Science at the University of South Carolina; Vile, John R. “So Help Me God.” The First Amendment Encyclopedia. https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1718/so-help-me-god; Washington, George. “Washington’s Farewell Address, 1796.” George Washington’s Mount Vernon. https://www.mountvernon.org/education/primary-sources-2/article/washingtons-farewell-address-1796/; Washington, George. “Washington’s Inaugural Address of 1789: A Transcription.” National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/ameri-can_originals/inaugtxt.html

Washington, George, National Days of Thanksgiving and Prayer

Thanksgiving to God is a vital part of many prayers. Days of fasting, thanksgiving, prayer, and repentance, originating chiefly in New England, preceded the writing of the Constitution, but were affirmed thereafter. After both houses of Congress requested him to do so, President George Washington issued the first such proclamation on Oct. 3, 1789. This was just eight days after it had proposed the first 10 amendments and sent them to the states for ratification, suggesting that members of Congress saw no conflict between such decla-rations and the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

After noting that he had received a request from Congress, his first paragraph acknowledged “the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protect and favor” (Washington 1789). He proceeded to designate Thursday, Nov. 26, as such a day “to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of the Country previous to their becoming a Nation” and proceeded to list God’s blessings, some of which appeared to be aspirational. Moving from events since the end of the Revolutionary War, Washington singled out “the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted—for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge” (Washington 1789).

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As in earlier New England proclamations, Washington combined these “prayers and supplications” to beseech God “to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national govern-ment a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed—to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace and concord.” Al-though he did not specifically identify the religion he had in mind, Washington further urged citizens to ask God “To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best” (Washington 1789). Like many documents of the day, the proclamation was dated “in the year of our Lord” (Washington 1789).

Washington issued another Thanksgiving Proclamation during the second term of his presidency after the defeat of the Whiskey Rebellion, which had opposed federal taxes. Issued on Jan. 1, 1795, it called for “all reli-gious societies and denominators” to observe Feb. 19 as “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer” for blessings including “the suppression of an insurrection which so wantonly threatened” the nation’s tranquility (Wash-ington 1795). Much of the rest of the wording of this proclamation was similar to his first, but it was dated with reference to the date of American independence rather than by “the year of our Lord.”

Presidents John Adams and James Madison later followed suit before the practice was discontinued, then resumed by Abraham Lincoln and eventually incorporated into a congressional law making the fourth Thursday in November Thanksgiving Day. From the presidency of Ronald Reagan to the present, there has been a significant increase in presidential proclamations relative to religion, with many emphasizing the importance of prayer (Domke and Coe 2010, 84).

See alsoPresidential Proclamations of Thanksgiving and Prayer

FOR REFERENCEDomke, David, and Kevin Coe. 2010. The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America.

New York: Oxford University Press; Washington, George. 1789. “Thanksgiving Proclamation, 3 October 1789.” Founders Online. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-04-02-0091; Washington, George. 1795. “Thanksgiving Day 1795.” Pilgrim Hall Museum. pilgrimhall.org/pdf/TG_Presidential_Thanksgiving_Proclamations_1789_1815.pdf

Washington, George, Prayer at Valley ForgeThere are numerous depictions of General George Washington in prayer, including “The Prayer at Valley

Forge,” by Arnold Friberg (1913-2010), painted in 1975. It depicts Washington on bended knee and with folded hands praying in the snow beside his horse. Earlier depictions include Lambert Sachs’s “George Washington in Prayer at Valley Forge” (1854) and Henry Breuckner, “The Prayer at Valley Forge” (1866).

This and similar paintings are in turn linked to stories, which appear to have originated after Washington’s death, and to have begun with the notoriously unreliable bookseller Parson Mason Locke Weems in 1808, who was also responsible for the myth of Washington chopping down a cherry tree but refusing to lie to his

father about it. Weems reported that a Quaker farmer by the name of Potts observed Washington praying at Valley Forge during the trying days that his army was quartered there during the winter of 1777-1778. A later story by Grant Thorburn Sr. tells a similar tale, but locates Washington outside his camp at West Point in New York (Thompson 2008, 91-92). In both cases, the onlooking Quaker was described as being convinced that God was with the Patriot cause and that, at least in this case, pacifism was unnecessary.

Washington certainly was respectful of religious beliefs, and the best evidence suggests that he probably engaged fairly regularly in private devotions including prayers (probably from the Book of Common Prayer). He is reputed to have prayed fervently for relatives who were sick, and especially when members of the clergy were present, he also appears to have had prayers both before and after meals (Thompson 2008, 95-96).

Historian Blake McGready observes that early American writers used the story of the prayer as a way of including religious dissenters, like Quakers, within the body politic, but that in more recent times, the story has been used “to render George Washington an evangelical leader” (2018). He further reports that some have even drawn parallels between Washington’s prayers and that of Jesus praying in Gethsemane prior to his crucifixion or Moses meeting God at the burning bush where God called him to deliver his people from bondage in Egypt.

Two U.S. postage stamps have commemorated Washington’s prayer. These are a red-and-white two-cent stamp issued in 1928 and a multicolor 13-cent Christmas stamp issued in 1977.

There is a beautiful stained-glass window in the Congressional Prayer Room in the U.S. Capitol Building that depicts Washington at prayer surrounded by the words of Psalm 16:1: “Preserve me, O God, for in thee do I put my trust.”

See alsoBook of Common Prayer; Congress, Prayer Room

FOR REFERENCEJones, Gilbert Starling. 1945. “Prayer of Valley Forge May Be Legend or Tradition or a Fact, Yet It Remains

a Symbol of Faith.” The Picket Post (Valley Forge Historical Society. April, No. 9. https://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/washington/prayer.html#-1; McGready, Blake. 2018. “Revisiting the Prayer at Valley Forge.” Journal of the American Revolution. Oct. 15. https://allthingsliberty.com/2018/10/revisiting-the-prayer-at-val-ley-forge/; Thompson, Mary V. 2008. “In the Hands of a Good Providence”: Religion in the Life of George Wash-ington. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.

WeatherIn ancient times, it was common to interpret natural catastrophes as signs of divine disfavor, which required

repentance, sacrifice, fasting, and prayer. It was also common to invoke the divine to send rain, to win military victories, and to avert further natural catastrophes ( Jacobs 2015). One of the most compelling stories in the biblical book of I Kings, chapters 17 and 18, is the confrontation between the prophet Elijah and the proph-ets of Baal, only the former of which is able to call down fire on a sacrifice and end a long drought.

When Europeans came to the Americas, they often contrasted their own efficacious prayers to mitigate bad weather to what they considered to be the heathen incantations and war dances of Native American inhabitants. When, in turn, drought persisted, Native Americans sometimes blamed Europeans for being unkind to them by failing to call on God on their behalf. Presidential proclamations of Thanksgiving and prayer, including those

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of Lincoln, praised God for the nation’s bounty, which was often weather-related.Prayers for divine intervention on weather-related matters have probably decreased with the rise in scientif-

ic understandings of weather as the result of natural law. Liberal pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick thus pro-claimed in 1937 that “Prayer will not alter the weather” (Ostrander 2000, 154), and when the Christian Centu-ry ran a symposium, “Does Prayer Change the Weather?,” only two of nine solicited responses indicated that it could (Ostrander 2000, 166).

Despite such stances, prayers for weather have not completely fallen out of favor. One of the best known of such prayers was one composed by Chaplain James H. O'Neill at the request of Gen. George S. Patton in December 1944 for a prayer for good weather. It was as follows: “Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations” (O’Neill 1971).

More recently, a number of state governors have called for days of prayer for rain. These included the following: a call by then-Gov. Rick Perry of Texas for Days of Prayer in 2011 in the face of severe drought and wildfires (Fox News 2011); a prayer vigil called by Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia in 2007 for rain and by another Georgia governor, Joe Frank Harris, in 2016 (Bluestein 2017); calls in 2011 for a Day of Prayer in Arizona; and prayers by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer for the state budget in 2010 and for rain in 2011 (Fox News). In 2010, Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, and Bob Riley of Alabama joined to call for days of prayer in the aftermath of the massive British Petroleum oil spill (Fox News 2011).

Some governors have faced lawsuits filed by the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Not only have liti-gants had difficulty in establishing proper legal standing, but the long history of presidential proclamations of thanksgiving and prayer would suggest that, like the practice of legislative prayers that the U.S. Supreme Court approved in Marsh v. Chambers (1983), they seem unlikely to succeed in the near future. The situation would likely differ if such proclamations were considered to be mandatory orders rather than requests or recommendations.

Some of the most-publicized prayers related to weather have been connected to Pat Robertson (b. 1930), a Southern Baptist and founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network and of Regent University, who empha-sizes the gifts of the Holy Spirit and who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for president in 1988. On a number of occasions, he offered prayers for God to change the path of hurricanes so as to spare lives and to avert damage to his own college and television network. In 2018, he asked his listeners to raise a hand toward the Atlantic Ocean and offer the following prayer: “In the name of Jesus, you Hurricane Flor-ence, we speak to you in the name of Jesus, and we command the storm to cease its forward motion and go harmlessly into the Atlantic. Go up north away from land and veer off in the name of Jesus. We declare in the name of the lord that you shall go no farther, you shall do no damage in this area” (Mazza 2018).

In his famed essay “The War Prayer,” which Mark Twain wrote in 1904, an unnamed stranger notes while challenging a pastor’s prayer for military victory that “If you beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time.” He observed that “If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.”

Many believers who pray for God’s help in mitigating natural disasters have also been motivated to contribute to and otherwise participate in subsequent disaster-relief efforts and have found strength in prayer as they did so.

See also Colonial Interactions with Native Americans; Healing; Marsh v. Chambers; Patton, George S., Prayer for

Rain; Petitionary Prayer; Presidential Proclamation of Thanksgiving and Prayer; Twain, Mark, “The War Prayer”

FOR REFERENCEBluestein, Greg. 2017. “The time Sonny Perdue prayed for rain.” Political Insider. https://www.ajc.com/

blog/poolitics/that-time-sonny-perdue-prayed-for-rain/Me23ywkRAgWn1xnXpL2u1H/; Fox News. 2022. “Texas Governor Asks Residents to Pray for Rain Amid Extreme Drought.” April 23. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-governor-asks-residents-to-pray-for-rain-amid-extreme-drought; Jacobs, Jaap. 2015. “‘Hot Pestilential and Unheard-of Fevers, Illnesses and torments’: Days of Fasting and Prayer in New Netherland.” New York History 96 (Summer/Fall): 284-300; Mazza, Ed. 2018. “Pat Robertson Casts ‘Shield of Protection’ Ahead of Hurricane Florence.” Huffpost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pat-robertson-hurricane-flor-ence_n_5b972c04e4b)c7b0042d9c7; O’Neill, James H. 2004. [1971]. “The True Story of the Patton Prayer.” Oct. 6. The New American, pp. 35-39. https://www.fpparchive.org/media/documents/us_military/The%20True%20Story%20of%20the%20Patton%20Prayer_Msgr.%20James%20H.%20O%27Neill_January%2012,%202004_The%20New%20American.pdf; Ostrander, Rick. 2000. The Life of Prayer in a World of Science: Protestants, Prayer, and American Culture 1870-1930. New York: Oxford University Press; Twain, Mark. 1904. “The War Prayer.” https://www.antiwar/com/orig/train1.html.

Wedgwood Slave MedallionsOne of the most prominent reform movements in the 19th century was the movement for slave emancipa-

tion, or abolition. Along with the Liberty Bell, one of its most prominent symbols was a portrait of a kneeling African-American man, making an apparent appeal both to God and man, with chains on his arms and legs under the inscription “Am I not a Man and a Brother?”

This image, which became a prominent symbol of the American abolitionist movement, was originally formulated in England by the pottery maker Josiah Wedgwood (1730-95) for the Committee for the Aboli-tion of the Slave Trade. Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846) founded this committee in England in 1787, a year after the publication of his Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species. Clarkson would work with William Wilberforce and others to enact a law abolishing the British slave trade in 1807. Wedgwood, in turn, became a prominent member of this committee.

Wedgwood distributed medallions to committee members in Britain and sent some to Benjamin Franklin for distribution to American abolitionists, who were led chiefly by Quakers. Jewelry usually portrayed the figure of the African-American in black against a white background. The design was also incorporated into snuff boxes and other objects that men would have treasured. Displaying such an emblem served both as a way of identifying the owner as a friend of abolishing the slave trade, and perhaps also slavery itself, and as a way of popularizing the cause.

Noting that Clarkson had described the slave as “kneeling with one knee upon the ground,” and with “both hands lifted up to Heaven,” one writer observes that “it seems probable that the designer intended him to resemble supplicating figures from Christian iconography” (Guyatt 2000, 99). Others have noted that it may have played to European conceptions of the “noble savage” (“Antislavery Medallion”). The image has been described as among “the most influential and widely circulated imagery of slavery.” A recent museum exhibition

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further notes, “The design was widely copied by other artists and factories and applied to a variety of objects, mostly ceramic, including plates, pitchers, and tea canisters, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries” (“Am I not a Man and a Brother?”).

Later portrayals of African-Americans connected to their emancipation showed them in less-petitionary fashion, as in the bronze statue by John Quincy Adams Ward, “The Freedman,” sculpted in 1863 in response to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. In this portrayal, the figure, clad much like a figure in an ancient Greek or Roman statue, appears to have broken his own chain (Savage 2018, 53).

Prayer later played a prominent part in the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, as in the Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., in 1957.

See alsoFranklin, Benjamin; Kneel-ins; Prayer Pilgrimage

FOR REFERENCE“Am I not a Man and a Brother?” March 27, 2018. Birmingham Museum of Art. https://www.artsbma.org/

am-i-not-a-man-and-a-brother-medallion/; “Antislavery Medallion.” National Museum of American History. https://americanhistory.si/edu/collections/search/object/nmah_596365; Guyatt, Mary. 2000. “The Wedgwood Slave Medallion: Values in Eighteenth-Century Design.” Journal of Design History 13, 2:93-105; Savage, Kirk. 2018. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America. New Edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Whitfield, James MonroeJames Monroe Whitfield (1822-1871) was an African-American poet who spent much of his life as a

barber in Buffalo, N.Y., became an advocate for black emigration, and eventually came to celebrate emancipa-tion in the United States (Sherman 1972).

His most important work was a book, America and Other Poems, published in Buffalo in 1853. An unsigned introduction describes the author as “a poor colored man of this city” who “is uneducated; not entirely, but substantially,” and whose “genius is native and uncultivated” but might be improved if people buy his book, so that he might presumably devote more time to education (Whitfield 1853, vii).

The lead poem, “America,” is probably the best known. It contrasts the aspirations for the rights of man expressed in the American Revolution with the curse of slavery. Much like the biblical psalmist, Whitfield frequently refers to prayer, as when, in “America,” he implores:

And hear the agonizing cry Ascending up to God on high, From western wilds to ocean’s shore, The fervent prayer of the oppressed. (Whitfield 1853, 12)

Whitfield frequently alternates between hope and despair: Here Christian writhes in bondage still, Beneath his brother Christian’s rod, And pastors trample down at will,

The image of the living God. While prayers go up in lofty strains, And pealing hymns ascent to heaven, The captive, toiling in his chains, With tortured limbs and bosom riven, Raises his fettered hand on high, And in the accents of despair, To him to rules both earth and sky, Puts up a sad, a fervent prayer, To free him from the awful blast Of slavery’s bitter galling shame— (Whitfield 1853, 14)

As the poem comes to an end, Whitfield again mentions prayers: But in the sacred name of peace, Of justice, virtue, love and truth, We pray, and never mean to cease, Till weak old age and fiery youth In freedom’s cause their voices raise, And burst the bonds of every slave; Till, north and south, and east and west, The wrongs we bear shall be redressed. (Whitfield 1853, 16) One scholar, Jennifer Riddle Harding (2003), devoted special attention to Whitfield’s “Lines on the Death

of John Quincy Adams.” In that poem, Whitfield described Adams as “The great, the good, the just, the true” (Whitfield, 1853, 18), probably chiefly for his abolitionist as a member of Congress and his efforts to fight congressional attempts to “gag” anti-slavery petitions, which were often also referred to as prayers. Since the following poem “To Cinque” celebrates the leader of the revolt aboard the slave ship Amistad, whom Adams successfully defended in court, this may be a further cause for Whitfield’s praise.

Whitfield’s “How Long” is quite similar to Psalm 13, and might be described as a lament, with several repetitions of the question, “How long?” The poem opens with the following words:

How long, oh gracious God! How long Shall power lord it over right? The feeble, trampled by the strong, Remain in slavery’s gloomy night. (Whitfield 1853, 29)

Somewhat later he asks: How long shall Afric raise to thee Her fettered hand, oh Lord, in vain? And plead in fearful agony, For vengeance for her children slain. (Whitfield 1853, 30)

Still later, Whitfield observes:

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And while from thirty thousand fanes [temples] Mock prayers go up, and hymns are sung, Three millions drag their clanking chains “Unwept, unhonored and unsung;” Doomed to a state of slavery. (Whitfield 1853, 34) Whitfield’s “Prayer of the Oppressed” revives his rhetorical pleas of “How long,” but begins with another

rhetorical question: Oh great Jehovah! God of love, Thou monarch of the earth and sky, Canst thou from thy great throne above Look down with an unpitying eye?—(Whitfield 1853, 61) In his “Ode for the Fourth of July” Whitfield prays that the same spirit that brought about colonial

freedom from Great Britain will similarly be roused on behalf of the slaves: Almighty God! Grant us, we pray, The self-same spirit on this day, That, through the storm of battle, then Did actuate those patriot men! (Whitfield 1853, 75) In “Midnight Musings,” after contrasting the lives of the humble poor who pray to die so that their sorrows

might cease, Whitfield imagines that on Judgment Day, God will say: “Depart from me, ye cursed, afar, And give my humble followers room!” (Whitfield 1853, 78) In 1867 Whitfield wrote a poem to celebrate the fourth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation

Proclamation. Comparing the ships that brought New England Pilgrims to North America to secure liberty with the ships that brought slaves to Virginia, Whitfield describes Lincoln as a Moses who sought to provide equal liberty for all.

See alsoAdams, John Quincy; Puritans

FOR REFERENCEHarding, Jennifer Riddle. 2003. “Gagged Petitions and Unanswered Prayers: James M. Whitfield’s Anxious

‘America.’” CLA Journal 47 (December): 175-192; Sherman, Joan R. 1972. “James Monroe Whitfield, Poet and Emigrationist: A Voice of Protest and Despair.” The Journal of Negro History 57 (April): 169-176; Whit-field, J.M. 1853. America and Other Poems. Buffalo, NY: James S. Leavite; Whitfield, James M. 1867 [2011]. “A Poem, Written for the Celebration of the Fourth Anniversary of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclama-tion.” The Works of James M. Whitfield: America and Other Writings by a Nineteenth-Century African American Poet. Ed. Robert S. Levine and Ivy G. Wilson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Wiccan Public PrayersWicca is a neo-pagan religion that developed in the 20th century and is often associated with magic and

witchcraft. Its primary symbol is a five-pointed star within a circle (Petroski and Pfannenstiel 2015). As far as the author of this work can ascertain, no Wiccan has, as of 2020, been invited to pray before

Congress, but the Town of Greece, N.Y., which won a suit challenging its right to invite local clergy members to open its town meetings with a prayer from a member of the local clergy, reported that those who had prayed had included a Wiccan priestess.

Similarly, in April 2019, Iowa state Rep. Liz Bennett, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, invited a Wiccan priestess, Deborah Maynard, from her district to offer the opening prayer before the Iowa State House. She addressed her prayer “to God, Goddess, [and] Universe ... which is greater than ourselves.” She further referred to fire, air, water, and spirit, and asked the latter to “Be with this legislative body and guide them to seek justice, equity and compassion in the work that is before them today.”

Maynard ended with “Blessed Be, Aho, and Amen.” The first of these expressions is designed to express positive feeling for others, and the second is a Native American expression meaning thank you. The “amen” may have been uttered in an ecumenical spirit.

Quite a number of members absented themselves from the prayer, a groups of Christians led by the pastor of a local Church of Christ gathered to pray to the God of the Bible, and Rep. Rob Taylor, a Protestant from West Des Moines, turned his back on the speaker in a peaceful protest. At least one blogger characterized some of these responses as childish (Bradley 2015).

See alsoNative American Legislative Prayers; Pluralism; Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014)

FOR REFERENCEBradley, Dave. 2015. “Wiccan Says Opening Prayer; Christian Response is Childish.” April 12. Blog for

Iowa. https://blogforiowa.com/2015/04/12/wiccan-says-opening-prayer-christian-response-is-childish; Petroski, William and Brianne Pfannenstiel. 2015. “Iowa House starts day with Wiccan Invocation.” Des Moines Register. April 9. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2015/04/09/iowa-wic-can-house-chamber/25512827/

Wilson, WoodrowWoodrow Wilson (1865-1924) became president of the United States in 1913 and served until the end of

his second term in 1921. A Democrat, son of a Presbyterian minister and a pious mother, Wilson earned his Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University and is often associated with the Progressive move-ment for more direct democracy and scientific principles of public administration in government. In addition to establishing a reputation as a scholar, Wilson served as president of Princeton University and as governor of New Jersey.

Wilson was a highly devout man, who regularly read the Bible, prayed, and attended church (Grayson 1924). Although he ran for his second presidential term on the theme that “He kept us out of war,” in his second term Wilson was responsible for leading America through World War I, which he idealistically described as

“a war to end all wars.”

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A number of stories circulated during his presidency about a congressman finding him kneeling in prayer in the Red Room of the White House. There is evidence that this story is most likely mythical. It probably originated in criticisms in Wilson’s first presidential term (similar to contemporaries who sometimes deride politicians who appeal to “thoughts and prayers”) that he preferred to pray rather than to prepare the country for war, but the story became transfigured into the image of “a Commander-in-Chief who led a righteous war” (Burdinge 2013, 659). Wilson’s personal physician noted that “Had he been on his knees during office hours it would not have been in a semi-public room on the first floor, it would have been upstairs in a private room, in accordance with the Master’s injunction: ‘Enter into thy closet and when thou hast closed thy door pray to thy Father which is in secret’” (Grayson 1924). His doctor noted that Wilson loved the phrase, attributed to Oliver Cromwell, “Trust in God and keep your powder dry,” and that, consistent with what he identified as “social Christianity,” Wilson would have considered his work as a public servant part of his own spiritual service.

At the end of World War I, Wilson sought to establish a lasting peace, which included traveling to Europe and negotiating with its leaders. When Wilson returned to the United States, he discovered that Congress was strongly opposed to some of the points he had negotiated, including his plan for the nation to join the League of Nations. Weakened by the influenza epidemic of 1918, instead of resting and recuperating, Wilson, who believed strongly in the power of rhetoric, which he particularly associated with the parliamentary system of government in Great Britain, chose to take a whistle-stop tour by train to generate public support.

After apparently suffering one or more mini-strokes, Wilson returned to Washington, D.C., where on Oct. 2, 1919, he awoke to find that a stroke had paralyzed his left side and partially blinded him in his right eye. At a time when the protocol for presidential disability was less developed than today, Wilson’s wife, Edith, and members of his staff attempted to conceal the extent of his physical problems. During the time that he was bedridden, he received a visit with Democratic Sen. Gilbert Hitchcock of Nebraska and Republican Sen. Albert Fall of New Mexico, the latter of which was among his strongest critics. During the meeting, Fall was reputed to have said, “I hope you will consider me sincere. I have been praying for you” (Markel 2015). In a story presumably designed to show that Wilson remained in control of his faculties, he apparently responded,

“Which way, Senator?”Although the story epitomizes the difficulty of following the instructions that Jesus gave to pray for one’s

enemies, John Milton Cooper Jr., who wrote a biography of Wilson, doubted its authenticity, in that neither Wilson’s wife nor his doctor recorded such an exchange in their notes from that day (Markel 2015).

Wilson is the only U.S. president to be buried at National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. His tomb is appropriately engraved with a crusader’s sword (Grayson 1924). In 2020, however, his name was removed from the School of Government at Princeton University because he assented to racial segregation during his terms as president.

See alsoEnemies, Prayers for; National Cathedral; Thoughts and Prayers

FOR REFERENCEBurnidge, Cara L. 2013. “The Business of Church and State: Social Christianity in Woodrow Wilson’s

White House.” Church History 82 (September): 659-666; Grayson, Cary T. 1924. “The Religion of Woodrow Wilson.” Feb. 3. Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Staunton, Va. http://presi-dentwilson.org/items/show/22351; Markel, Howard. 2015. “When a secret president ran the country.” PBS News Hour. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/woodrow-wilson-stroke

Workplace Accommodation for Prayers The 1964 Civil Rights Act contains a provision that requires employers with 15 or more employees to

accommodate religious beliefs that do not impose an “undue burden” on their businesses. One potential bone of contention between employers and devout Muslims concerns accommodations for

prayer times, which their religion dictates should take place five times a day—at dawn, midday, midafternoon, sunset, and nighttime—with variations dependent on different times for the rising and setting of the sun. Moreover, such prayers, known as salat, are to be preceded by ritual washings that include the feet. In contrast to Jews, who typically worship on Saturday, and Christians who typically do so on Sunday, Muslims also generally worship on Friday afternoon, breaks for which might also interfere with workplace routines.

In general, courts have required employers to make reasonable accommodations, but because this standard is fact-specific to the nature of the business or industry involved, it is difficult to make broad generalizations. In the 2001 case of Elmenayer v. ABF Air Freight Systems, in New York, a court rejected the plea of a trucker seeking Friday worship times who was unwilling to accept accommodation by a switch to a night shift. By contrast, a court sent a case to a jury involving a hospital that fired an employee for washing her feet in the shower of an empty patient’s room without allowing her to explain the difficulty she was having with such ablutions in preparation for prayer (Glosseen).

One lawyer notes that employers have the best chance of forming acceptable policies related to special breaks or other accommodations for prayer when the policies are “content-neutral, well-documented, and applicable company-wide” (Gharbi 1018).

Public universities with significant numbers of Muslim students have had to decide whether to install special footbaths in some bathrooms rather than risk injury of students attempting to wash their feet in sinks before prayers. Though such decisions have sometimes met with resistance, they are generally understood as a health-and-safety issue rather than as favoritism for one religion over another (Lewin 2007).

FOR REFERENCEElmenayer v. ABF Air Freight Systems, 2001 WL 1152815 (E.D.N.Y. 2001); Equal Employment Opportu-

nity Commission. “Questions and Answers about the Workplace Rights of Muslims, Arabs, South Asians, and Sikhs under the Equal Employment Opportunity Laws.” https://www.eeoc.gov/facts/backlash-employee.html; Gharbi, Rafiq. 2018. “Workplace Religious Accommodations and Islamic Prayer.” Ferguson, Schetelich & Ballew. April 30. https://www.fsb-law.com/workplace-religious-accommodations-and-islamic-prayer/; Gosseen, Robert I. “Accommodating Islam in the Workplace: A Work in Progress.” Ganfer & Shore, LLP. Primerus. https://www.primerus.com/business-law-articles/accommodating-islam-in-the-workplace-a-work-in-progress-332011.htm; Lewin, Tamar. 2007. “Universities Install Footbaths to Benefit Muslims, and Not Everyone Is Pleased.” Aug. 7. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/education/07mus-lim.html

World Prayer CenterThere may be numerous churches or parachurch groups that call or have called themselves “world prayer

centers,” but probably none is as well-known as the World Prayer Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., that is connected with the New Life Church. Much as Oral Roberts placed a prayer tower in the middle of his campus, the World Prayer Center highlights the importance that the New Life Church places on petitionary prayer.

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An evangelical megachurch that was once headed by Ted Haggard, former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, who was caught up in a sexual scandal and asked to resign, the World Prayer Center was designed to be what has been described as “a ‘spiritual norad’ [North American Aerospace De-fense Command], a prayerful parallel to the air force’s nearby air defense command” (Olsen 1996). In addition to serving as a place to accept prayer requests 24 hours a day, the center housed offices for Global Harvest Ministries, the Sentinel Group, and the Christian Information Network.

As individuals write their requests on one of the center’s computers, the requests are sent throughout the world where believers are on hand to join in prayer. A visitor noted that prayers include a mix of mundane requests for financial blessings, fervent pleas for the sick, requests for the conversion of Iraqis and Ara-bic-speakers, and the like (Sharlet 2008, 302-303). Although prayers were offered for pushing back American enemies in Baghdad and elsewhere, members of the Prayer Team were generally instructed “to refrain from explicitly political prayer” (Sharlet 2008, 302-303).

The World Prayer Center is certainly not the only place that employs such terms as “prayer warriors,” “prayer vigils,” and the like, but, perhaps in part because of its proximity to the Air Force Academy, members often refer to the center as “a battleground between good and evil,” and even a “spiritual Gettysburg” (Sharlet 2008, 304). This may be a way of indicating that evangelicals understand prayer not as a retreat from the world but as a way of conducting spiritual warfare against what Ephesians 6:12 identifies as “the rulers of the darkness of this world” and “against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

See alsoMilitary Language; Petitionary PrayerL Roberts, Oral

FOR REFERENCEOlsen, Ted. 1996. “Prayer Center Construction Begins.” Christianity Today. May 20. https://www.christian-

itytoday.com/ct/1996/may20/6t678b.html; Sharlet, Jeff. 2008. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. New York: Harper Perennial.

Wright, Joe, Prayer in Kansas LegislatureThe practice of opening American legislative sessions with prayer dates all the way back to the First Conti-

nental Congress and has been followed in most state legislatures. Such prayers are typically led by a paid chaplain, although sometimes guest members of the clergy are also invited to speak.

It is generally understood that such prayers are intended to be nondenominational, nonpartisan, and unifying. Chaplains like those in Congress who also happen to be members of that body and have the expec-tation of ministering to fellow members, are especially likely to avoid alienating those whom they are com-missioned to serve.

From time to time, however, a visiting pastor who may or may not know, or accept, such norms, can garner headlines with a particularly provocative prayer. Few have been as provocative as the prayer that the Rev. Joe Wright, the pastor of the Central Christian Church of Wichita, delivered to the Kansas State House in January 1996. Although the prayer arguably touched sacred cows on both sides of the aisle, it was most clearly aligned with those on the right in what have been called the American culture wars.

The prayer was phrased much like what is generally known as a jeremiad, or a litany of perceived national

sins designed to show how a people has fallen and encourage them to repent and change their ways (Miller 1981). Indeed, the reference to “woe” in the opening sentences, although taken from Isaiah 5:20, is perhaps more characteristic of the prophet Jeremiah. It is not surprising that state Rep. Jim Long observed, “He made everyone mad” (Fisher 1996).

The prayer was as follows: “Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask Your forgiveness and to seek Your direction and

guidance. We know Your word says, “Woe to those who call evil good,” but that is exactly what we have done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values. We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your word in the name of cultural pluralism. We have worshipped other gods and called it ‘multiculturalism.’ We have endorsed perversion and called it ‘an alternate lifestyle.’ We have exploited the poor and called it ‘a lottery.’ We have neglected the needy and called it ‘self-preservation.’ We have rewarded laziness and called it ‘welfare.’ In the name of ‘choice,’ we have killed our unborn. In the name of ‘right to life,’ we have killed abortionists. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it ‘building esteem.’ We have abused power and called it ‘political savvy.’ We’ve coveted our neighbors’ possessions and called it ‘taxes.’ We’ve polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it ‘freedom of expression.’ We’ve ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it ‘enlightenment.’ Search us, oh God, and know our hearts today. Try us, and show us any wickedness in us. Cleanse us

from every sin, and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of Kansas and who

have been ordained by You to govern this great state. Grant them Your wisdom to rule, and may their decisions direct us to the center of Your will. I ask it in the name of your son, the living savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.” (Raj 2019)The prayer evoked both praise and criticism. Thousands of people sent letters to Wright’s church, most of

which supported the prayer. Wright’s congregation gave him a standing ovation the Sunday after his prayer, but the prayer, which was apparently repeated in Colorado, led some legislators to walk out there as others had done in Kansas, while apparently evoking little response in Utah and Nebraska (Fisher 1996). Conserva-tive radio commentator Paul Harvey broadcast it twice on his ABC Radio newscast (Emery 2019).

Although legislative bodies typically craft legislation through compromise, Wright spoke in absolutes. He observed that “I don’t know if they were just looking for platitudes or a ‘To whom it may concern’ kind of prayer. But there are absolutes, and God has called me to preach the truth. Naturally, any time you preach absolutes, you’re going to offend some people” (Fisher 1996).

One of the most noticeable aspects of the prayer is that it appeared to hold secular government to the same kind of standards to which believers might hold their own church leaders. Wright’s statement that “We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment” would suggest that he is among those who accept the notion of a Christian founding. Notably, in addition to condemning abortion and homosexuality, Wright even condemned parental disciplinary decisions, which are not typically the

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subject of state legislation. Moreover, his statement that “we have worshipped other gods” was less likely a reference to specific actions of the Kansas Legislature and more likely a reference to non-Christian faiths within the state.

On March 25, 2019, Pennsylvania state Rep. Stephanie Borowicz stirred similar controversy when on the day that the first Muslim representative was to be sworn in, she gave a prayer seeming to bemoan the occasion and laden with references to Jesus.

See alsoBorowicz, Stephanie, Prayer in the Pennsylvania Legislature; Congress, First Prayer in; Marsh v. Chambers;

State Legislative Prayers

FOR REFERENCEEmery, David. 2019. “Prayer to the Kansas House of Representatives Sparked Furor.” Liveaboutdotcom.

April 24. https://www.liveabout.com/kansas-house-of-representatives-urban-legends-4072737; Fisher, Marc. 1996. “Stark Prayer Sparks an Absolute Political Furor.” The Washington Post. May 20; Miller, Perry. 1981. “The Jeremiad.” The New England Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 27-39; Raj, T.V. Anthony. 2019. “The Wright’s Prayer.” Impressions. https://tvaraj.com/2010/01/21/the-wrights-prayer/

Y

YogaYoga is a breathing and mindfulness exercise involving body positions. It

originated in South Asia, and is often associated with Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religions and the attempt to stress human oneness with the divine (Brown 2019, 53). It has become increasingly popular in the United States.

Sometimes yoga is portrayed as a spiritual exercise, sometimes not. Al-though Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has described “Christian Yoga” as “an oxymoron” (Brown 2019, 59), another evangelical Christian writer has referred to it as “my bodi-ly-kinetic prayer” (Brown 2019, 60). Wheaton College, a leading evangelical institution, has adopted a “redeemed form of yoga” as part of its physical education program that includes beginning with Christian prayer and

Bible reading (Brown 2019, 61). In Sedlock v. Baird (2015), a California appellate court upheld a yoga program that had been adopted by

public elementary schools against a challenge that it violated the establishment clause of the state constitu-tion, which was identical to that in the U.S. Constitution. However, the court observed that the schools had made a concerted effort to strip the program of its religious content.

See alsoPrayer and Bible Reading in Public Schools

FOR REFERENCEBrown, Cady Gunther. 2019. Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools: Reforming Secular Education

or Reestablishing Religion? Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press; Sedlock v. Baird, 235 Cal.App.4th 874 (1915).

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Z

Zorach v. ClausonIt is common for those who believe that America is a Christian nation to

focus on the language of the majority opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Zorach v. Clauson (1952), which permitted public schools to release students from school for off-campus religious instruction. The decision modified the much-criticized ruling in McCollum v. Board of Education (1948), which had struck down a program in which religious teachers came into the schools to provide religious instruction as a violation of the establishment clause.

By contrast, in Zorach, New York public schools had devised a plan whereby students, whose parents provided written permission for them to do so, would go off campus during school time to participate in religious

instruction and devotional exercises, which presumably would have included prayer. Off-site religious instructors were responsible for taking attendance, and students whose parents did not want them to go off campus would remain at school.

Justice William O. Douglas wrote the majority decision for the Court upholding the new released-time program. In so doing, he noted that the new program was distinguishable from McCollum in that it neither provided religious instruction in school classrooms nor spent public funds. “No one is forced to go to the religious classroom and no religious exercise or instruction is brought to the classrooms of the public schools,” Douglas wrote, adding: “A student need not take religious instruction”; moreover, “school authorities are neutral ... and do no more than release students whose parents so request” (1952, 311).

Agreeing that the First Amendment “reflects the philosophy that Church and State should be separated” and that the First Amendment prohibition “is absolute,” Douglas went on to say that the First Amendment

“does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and State. Rather, it studi-ously defines the manner, the specific ways, in which there shall be no concert or union or dependency one on the other” (1952, 212). Furthermore, church and state need not be “aliens to each other” (1952, 312). Douglas pointed to many presumably acceptable ways that they were related: These included “prayers in our legislative halls; the appeals to the Almighty in the messages of the Chief Executive; the proclamation making Thanksgiving Day a holiday; ‘so help me God’ in our courtroom oaths” and even the reference to God each morning the Court was opened (1952, 312-313).

After further comparing the released-time program to allowing students to absent themselves for varied religious observances, Douglas said, “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being” (1952, 313). Agreeing that “The government must be neutral when it comes to competition between sects” and that it must avoid coercion, Douglas did not think coercion was at issue in this case (1952, 314).

Justice Hugo Black, who had written the majority opinion in McCollum, found no significant difference between the two cases. He said both utilized state compulsion to benefit religious entities. Precisely because

Americans were religious and so religiously divided, he said, it was important not to support one religion over another. When “state help to religion injects political and party prejudices into a holy field,” it “too often substitutes force for prayer, hate for love, and persecution for persuasion” (1952, 320).

In another dissenting opinion, Justice Felix Frankfurter also said the state was using coercion to funnel students into religious instruction and that the lower courts had not allowed adequate presentation of this aspect of the case. In yet another dissent, Justice Robert Jackson pointed to the role of the truant officer who checked on students who failed to show up for religious instruction and the use of the school “as a temporary jail for a pupil who will not go to Church” (1952, 324). He further charged that his “evangelistic brethren confuse an objection to compulsion with an objection to religion” (1952, 324). Bemoaning what he considered to be the warps and twists in the wall of separation between church and state, he mused that “today’s judg-ment will be more interesting to students of psychology and of the judicial processes than to students of constitutional law” (1952, 325).

See alsoAbington v. Schempp; Engel v. Vitale; Prayer and Bible Reading in Public Schools

FOR REFERENCEAlley, Robert. 1996. Without a Prayer: Religious Expression in Public Schools. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203 (1948); Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952).

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GlossaryAblution A ritual washing required by some religions before prayer or other worship activities.Amen A word, meaning “so be it,” typically included at the end of a prayer. Members of the audience who

agree with the prayers of the sentiment often add their own Amens as affirmations of its contents. Benediction A prayer, typically of blessing, generally given at the end of a sermon or ceremony.Bill of Rights The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which are largely devoted to the protection

of individual rights.Charismatic Churches, like those associated with Pentecostalism and the Holiness movement, that stress the

gifts of the Holy Spirit, including miraculous answers to prayer and the gift of speaking in tongues. Civil Religion Practices such as putting “In God We Trust” on coins, pledging allegiance to the U.S. flag

“under God,” and ceremonial prayers that have been generally accepted as more symbolic than religious and have typically been upheld as not violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

Confession Prayer directed to acknowledging sins or faults to God, typically with the hope of forgiveness.Covenant Theology The idea that an individual or group of individuals is in a special relationship to God

based on their adherence to God’s laws with the expectation of his blessings.Doxology A hymn, or prayer, praising God.Due-Process Clauses Provisions in the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution that require

adherence to due process of law. The provision within the latter has been the basis through which the U.S. Supreme Court has applied most provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states.

Endorsement Test Sometimes used by the Supreme Court to strike down laws that violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment by seeming to endorse one religious view over another and lead others to feel like outsiders.

Episcopalians Generally used to refer to those who believe in a church hierarchy that includes bishops. The Protestant Episcopalian Church in America is an offshoot of the Anglican Church of England, which was formed when the British broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Rome. Methodists led by John Wesley, in turn, broke from the Episcopal Church.

Establishment Clause The clause in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that prohibits Congress from making any laws respecting the establishment of religion. The U.S. Supreme Court has also applied this restriction to the states via the provision in the 14th Amendment (adopted in 1868) that prohibits states from denying individuals due process of law.

Evangelicals Protestants who believe in the essentiality of being “born again.” Such Protestants typically take a high view of biblical interpretation and believe they have a duty to “evangelize” by sharing the Gospel with others.

First Amendment The first of 10 changes to the U.S. Constitution, proposed by Congress in 1789 and ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures in 1791, that prohibit Congress from establishing religion or denying its free exercise, and protect freedoms of speech, press, peaceable assembly, and petition. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that all these provisions also apply to state governments.

Free-Exercise Clause Provision in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting Congress from making any law infringing the free exercise of religion.

Fundamentalists Protestant Christians who generally reacted to 19th century views of biblical criticism and evolution by stressing what they considered to be the “fundamentals” of biblical faith, including such miracles as the virgin birth of Jesus, his substitutionary death, and his physical resurrection.

Imprecatory Prayers Those, like some found in the biblical book of Psalms, calling for the destruction of one’s enemies.

Intercessory Prayer A prayer, typically petitionary in nature, that one makes on behalf of another.Invocation A prayer invoking God for assistance, often at the beginning of a church service.King James Bible A translation of the Bible from its original languages into English, which was

commissioned by James I of England, was first published in 1611, and has probably had more influence on the English language than any comparable translation.

Lemon Test A test often used by the U.S. Supreme Court to judge whether laws violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The test requires that such laws have a clear secular (nonreligious) purpose, have a primary effect that neither advances or inhibits religion, and do not promote an excessive entanglement between church and state.

Liturgy A specific guide for worship that often includes prescribed prayers. Lord’s Prayer A model prayer attributed to Jesus as a way of instructing his disciples how to pray.Penitence Contrition for sins committed.Petitionary prayer One that calls upon God for a specific favor.Pilgrims Puritans who left England to pursue their religious liberty in America.Novena A prayer or prayers repeated over a period of nine (novena is from the Latin word novem, meaning

nine) days or weeks.Pilgrims A group of Puritan dissenters from the Church of England who came to America to enjoy greater

religious freedom.Praise A type of prayer, often embodied in psalms and hymns, akin to thanksgiving, albeit directed to

extolling God’s attributes rather than thanking him for specific blessings. Prayer Cloths Pieces of cloth distributed by some religious groups to be placed upon the body for healing of

physical ailments. Prayer Rugs Rugs, used chiefly by Muslims, to separate them from unholy objects when they engage in

prayers to Allah.

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Presbyterians Groups of Protestant Christians who adhere generally to the thinking of the Protestant reformer John Calvin (who put great emphasis on the doctrine of predestination) and who believe that individual churches should be governed by elders.

Protestants Groups of Christian believers who split from the Roman Catholic Church, largely because they thought it had become too formalistic and had strayed from the faith as described in the Gospels.

Providentialism The idea that an individual or nation is the special recipient of God’s blessings.Puritans Protestant dissenters from the Anglican Church of England who sought further reforms of church

liturgy and practices that would bring it closer in line with Reformation theology. Reformation The movement initiated by Martin Luther in 1517 in protest against what he considered to be

the formalism and extra-biblical doctrines (like indulgences, celibacy of priests, etc.) of the Roman Catholic Church. Those who broke from the church are known as Protestants, but they have split into multiple denominations. Luther’s brand of Protestantism resulted in the Lutheran Church, John Calvin’s and John Knox’s in the Presbyterians, etc.

Rosary A set of prayer beads used chiefly by Roman Catholics to enhance prayers.Salat Islamic daily prayers, which occur five times each day.Standing Before U.S. courts will issue opinions, the parties before them must establish a concrete interest at

issue that make them a proper party with standing to sue. Some challenges to practices involving state involvement with prayer, for example one challenging the president’s right to issue proclamations of national days of prayer, have failed because the Court did not believe parties could establish such standing.

Thanksgiving Prayers of gratefulness to God for blessings that He has bestowed.Wall of Separation Between Church and State An analogy, associated with Roger Williams and Thomas

Jefferson, that the Supreme Court sometimes uses in cases interpreting the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

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Articles and Chapters

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Wills, Anne Blue. 2003. “Pilgrims and Progress: How Magazines Made Thanksgiving.” Church History 72 (March): 138-158. Wincik, Stephen. 2018. “Kumbaya: History of an Old Song.” Feb. 6. Library of Congress. https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2018/02/kumbaya-history-of-an-old-song/ Winiarski, Douglas I. 2012. “The Newbury Prayer Bill Hoax: Devotion and Deception in New England’s Era of Great Awakenings.” Massachusetts Historical Review 14: 52-86. Winthrow, Brandon. 2018. “It Wouldn’t Be an American Road Trip Without Roadside Chapels.” Sept. 1. Daily Beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/it=wouldnt-be-an-american-road-trip-without-roadside-chapels Wise, Michael Z. 2001. “THINK TANK; A Cold-War Weapon Disguised as a Place to Spend the Night.” The New York Times. July 21. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/21/books/think-tank-a-cold-war-weapon-disguised-as-a-place-to-spend-the-night.html Wohlers, Charles. n.d. “The Book of Common Prayer: Confederate States of America.” http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1789/csa.htm

Y Yaccino, Steven, Michael Schwirtz, and Marc Santora. 2012. “Gunman Kills 6 at a Sikh Temple Near Milwaukee.” The New York Times. Aug. 5. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/us/shooting-reported-at-temple-in-wisconsin.html “Your Guide to Praying for Government Officials.” Myfaithvotes. N.d. https://mfv.sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/MFV_Prayer_Guide_for_Government_Officials.pdf

Z Zauzmer, Jule 2018. “The Episcopal Church will revise its beloved prayer book but doesn’t know when.” The Washington Post. July 18. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/07/18/the-episcopal-church-will-revise-its-beloved-prayer-book-but-doesnt-know-when/ Zengerie, Jason. 2007. “Dennis Kucinich On His Terms: Taking Dennis Kucinich Seriously.” Election 2008, ed. Franklin Foer. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 87-94. Zhang, Andrew. 2009. “Another First—woman to give inaugural sermon.” CNN. Jan. 12. https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/12/inauguration.sermon.index.html Zimmerman, Carol. 2020. “President Trump issues new guidance on prayer in public schools.” Catholic News Service. Jan. 17. https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/01/17/president-trump-issues-new-guidance-prayer-public-schools Zimmerman, Carol. 2018. “Robert Kennedy’s Catholicism was part of his personal life and politics.”

Catholic News Service. June 8. https://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2018/robert-kennedys-catholicism-was-part-of-his-personal-life-and-politics.cfm. Zimmermann, Stephanie, and Joy Hart Siebert, Dwight B. Billings, and James G. Houghland Jr. “‘God’s Line is Never Busy’: An analysis of Symbolic Discourse in Two Southern Appalachian Denominations.” Sociological Analysis 51 (Autumn): 197-306.

Books and Dissertations

A Adams, John Quincy. 1848. Letters of John Quincy Adams, to his Son, on The Bible and Its Teachings. Auburn, NY: Derby, Miller & Co. Alley, Robert. 1996. Without a Prayer: Religious Expression in Public Schools. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Anderson, Chad L. 2020. The Storied Landscape of Iroquoia: History, Conquest, and Memory in the Native Northeast. Omaha: University of Nebraska Press. Annis, Heather J. 2016. The Book of Comic Prayer: Using Art and Humor to Transform Youth Ministry. New York: Morehouse Publishing. Appelbaum, Patricia. 2015. St. Francis of America: How a Thirteenth-Century Friar Became America’s Most Popular Saint. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Bassard, Katherine Clay. 2010. Transforming Scriptures: African American Women Writers and the Bible. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Becker, Theodore L., and Malcolm M. Feeley, eds. 1973. The Impact of Supreme Court Decisions: Empirical Studies. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Padgett, Timothy D., ed. 2020. Dual Citizens: Politics and American Evangelicalism. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

B Blanton, Anderson. 2015. Hittin’ the Prayer Bones: Materiality of Spirit in the Pentecostal South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. For specific chapter on prayer cloths, see Chapter 2, “Prayer Cloths Remnants of the Holy Ghost and the Texture of Faith,” pp. 52-104. Blazer, Annie. 2015. Playing for God: Evangelical Women and the Unintended Consequences of Sports Ministry. New York University Press.

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The Book of Common Prayer, 1559, The Elizabethan Prayer Book. 1976. Ed. by John E. Booty. Published for The Folger Shakespeare Library by the University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville. Branch, Taylor, 1988. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63. New York: Simon and Schuster. Branham, Robert James, and Stephen J. Hartnett. 2002. Sweet Freedom’s Song: “My Country “Tis of Thee” and Democracy in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Brown, Cady Gunther. 2019. Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools: Reforming Secular Education or Reestablishing Religion?” Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Brown, Cady Gunther. 2012. Testing Prayer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Buck, Christopher. 2015. God & Apple Pie: Religious Myths and Visions of America. Kingston, NY: Educator’s International Press. Bunyan, John. 1663. A Discourse Touching Prayer. http://truthinheart.com/EarlyOberlinCD/CD/Bunyan/text/Discourse.Touching.Prayer/Entire.Book.html

C Campbell, James, and William Rogers. 1787. AN ORATION, IN COMMEMORATION OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH-AMERICA, DELIVERED JULY 4, 1787, At the Reformed Calvinist Church in Philadelphia, BY JAMES CAMPBELL, ESQUIRE, TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, AN INTRODUCTORY PRAYER, DELIVERED ON THE SAME OCCASION, BY THE REV. WILLIAM ROGERS, A.M., PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE PENNSYLVANIA SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI. Philadelphia: Prichard and Hall. Chamedes, Giuliana. 2019. A Twentieth-Century Crusade: The Vatican’s Battle to Remake Christian Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Clark, Alexandra Leigh. 2005. Congress, religion, and the Cold War consensus from 1952-1956. Undergraduate thesis for Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi. Collins, Ace. 2003. Songs Sung Red, White and Blue: The Stories Behind America’s Best-Loved Patriotic Songs. New York: HarperCollins. Conyngham, David Power. 2019. Soldiers of the Cross, the Authoritative Text: The Heroism of Catholic Chaplains and Sisters in the American Civil War, ed. David J. Endres and William B. Kurtz. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Cooper, Valerie C. 2011. Word, Like Fire: Maria Stewart, the Bible, and the Rights of African Americans. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Cousins, Norman, ed. 1958. “In God We Trust”: The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding Fathers. New York: Harper & Brothers.

D Darden, Robert. 2014. Nothing but Love in God’s Water. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press. Davis, Derek H. 2000. Religion and the Continental Congress 1774-1789: Contributions to Original Intent. New York: Oxford University Press. Dennis, Matthew. 2002. Red, White, and Blue Letter Days: An American Calendar. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Dierenfield, Bruce J. 2007. The Battle Over School Prayer: How Engel v. Vitale Changed America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Dodds, Michael J. 2012. Unlocking Divine Action. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. Domke, David, and Kevin Coe. 2010. The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Dumenil, Lynn. 2016. Freemasonry and American Culture, 1880-1930. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Du Mez, Kristin Kobes. 2010. Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation.

E Eden, Scott. 2005. Touchdown Jesus: Faith and Fandom at Notre Dame. New York: Simon & Schuster. Eidsmoe, John. 1987. Christianity and the Constitution: The Faith of the Founding Fathers. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker House Books. Emery, Fred. 1994. Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon. New York: Times Books.

F Farrand, Max, ed. 1966. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Federer, Susie, and William J. Federer. 2012. Miracles in American History: 32 Amazing Stories of Answered Prayer. Amerisearch, Inc. Federer, William J., ed. 1996. America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations. N.p. FAME Publishing, Inc. Federer, William J. 2010. Prayers and Presidents: Inspiring Faith From Leaders of the Past. St. Louis: Amerisearch. Feltmate, David. 2017. Drawn to the Gods: Religion and Humor in The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy. New York: New York University Press. Fletcher, Holly Berkley. 2007. Gender and the American Temperance Movement of the Nineteenth Century. New York: Routledge.

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Forney, Craig A. 2007. The Holy Trinity of American Sports: Civil Religion in Football, Baseball, and Basketball. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. Fosdick, Harry Emerson. 1959. A Book of Public Prayers. New York: Harper & Brothers. Fosdick, Harry Emerson. 1920. The Meaning of Prayer. New York: Association Press. Frazer, Gregg L. 2012. The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders: Reason, Revelation, and Revolution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Fuller, A. James. 2000. Chaplain to the Confederacy: Basil Manly and Baptist Life in the Old South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

G Garrow, David J. 1986. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: William Morrow and Co., Inc. Gelfard, Michael. 2006. Sea Change at Annapolis: The United States Naval Academy, 1949-2000. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. See especially Chapter 4, “The Spiritual Ball Game: Anderson v. Laird and the End of Mandatory Chapel Attendance,” pp. 79-108. Gibson, Jeffrey B. 2015. The Disciples’ Prayer: The Prayer Jesus Taught in Its Historical Setting. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. Ginzberg, Lori D. 2010. Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life. New York: Hill and Wang. Goyer, Tricia. 2015. Prayers That Changed History. Grand Rapids, MI: Zonderkidz. Graham, Billy. 1997. Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham. San Francisco: Harper. Greenawalt, Kent. 2005. Does God Belong in Public Schools? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Grubiak, Margaret M. Landscapes of Faith and Doubt in Modern America: Monumental Jesus. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.

H Hackett, David G. 2014. That Religion in Which All Men Agree: Freemasonry in American Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Haiman, Franklyn S. Religious Expression and the American Constitution. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. Hambrick-Stowe, Charles E. 1982. The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines in Seventeenth-Century New England. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Haynes, Stephen R. 2012. The Last Segregated Hour: The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation. New York: Oxford University Press. Herberg, Will. 1960. Protestant, Catholic, Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology. Rev. ed. New York: Doubleday. Hewlett, Richard G. 1992. Washington Cathedral and Its National Purpose: The Emergence of an Ideal, 1867-1990. Washington, DC: Washington National Cathedral.

Hilton, Conrad N. 1957. Be My Guest. New York: Prentice-Hall Press. Holtz, Ahalom E. 2019. Praying Legally. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies. Hoffer, Charles. 2011. When Benjamin Franklin Met the Reverend Whitefield. Baltimore, Md. Johns Hopkins University Press.

J Jacobs, Alan. 2013. The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. James, William. 1958 [1902]. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. New York: A Mentor Book from New American Library. Jefferson, Thomas. 1989 [c1820]. The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Boston: Beacon Press. Johnson, Lyndon Baines. 1971. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Jones, David W., and Russell S. Woodbridge. 2017. Health, Wealth, and Happiness: How the Prosperity Gospel Overshadows the Gospel of Christ. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publishers.

K Keynes, Edward, with Randall K. Miller. 1989. The Court vs. Congress: Prayer, Busing, and Abortion. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Kidd, Thomas S. 2007. The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kidd, Thomas S. 2010. Who Is an Evangelical? The History of a Movement in Crisis. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Konolige, Kit and Frederica. 1978. The Power of Their Glory: America’s Ruling Class: The Episcopalians. New York: Wyden Books. Kruse Kevin M. 2015. One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America. New York: Basic Books. Kyvig, David E. 1979. Repealing National Prohibition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

L Laird, R.F. 1991. The Boomer Bible. New York: Workman Publishing. Larsen, Josh. 2017. Movies Are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books. Laubach, John H. 1969. School Prayers: Congress, the Courts and the Public. Washington, DC: Public Affairs Press.

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Lawrence, George. 1813. An Oration on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Delivered on the First Day of January, 1813, in the African Episcopal Church. New York: Hardcastle and Van Pelt. Lean, Nathan. 2017. The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Hatred of Muslims. 2nd ed. London: Pluto Press. Lee Friedlander: Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom. 1957. N.p.: Eakins Press Foundation. Levin, Jeff. 2020. Religion and Medicine: A History of the Encounter Between Humanity’s Two Greatest Institutions. New York: Oxford University Press. Lindvall, Terry. 2019. God on the Big Screen: A History of Hollywood Prayer from the Silent Era to Today. New York: New York University Press. Lindvall, Terry. 2015. God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire from the Hebrew Prophets to Stephen Colbert. New York: NYU Press. Loudermilk, Barry. 2011. And Then They Prayed: Moments in American History Impacted by Prayer. Campbell, CA: FastPencil.

M Mallory, Jeremy G. 2004. If There Be a God Who Hears Prayer: An Ethical Account of the United States Chaplain. Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in divinity. University of Chicago. Marshall, Peter. 1982. The Prayers of Peter Marshall. Compiled and edited by Catharine Marshall. Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen Books. McClay, Wilfred M. 2019. Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story. New York: Encounter Books. McDougall, Walter A. 2019. The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy: How America’s Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [McGuffey, William H.] 1909. Revised edition. McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers, Primer through the Sixth, Revised Editions. New York: American Book Co. McKenna, George. 2007. The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Medhurst, Martin Jay. 1980. ‘God Bless the President’: The Rhetoric of Inaugural Prayer. Thesis submitted for doctor of philosophy degree from the Graduate School in the Department of Speech Communication at Pennsylvania State University. August. Medved, Michael. 2016. The American Miracle: Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic. New York: Crown Forum. Merrill, Milton R. 1950. Reed Smoot, Apostle in Politics. Dissertation submitted for doctor of philosophy in political science at Columbia University. September. Moody, D.L. 1884. Prevailing Prayer: What Hinders It? Chicago: F.H. Revell. Moore, James P. Jr. 2008. The Crossing Treasury of American Prayers. New York: Crossing Book Club. Moore, James P. Jr. 2005. One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America. New York: Doubleday. Morton, H.V. 1945. Atlantic Meeting, 5th ed. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. Mouw, Richard J. 2007. Praying at Burger King. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Mulholland James. 2001. Praying Like Jesus: The Lord’s Prayer in a Culture of Prosperity. San Francisco: Harper Collins. Mullen, Lincoln A. 2017. The Chance of Salvation: A History of Conversion in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. See especially “Protestant Converts and the Sinner’s Prayer,” pp. 23-63. Muslim Advocates. July 2019. Fulfilling the Promise of Free Exercise for All: Muslim Prisoner Accommodation in State Prisons. https://muslimadvocates.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/FULFILLING-THE-PROMISE-OF-FREE-EXERCISE-FOR-ALL-Muslim-Prisoner-Accommodation-In-State-Prisons-for-distribution-7_23-1.pdf

N The New England Primer. 1777 edition. Sacred Texts. https://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/nep/1777/ Nichols, Mark W. 2013. From Azaleas to Zydeco: My 4,600-Mile Journey through the South. Little Rock: Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. Nichols-Belt, Traci, with Gordon T. Belt. 2011. Onward Christian Soldiers: Religion and the Army of Tennessee in the Civil War. Charleston, SC: History Press. Noll, Mark A. 2008. God and Race in American Politics: A Short History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

O O’Connor, Flannery. 2015. A Prayer Journal. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. One Year Pray for American Bible. 2019. Foreword by Barry C. Black. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Orsi, Robert A. 1996. Thank You, St. Jude: Women’s Devotion to the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ostrander, Rick. 2000. The Life of Prayer in a World of Science: Protestants, Prayer, and American Culture, 1870-1930. New York: Oxford University Press.

P Paine, Thomas. 1776. Common Sense. Large additions to Common sense; addressed to the inhabitants of America, on the following interesting subjects. I. The American patriot’s prayer. II. American independancy [sic] defended, by Candidus. III. The propriety of independancy [sic], by Demophilus. [Two lines from Thompson] IV. A review of the American contest, with some strictures on the King’s speech. Addressed to all parents in the thirteen united colonies, by a friend to posterity and mankind. V. Letter to Lord Dartmouth, by an English American. VI. Observations on Lord North’s conciliatory plan, by Sincerus. : To which is added, an appendix to Common sense: together with an address to the people called Quakers, on their testimony

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S Sandoz, Ellis, ed. 1991. Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Savage, Kirk. 2018. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America. New edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schmidt, Leigh Eric. 2016. Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Scholes, Percy A. 1954. God Save the Queen! The History and Romance of the World’s First National Anthem. New York: Oxford University Press. Sharlet, Jeff. 2009. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. New York: Harper Perennial. Sherr, Lynn. 2001. America the Beautiful: The Stirring True Story Behind Our Nation’s Favorite Song. New York: Public Affairs. Sifton, Elizabeth. 2003. The Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in Times of Peace and War. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Sinitier, Phillip Luke. 2015. Salvation with a Smile: Joel Osteen, Lakewood Church and American Christianity. New York: New York University Press. Smidt, Corwin E., Devin R. Den Dulk, James M. Penning, Stephen V. Monsa and Douglas L. Koopman. 2008. Pews, Prayers, and Participation: Religion and Civil Responsibility in America. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Smith, Gary Scott. 2015. Religion in the Oval Office: The Religious Lives of American Presidents. New York: Oxford University Press. Smith, Rodney K. 1987. Public Prayer and the Constitution: A Case Study in Constitutional Interpretation. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources. Snape, Michael. 2015. God and Uncle Sam: Religion and America’s Armed Forces in World War II. Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, Boydell Press. Syndor, William. 1997. The Prayer Book Through the Ages. Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing. Stahl, Ronit Y. 2017. Enlisting Faith: How the Military Chaplaincy Shaped Religion and State in Modern America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. [1895]. The Woman’s Bible. Lexington, KY: n.p. Stewart, Maria W. 1879. Meditations from the pen of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart. Washington, DC: Enterprise Publishing Co. Stout, Harry S. 2009. Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War. New York: Penguin Books. Strauch, Tara Thompson. 2013. Taking Oaths and Giving Thanks: Ritual and Religion in Revolutionary America. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy in history in the College of Arts and Science at the University of South Carolina. Sunderland, B. (Byron). 1881.The problem of prayer and the death of President Garfield. Washington, DC: E. Henkle. Sutton, Matthew Avery. 201. American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

concerning kings and government, and the present commotions in America. Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809. Common sense. Evans Early American Imprint Collection. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N32759.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext Patterson, James T. 1987. The Dread Disease. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. See espcially “Hymns to Science and Prayers to God,” pp. 137-170. Paul, Heike. 2014. The Myths That Make America: An Introduction to American Studies. New York: Columbia University Press, Transcript Verlag. Pedelty, Mark. 2012. Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk, and the Environment. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Perry, Imani. 2018. May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Plekon, Michael. 2016. Uncommon Prayer: Prayer in Everyday Experience. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Preston, Andrew. 2012. Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Q Quigley, Fran. 2013. If We Can Win Here: The New Front Lines of the Labor Movement. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Quinn, Frederick. 2014. A House of Prayer For All People: A History of the Washington National Cathedral. New York: Morehouse Publishing. Quiros, Ansley L. 2018. God with Us: Lived Theology and the Freedom Struggle in Americus, Georgia, 1942-1976. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

R Rauschenbusch, Walter. 1909 and 1910. For God and the People: Prayers of the Social Awakening. Boston: The Pilgrim Press. Richardson, Robert D. 1995. Emerson: The Mind on Fire. Berkeley: University of California Press. Riley, Alexander T. 2015. Angel Patriots: The Crash of United Flight 92 and the Myth of America. New York: NYU Press. Runbeck, Margaret Lee. 1944. The Great Answer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

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and Sin. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. See especially chapter on “Prayer,” pp. 57-93. Woodward, Bob, and Carl Bernstein. 1976. The Final Days. New York: Avon Books.

Z Zimmermann, John Herbert. 1992. Church-State Relations in Ante-Bellum Illinois. Dissertation submitted for doctor of philosophy at Graduate School of Loyola University of Chicago.

DVD

“Prayer in America: It Makes a Difference.” 2008. Milwaukee: The Duncan Group. Note: This is a 110-minute video that was played on American Public Television and that appears largely to have been inspired by James P. Moore Jr.’s One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America (2005). The DVD consists of seven segments: The Spectrum of Prayer in America; Immigrant and Slave Prayer in America; Industrialism and Civil Rights in America; Public Schools and Prayer in America; Reform Prayer in America; Science and Prayer in America; and Civil Religion and Prayer in America.

Judicial Decisions

Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 202 (1963). Ahlquist v. City of Cranston, 640 F.Supp.1d 507. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S.186 (1972). Barker v. Conroy, 921 F.3d 1118 (2019). Billard v. Board of Education, 69 Kan. 53 (1904). Board of Education of the Westside Community Schools v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226 (1990). Board of Regents, University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth, 529 U.S. 217 (2000). Bormuth v. City of Jackson, 870 f.3d 494 (6th Cir. 2017) (en banc). Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940). Carter v. Broadlawns Medical Center, 857 F.2d 488 (1988). Close-It Enterprises, Inc. v. Weinberger, 407 N.Y.S.2d 587 (App. Div. 1978). Coburn v. Mayer, 368 S.W.3d 320 (Mo. Ct. App. 2012). County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573 (1989). Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, 542 US. 1 (2004).

T Tennessee Craftsman. 2003. 25th ed. Nashville: Grand Lodge of the State of Tennessee. Thompson, Mary V. 2008. “In the Hands of a Good Providence”: Religion in the Life of George Washington. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.

V Vile, John R. 2021. America’s National Anthem: “The Star-Spangled Banner” In U.S. History, Culture, and Law. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Vile, John R. The Bible in American Law and Politics: A Reference Guide. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Vile, John R. 2015. A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments. 6th ed. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Vile, John R. 2016. The Constitutional Convention of 1787: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of America’s Founding, Rev. 2nd ed. Clark, NJ. Talbot Publishing. Vile, John R. 2015. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2015. 4th ed. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Volk, Kyle G. 2014. Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.

W Wagner, C. Peter. 2009. Warfare Prayer: What the Bible Says About Spiritual Warfare. Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image Publishers, Inc. Washington, James Melvin. 1994. Conversations with God: Two Centuries of Prayers by African Americans. New York: HarperCollins. Water, Mark, ed. 2004. The Encyclopedia of Prayer and Praise. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc. West, Chad. 2019. “Legislative Prayer: Historical Tradition and Contemporary Issues.” Utah Law Review Vol. 2019, No. 3: 709-734. Westmoreland, Charles Raymond Jr. 2008. Southern Pharisees: Prayer, Public Life, and Politics in the South, 1955-1996. Dissertation for doctor of philosophy degree, University of Mississippi. May. Wharton, Annabel Jane. 2001. Building the Cold War: Hilton International Hotels and Modern Architecture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. White, Ronald C. Jr. 2002. Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural. New York: Simon & Schuster. Whitfield, J.M. 1853. America and Other Poems. Buffalo, NY: James S. Leavite. Wilkinson, Bruce. 2000. The Prayer of Jabez. Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Press. Williams, Peter W. 2016. Religion, Art, and Money: Episcopalians and American Culture from the Civil War to the Great Depression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Winner. Lauren F. 2018. The Dangers of Christian Practice: On Wayward Gifts, Characteristic Damage,

— 334 — — 335 —

Abdu’l-Baha, 56Abington v. Schempp (1963), 25, 27, 37-38, 43, 58, 60, 61, 129, 149, 151, 160, 189, 194, 195, 211, 260, 270abolitionists, 24, 188abortion, 80 accommodation versus endorsement of religion, 140Act of Uniformity, 62Adams, John, 39-40, 208, 278Adams, John Quincy, 39, 41-42Adams, Samuel 80 Administrative Procedure Act and Legislative Reorganization Act, 111

“Adopt Our Troops,” 207African Americans, 24. Also see civil rights movement and protestsAfrican American Spirituals, 42-43, 136Agur’s Prayer, 178Ahlquist v. City of Cranston ex rel. Strom (2021), 43-44Air Force Academy, 72Airport Chapels, 45Alcoholics Anonymous, 238Aldrin, Edwin “Buzz,” 266Alien and Sedition Acts, 39-40Aligning Effect of Prayer References, 45-46‘Ali-Muhammad, Sayyid, 56Alito, Samuel, 129, 257 “All Creatures of our God and King,” 230Allegheny County v. ACLU (1989), 257America and Other Poems (Whitfield), 282“America on Its Knees,” 46-47, 172“America the Beautiful” (song), 49, 107, 135American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 115American Civil Liberties Union, 164American exceptionalism, “American Patriot’s Prayer,” 50-51

American Humanist Association, 83Americans United, 173Anderson v. Laird (1972), 72Angeli, Jake, 217Anglican Church, 23, 62, 145, 223Anglo-American Judicial Procedures, 51-52Answered Prayer Narratives, 52-53, 187Antepli, Abdullah, 166Anthony, Susan B. 111Anti-Communism, 53-54Anti-Saloon League, 202Anti-Slavery Society, 262Apollo 13, 266Apostles’ Creed, 147Atlantic Charter Prayers, 54-55“Ave Marie,” 226Azuza Street revival, 116, 199

Badger Report, 77Baha, Abdu’l, 56Baha’i Prayer for America, 56Bailar, Richard, 245Baker, Howard, 211Baker v. Carr (1962), 165Bailar, Richard, 245Baldwin, Lewis V., 132Baptisms for dead, 74Baptists and Methodists, 42Barbour, Clarence A., 49Barbour, Haley, 280Barker v. Conroy (2019), 57-58, 137Barrett, Amy Coney, 255Bates, Katharine Lee, 49Battle Hymn of the Republic, 111Bayh, Birch, 211Beamer, Todd, 147Be My Guest (Hilton), 48Beamer, Todd, 147Becker Amendment, 211

Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990). Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1961). Everson v. Board of Education 330 U.S. 1 (1947). Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83 (1968). Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Obama, 641 F.3d 803 (2011). Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006). Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98 (2001). Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203 (1948). In Re Palmer, 386 A.1d 1111 (R.I. 1978). Katcoff v. Marsh, 755 F.2d 223 (1985). Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. Statement of Justice Alito. 486 U.S. ____ (2019). Kurtz v. Baker, 829 F.2d 1133 (1987). Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992). Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971). Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992). Lund v. Rowan Cty., 863 F.3d 268 (4th Cir. 2017) (en banc). Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984). McMillan v. State, 265 A.2d 453 (Md. 1970). Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 483 (1983). Murray v. Buchanan, 729 F. 2d 689 (D.C. Cir. 1983). Newdow v. Eagen, 309 F. Supp. 2d 29 (D.D.C. 2004). Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). Rojas v. City of Ocala, 315 F.Supp.3d 1256 (2018). Rosenberger v. Rectors and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819 (1995). Rowan Cty. v. Lund, 138 S.Ct. 2564, (2018) (Thomas, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari). Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000). Sedlock v. Baird, 235 Cal.App.4th 874 (1915). Spanks-El v. Finley, No 85-C9259, 1987 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3374 (N.D. Ill. April 23, 1987). State v. Hughes, 695 S.W.2d 171 (Tenn. 1985). Stone v. Graham 449 U.S. 39 (1980) Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672 (1971). Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969). Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565 (2014). United States v. SCRAP, 412 U.S. 669 (1973). Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 454 U.S. 464 (1982). Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985). West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943). Widmar v. Vincent, 254 U.S. 262 (1981). Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952).

Index

— 336 — — 337 —

Colonial view of, and interactions with Native Americans, 23, 75-76, 173, 215Columbus, Christopher, 23; and other European explorers, 76-77“Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer,” 181Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 281 Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty v. Nyquist (1973), 195Communism, 46, 113Community policing, 252Confederate Soldier’s Pocket Manual of Devotions, 63congregational churches, 169, 215Congress, Chaplains, 77-80Congress, First Prayer in, 80-82Congress, Prayer Caucus, 82-83Congress, Prayer Room, 83-84congressional prayer caucus, 27Congressman’s Prayer (JQ Adams), 41Conroy, Patrick J. and Paul Ryan, 57, 84contemplative prayer, 226content neutrality, 261, 287Conwell, Russell H., 212Coolidge, Calvin, 88Cotton, John, 178Coughlin, Charles, 53, 204covenant theology, 214Coverdale, Miles, 62COVID-19 pandemic, 207, 272

“Cradle Hymn,” 178Cranmer, Thomas, 62Cromwell, Oliver, 192, 255, 286Crusade for Family Prayer, 54Cummings, William T., 103

Dalai Lama, 85, 170, 189Danforth, William, 71Darrow, Clarence, 235Daughters of the American Revolution, 274Davis, Jefferson, 85-87, 144, 204Deaths of U.S. Presidents, 87-91Declaration of Independence, 39, 81, 86, 124, 149Decoration Day, 159

Deists and Deism, 24, 214Democratic-Republican Party, 124, 149Deo Vindice, 24, 214Detached Memoranda (Madison), 150, 160 DeVos, Betsy, 69Dirksen, Everett, 79, 211Dolan, Timothy M., 91-92Douglas, William O., 37, 98, 292Drake, Francis, 76Draper, William Henry, 230Duché, Jacob, 58, 63, 77, 80-82Due process clause of Fourteenth Amendment, 37

Easterbook, Frank H., 105Eastern Orthodox Church, 222Eckman, Julius, 126 Ecumenical Prayers, 93-94, 239Ecumenical Protestant and Catholic Charismatic Revivals, 116Eddy, Mary Baker, 116Edwards, Jonathan, 23, 115, 198Eighteenth Amendment, 203Eisenhower, Dwight D., D-Day prayer, 103, 225, farewell address, 95, “Inaugural Prayer,” 94-95; National Prayer Breakfast, 67, 172El-Gamal, Sharif, 179Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow (2004), 106 Eliot, John, 201 Elmenayer v. ABF Air Freight Systems (2001), 287Emancipation Proclamation, 46, 56, 138, 284Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 95-96, 212Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 129-30endorsement test, 270Enemies, Prayers for, 96-97Engel v. Vitale (1962), 25, 27, 37-38, 43, 58, 60, 61, 97-99, 110, 129, 155, 189, 194, 195, 211, 227, 233, 237, 260, 268, 270 Equal Access Act of 1984, 211Establishment Clause. See First Amendment and related cases. “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” (Navy Hymn), 119, 175

Becker, Frank, 99, 211Benke, David, 93Benson, Ezra Taft, 67Berlin, Irving, 107Bible Reading and Meditation, 58-59Biden, Joe, 209, 226Billard v. Board of Education (1904), 59-60Bill of Rights, 149Black, Barry C., 190Black, Hugo, 98, 271, 292Black Lives Matter, 183Blackmun, Harry, 140

“The Blessing of a Ship,” 73Blowing of the Shofar, 197Blue Bloods, 112, 253Boehner, John, 231 Board of Education of the Westside Community Schools v. Mergen (1990), 61-62Board of Regents, Univ. of Wis. System v. Southworth (2000), 234Book of Comic Prayer, 70Book of Common Prayer, 23, 58, 59, 62-63, 99, 145, 169, 182, 206, 216, 222, 272Book of Prayer and Services for the Armed Forces, 239Book of Public Prayer (Fosdick), 102Boomer Bible, 182Booth, William and Catherine, 199Bormuth v. County of Jackson (2017), 227, 258Borowicz, Stephanie, 64Boyd, Julian Parks, 135Brennan, William J., 38, 151Brevard Keziah Goodwyn Hopkins, 188Breyer, Steven, 257Brooks, Arthur, 260 Brown v. Board of Education (1954), 25, 133, 199Bruce Almighty, 255Bryan, William Jennings, 235Buchanan, James, 208Bunyan, John, 145Burger, Warren, 151, 271burial at sea, 147Bush, George H.W., 65-66, 67; 108, 208Bush, George W., 108, 192

cabinet meetings, 67-68, 94Calvert, Cecil, 23, 189Calvin, John, 216 Campbell, James, 265

“Canticle of the Sun,” 230Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940), 270Carlson, Frank, 172Carson, Ben, 68, 172Carter, Jimmy, 25, 96, 134Carter v. Broadlawns Medical Center (1988), 161Cartier, Jacques, 76cartoons and jokes, 69-71Cellar, Emanuel, 211ceremonial deism, 110chapels at secular colleges and universities, 71-72chaplains: airports, 45; congressional, 189, 223; at inaugurations, 124; medical, 116; military, 121, 150, 160-61; prison, 210; state legislatures, 267Chavez, Cesar, 72-73Chitrabbahuji, Gurudev Shree, 123Christening, Launching and Commissioning Ships, 73-74Chistofferson, D. Todd, 243Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (Hoffman), 71Christian Science, 116, 212

“The Christian Student” (Princeton), 244Christianity and Crisis, 238Christianity and the Social Crisis, 291Churchill, Winston, 54-55Church of England, 23 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 67; Temple Dedications, 74-75, 126, 189, 243“city on a hill,” 108 civil rights movement and protests, 27, 43, 199-200, 268, 282Civil War (U.S.), 159Clark, Tom, 37Clarkson, Thomas Clinton, Bill, 108, 172Close-It Enterprises, Inc. v. Weinberger (1978), 196Coburn v. Mayer (2012), 164Coe, Douglas, 172Cold War, 83, 171

— 338 — — 339 —

Hebraic Republicanism, 50Hero’s Valor Prayer, 117Heston, Watson, 69Hilton, Conrad, 47-48, 172Hindu Legislative Prayers, 117-19Holtz, Shalom E., 51Hymns, Songs, and Poems, 119-20

immaculate reception, 244Immigration, 91, 128impetration, 187imprecatory prayers, 162, 201

“In God We Trust,” 24, 38, 46, 53, 67, 83, 94, 152, 191, 214, 272“In Jesus’s name,” 65, 93, 121-22, 153, 159, 161, 256“Infant’s Grace before and after meals,” 177Ingersoll, Robert G., 192 injury in fact, 176Intercessory prayer, 58Investiture ceremony, 251

Jabez, Prayer of, 122-23Jackson, Robert, 293Jain, First to Pray in Congress, 123James, William, 52Jefferson Bible, 125Jefferson, Thomas; 38, 39, 124-24, 194, 208, 271jeremiad, 288Jericho March, 268jewelry, 281Jewish Prayers for American Government, 127-28Jewish Rabbi, First to Pray in Congress, 125-26Jindal, Bobby, 280John Paul II, 49, 231Johnson, James Weldon, 142 Johnson, Lyndon B., 49, 90, 266Joplin, Janis, 120, 182, 188Jubilee Singers (Fisk University), 42

Kagan, Elena, 257Katcoff v. Marsh (1985), 160 Kavanaugh, Brett, 251Kennedy, Anthony, 139, 257

Kennedy, John F., 90; 175, 223, 266Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2019), 129-30, 244 Kennedy, Robert, 90, 130-31, 226Kenyon, W. William, 212Kimball, Spencer W, 243King James Version of the Bible, 62, 189, 223King, Martin Luther, Jr., 90, 130, 131-33, 167, 199-200, 220 Kissinger, Henry, 179-80Kneel-Ins, 133-34, 186Kimball, Spencer W. kingdom of God, 219kneeling, 252, 281Kounalakis, Markos, 263Kruce, Kevin M.,

“Kumbaya,” 43, 135-36Kucinich, Dennis, 134-35King James Version of the Bible, 24, 37Ku Klux Klan, 223Kurtz, v. Baker (1987), 136-37

Lagueux, Ronald R., 44Lampier, Jeremiah, 198Larsen, Josh, 100Lawrence, George, Speech in 1813, 138-39League of Nations, 56League of St. Jude, 232Lee, Robert E., Prayer and Communion at St. Paul’s, 141-42Lee v. Weisman (1992), 44, 99, 139-41, 176. 195, 233, 257Leeser, Isaac, 127Leland, John, 125 L’Enfant, Pierre, 169Lemon Test. See Lemon v. Kurtzman. Lemon v. Kurtzman (1972), 44, 77, 139, 151, 194, 234, 246, 270Lewis, Diocletian (Dio), 202Liberty Window at Christ Church in Philadelphia, 82“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” 43, 142-43Lilienthal, Max, 127 limited public forums, 237Lincoln, Abraham, assassination, 89; “Meditation of the Divine Will”; Proclamation of

Everson v. Board of Education (1947), 140, 194, 271Ezzat, Mana, 186

Faith and Freedom Coalition, 207Fall, Albert, 286Falwell, Jerry, 25The Family (the Fellowship), 172Family Guy, 254Family Rosary Crusade, 100, 226Family That Prays Together Stays Together, 100Fea, John, 218Federalist fast-day sermons, 40Federalist Papers, 149Federer, William J., 214filaas, 196Fillmore, Millard, 88Films and Movies, 100-101Finney, Charles, 198, 241First Amendment, 59, 77, 110, 111, 136, 151, 193 Also look under individual case names. First Baptist Churches (Albany, Atlanta), 133flag salute, 38Flast v. Cohen (1968), 136Floyd, George, 252Folksmiths, 136footbaths, 287Forbes, Randy, 82Ford, Gerald R., 108Ford, James D., 136Forgy, Howell, 193Fosdick, Harry Emerson, 101-02, 187, 239, 255Four Freedoms, 272Fourteenth Amendment, 37Foxhole Prayers, 103-04Frankfurter, Felix, 293Franklin, Benjamin, 104-05, 147, 177, 193, 264Freedom from Religion Foundation, 57, 280Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Obama (2011), 105-06, 171, 261Frey, Marvin V., 135Frieberg, Arnold, 278Friedlander, Lee, 200fundamentalists, 25, 236Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006), 129, 161Garfield’s Prayer, 89

Garrison, William Lloyd, 248George III, 208Ginsburg, Ruth Bader, 165

“God Bless America,” 107, 119, 267 God bless America as Benediction, 26, 108

“God Bless the U.S.A.,” 107God Friended Me, 253“God Is My Co-Pilot,” 103“God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hand,” 108-110, 170“God Save the Queen [King],” 107, 110, 167God Save the United States and This Honorable Court, 110Goldberg, Arthur, 38Good News Club v. Milford Central School (2001), 61, 195, 237Gore, Al, Jr., 49government aid to religion, 69Government Petitions as Prayers, 111-12

“Government Under God,” 172grace before meals, 112-13

“Grace Before Meat,” 219graduation ceremonies, 140, 195Graham, Billy, 25, 113-14, 170, 171, 191, 206, 211Graham, Franklin, 114, 206, 207, 259Great Awakenings: 23, 145, 189, 198, 223Great Seal of the United States, 154Greene, Adrian Lawrence, 50Greenwood, Lee, 107Guidelines on Prayer and Public Schools, 260-61gun control and violence, 93, 254-55, 268

Hail Mary Pass, 244Hale, Sarah Josepha, 143Halverson, David, 78, 136, 172Hamilton, Alexander, 39Ha-Noten Teshu’a, 127Harding, Warren G., 88Harris, Benjamin, 177Harris, Frank, 280 Harris, Frederick Brown, 78Harrison, William Henry, 88Hatfield, Mark, 172Haystack Prayer Meeting, 115Healing, 116-17

— 340 — — 341 —

National Moment of Remembrance Act, 159National Prayer Breakfast, 25, 46, 48, 53, 83, 94, 172-73, 259National Religious Freedom Day, 260National Year of the Bible, 83Native Americans, 279Native American Legislative Prayers, 173-74Navy Hymn, 119, 175Nelms, Joe, 245neutrality among religious sects, 271Newdow v. Eagen (2004), 176-77, 246New England Primer, 155, 177-78New Life Church (CO), 287New York Muslim Community Center, 179New Thought Movement, 212Niebuhr, Reinhold, 70, 220, 238Nixon/Kissinger Prayer, 179-80Nixon, Richard M., 47, 108, 175, 179-80

“Nobody knows de trouble I see,” 42Notre Dame University, 244novena prayers, 226, 232

Obama, Barack, 96O’Connor, Sandra Day, 61, 270Ogilvie, Lloyd, 176

“O God Our Help in Ages Past,” 55Old Deluder Satan Act, 193on a Wing and a Prayer, 181, 193, 266One Year Pray for America Bible, 59O’Neill, James H., 184, 280

“Onward Christian Soldiers,” 55open forum, 61Operation Save America, 118Ostrander, Rick, 52

Paine, Thomas, 50Palmer, In Re (1978), 196parochial schools, 223parodies, 182Patriot Prayer, 183 “The Patriot’s Prayer Song,” 51 Patterson, Malcolm R., 203Patton, George S., Prayer for Fair Weather, 183-84, 280

Peale, Norman Vincent, 212Peck, John Mason, 246Pelosi, Nancy, 97, 173 Pence, Mike, 68, 69Penn, William, 23, 185 Pentagon Prayer Room, 185-86Pentecostal and Holiness denominations, 196, 213, 221Perdue, Sonny, 280Performative Prayer, 186-87Perry, Rick, 280petitions, legal, 52petitionary prayer, 58, 96, 187-89, 212, 226-27, 287Patterson, Malcolm R., Peyton, Patrick, 54, 100, 226Philadelphia, 185Philippines, 46, 156, 214, 263Phillips, ZeBarney T., 203, 205Pise, Charles Constantine, 77, 223plea bargains, 52Plessy v. Ferguson, 133pluralism, 189-90Pohick Church in Fairfax County, VA, 274political questions doctrine, 77, 165polygamy, 243Pompeo, Mike, 68postage stamps, 279Powell, Lewis F., Jr., 61Power of Woman’s Prayer in Grog Shops, 202

“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,” 193“The Prayer at Valley Forge,” 278“Prayer of Columbus” (Whitman), 76A Prayer for America (event), 197-98Prayer for America (Marshall), 153Prayer for Citizenship, 268Prayer for Leaders of the Nation, 153prayers for relief, 111

“Prayers of Wrath” (Rauschenbusch), 220Pray Across America, 191Pray for American Bible, 190-91Pray for Life Bible, 190Pray for Peace, 25Pray for Peace Postage Cancellation, 191Pray the Vote, 191-92, 207

Thanksgiving, 143, 209, 278; Second Inaugural Address, 24, 96, 106, 111, 143, 144-45, 188, 214, 263. Also see Emancipation ProclamationLindvall, Terry, 101liturgical versus spontaneous prayer, 145-46, 216Logan, John A., 159Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 167Lord’s Prayer, 47, 58, 104, 125, 145, 146-48, 155, 187, 219, 265Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (1992), 44, 176Lund v. Rowan County (2017), 257-58Luther, Martin, 62, 216, 222Lutheran Church, 93, 145Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, 93Lynch v. Donnelly (1984), 195

Mackey, F.F., 51Madison, James, 38, 39; 139, 149-50, 160, 208, 264, 271, 278magic, 188, 196Magnin, Edgar, 167Manifest Destiny, 107, 215 Manley, Basir Sr., 86Mansfield, Mike, 79Mark Twain’s War Prayer, Marshall, Peter, 78, 152-53Marsh v. Chambers (1983), 57, 77, 83, 136, 137, 140, 151-52, 160, 165, 176, 195, 211, 227, 246, 257, 267, 280Mary, Mother of Jesus. 54, 226-27 Masons, 154-55Mass Media and Other Technologies, 158-59

“Materna” (“O Mother, Dear Jerusalem”), 49Mathis, David (Habits of Grace), 59Mayflower Compact, 215Maynard, Deborah, 285McCarthy, Joseph, 53McDonald, Rose, 231McGready, Blake, 279McGuffey Readers, 155-56McGuffey, William, 155McKinley, William, 46, 90, 156-58, 214McIntyre, Carl, 53McCollum v. Board of Education (1948), 292

McMillan v. State (1970), 196McMurry, Leonard, 222McPherson, Aimee Semple, 116, 222Meacham Report, 78 Medhurst, Martin, 80, 204 Medved, Michael, 214Memorial and Remonstrance (Madison), 98. 149Memorial Day, 105, 159-60, 170, 208 Menezes, Gervan, 158

“Mercedes Benz,” 120, 182, 188military language, 162-63millennium, 23, 74Missouri Public Prayer Amendment, 164-65

“A Model of Christian Charity,” 213Modernists, 25Mohammed, Wallace Deen, 165-66Mohler, Albert, 291Moody, Dwight L., Moore, James P., 22, 214Moore, Russell, 255Moquino, Lee, 174, 247Moral Majority, 25

“Morning Prayer,” 233Morse Samuel, 158 Mother Angelica, 226Mother Teresa, 172Mueller, George, 52Murdock Mysteries, 253Murray v. Buchanan (1983), 137, 165, 176Murray v. Curtlett (1963), 37-38 Murray v. Buchanan (1983), 152 Museum of Family Prayer, 100 Muslim, First Imam to Pray in Congress, 165-66Muslim prayer practices, 287

“My Country ‘Tis of Thee” (“America”), 167-68, 267

Nation, Cary, 202national alcoholic prohibition, 24, 27National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 142National Cathedral, 27, 66, 27, 169-70, 267, 286National Day of Prayer, 105, 113, 159, 170-72, 208National Day of Prayer Task Force, 171National Days of thanksgiving, Penitence, and Prayer, 24, 124, 127

— 342 — — 343 —

Roman Catholics, 24, 53, 145, 162, 189, 222-24Romney, Mitt, 173Roosevelt, Franklin D.: Atlantic Charter Prayers 54-55; D-Day prayer, 27, 103, 214, 224-25; death, 88, 175; fireside chats, 158; Four Freedoms, 272; inauguration prayers, 82, 94, 203-94Roosevelt, Theodore, 90 rosary, 131, 226-27Rosenberger v. Rectors and Visitors of the University of Virginia (1995), 61Rowan County v. Lund (2017), 227-28, 246, 258Rumsfeld, Donald, 67Runbeck, Margaret (The Great Answer), 53, 103Ryan, John A., 203, 204, 205 Ryan, Paul, 84

Safire, Bill, 147, 193St. Anthony, 231 St. Augustine, 238St. Christopher, 229, 231St. Francis of Assisi, 131, 230-31St. Jude, 221, 229, 231-32St. Paul’s Chapel in New York City, 274St. Patrick’s Prayer, 163, 233salat, 287saloons, 186Sampson, Francis, 121Samuldrala, Venkatachalapathi, 118Santa Fe School District v. Doe (2000), 44, 99, 140, 176, 195, 233-35, 244“Saying Grace” (Rockwell), 112Sayres, Frances B., 267Scalia, Antonin, 140Scalpone, Al, 100Scopes Trial, 25, 235-36Scott, Robert L, (God is My Copilot), 181Second Continental Congress, 208Seagulls, Crickets, and Mormon History, 236-37Second Amendment, 255Second Vatican Council, 226Sedlock v. Baird (2015), 291See You at the Pole (SYATP) Events, 237-38Seixas, Gershom, 127Seixas, Moses. 274-75

Serenity Prayer, 238-39Seneca Falls Convention, 112separation of church and state, 124, 292Serenity Prayer, 70Sermon on the Mount (Jesus), 96, 108, 156, 213Seymour, William J., 199Shabbat Kiddush, 266Sharp, Shane, 45Shepard, Alan, 266Sherman, Roger, 265Sherwood, Diane, Prayer after terrorist attacks, 239-40Shukor, Sheikh Muszaphar, 266Sifton, Elisabeth, 238Sikh, first to pray in Congress, 240The Simpsons, 254Singh, Giani Sukhvinder, 240sinner’s prayer, 187, 240-41sit-ins, 133Smith, Bailey, 241-42Smith George Albert, 243Smith, John, 76Smith, Joseph, 74, 236Smith, Kate, 107Smith, Samuel Francis, 167Smoot, Reed, 242-43

“so help me God,” 27, 276“So mote it be,” 155Social Darwinian, 25, 219Social gospel, 238Souter, David, 140 South Park, 254Southern Baptist Convention, 134Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 186, 200Spanish-American War, 25, 156, 263Spanks-El v. Finley (1988), 196“Spiritual Milk for American Babes,” 178Sports, 243-45Spurgeon, C.H., 198standing, 52, 57, 105, 176Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 112State v. Hodges (1985), 196Stewart, Maria W. 248-49

Pray to God but Keep Your Powder Dry, 192-93prayer and Bible reading in schools, 193-95prayer caps and coverings, 195-96prayer cloths, 196-97Prayer for America, 124, 197-98prayer in public schools, 69. See also Engel v. VitalePrayer Meeting Revivals, 198-99Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, 132, 199-200prayer retreats, 132prayer room in U.S. Capitol Building, 279Prayer Tower (Oral Roberts University), 221prayer vigils, 132, 162, 268-69, 288 prayer warriors, 162, 288prayers for forgiveness, 58prayers for personal favors, 58prayers for public leaders, 200-201prayers for sick, 188prayers of confession and repentance, 58

“Praying Colonels,” 245Praying Hands sculpture, 222praying Indians, 201-02pray-ins, 202-03Presbyterian, 62Presidential farewell addresses, 39Presidential inaugural prayers, 204-06Presidential inaugural prayers of 1937, 203-04Presidential Prayer Team, 191, 206-08Presidential Proclamations of Prayer and Thanksgiving, 208-09Presidential proclamation of humiliation, fasting, prayer and thanksgiving: 39-40, aa86President’s Chapel of George Washington University, 274prisoners’ rights, 209-10private versus governmental speech, 235 proposed constitutional amendments for prayer in school, 210-12Proud Boys, 183 Prosperity Gospel, 48, 122, 212-13, 221, 248, 253, 296providentialism, 24, 213-15Provoost, Samuel, 82, 204Protestant Reformation, 23, 62, 76, 145, 208, 222

public prayer, 58Puritans, 23, 58, 145, 189, 215-16, 223, 226

Qanon Shaman Prayer in Senate Chamber, 217-18Quakers, 126, 223, 231, 281Quebec Act of 1774, Quintard, Charles Todd, 63

Rabaut, Louis, 191Race, 108, 133, 248-49radio programs, 158Raleigh, Walter, 76Randolph, A. Philip, 200Raphall, Morris J., 125, 128Rauf, Feisal Abdul, 179Raulston, John T., 235Rauschenbusch, Walter, 219-20Reagan, Ronald, 25, 108, 211, 242. 278reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, 260Red Scare, 53Reed, Ralph, 207reform movements, 198, 281Rehnquist, William, 234, 251, 271Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 209Religious Land Use and Institutionalized persons Act (RLUIPA), 209religious symbols, 69Respect for Student Prayer/ Religious Activity Law (NC), 130“the right to pray,” 260 Riley, Bob, 280Riverside Church, 102roadside chapels, 220-21Robbins, Howard Chandler, 239Roberts, Daniel D., 109Roberts, John, 251Roberts, Oral, 116, 196, 221-22Robertson, A. Willis, 171Robertson, Pat, 116, 280Rochester, Lisa Blunt, 218Rockwell, Norman, 112, 272Roe v. Wade (1973), 25Rogers, William, 44, 189Rojas v. City of Ocala (2018), 268

— 344 — — 345 —

Washington, George, 85; Circular Letter to the States, 273-74, 275; Correspondence with Moses Seixas, 274-75; Farewell Address, 276; First Inaugural Address, 276-77; National Days of Thanksgiving and Prayer, 208, 277-78; Prayer at Valley Forge, 278-79Watkins, Sharon, 206Weather, 279-80 Wedgewood Slave Medallions, 281-82“We Shall Not Be Moved,” 43“We Shall Overcome,” 43Weems, Mason Locke, 278Westminster Shorter Catechism, 178West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), 140, 270 White, Paula, 206, 213white slavery, 24White House, prayer for, 40Whitefield, George, 104, 198Whitfield, James Monroe, 282-84Whiting, William, 175 Whiskey Rebellion, 278Wiccan Public Prayers, 285Widmar v. Vincent (1981), 61, 71, 195Wilberforce, William, 281Wilkinson, Bruce, 122Willard, Frances, 202Williams, Roger, 23, 44, 189Williams-Skinner, Barbara, 97Wilson, Woodrow, 27, 46, 56, 169, 285-86Winthrop, John, 108, 213Witherspoon, John, 149, 209 Withee, Oscar A., 103Woman’s Bible, 112Women’s Christian Temperance Union, 202women’s suffrage, 24, 27“The Word of Life,” 244workers’ rights, 27workplace accommodation for prayers, 287World Prayer Center (Colorado Springs), 162, 287-88Wright, Joe, 247, 288-89

yarmulke, 125Year of the Evangelical, 25Yoga, 291Young, Brigham, 74Young, Mahonri, 236Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), 71Young Sheldon, 254

Zed, Rajan, 85, 118, 247Zorach v. Clauson (1952), 194, 292-93

“The Star-Spangled Banner,” 107, 142state legislative prayers, 246-48state seals, 169State v. Hodges (1985), Stevens, John Paul, 61, 234, 270Stewart, Maria W., 248-49Stewart, Potter, 38, 99Stockton, Thomas Hewlings, 78, 249-50Stone v. Graham (1980), 44Sumner, Charles, 111Swearing-in ceremonies for Supreme Court justices, 250-51Synanon, 73

Taking a knee, 244, 252-53Takia, 196tallit, 126Taylor Enterprise. 117Taylor, Hudson, 52 Taylor, Zachary, 88television, 253-54Teller, Verna, 174Ten Commandments, 44, 147, 178Terrorist Attacks of 9/11/01, 67, 169, 185. 197-98, 207, 239, 272Thanksgiving Day, 105Thirteenth Amendment, 24, 111Thomas, Clarence, 227-28, 257thoughts and prayers, 69, 254-55Thurmond, Strom, 132Tilton v. Richardson (1971), 71Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 129Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964, 120Toppan, Christopher, 182Toronto Blessings revivals, 116“Touchdown Jesus,” 244Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014), 57, 82, 152, 164, 195, 211, 246, 256-58, 285Train, Charles Jackson, 175Training Letter of prayer (O’Neill), 184Transcendentalism, 95, 212Truman, Harry S., 53, 88, 171, 258-59Trump, Donald, “Call to Prayer” phone conference,

255; guidelines on prayer in public schools, 260- 61; nominating convention, 91; prosperity gospel, 213; recognizing Jerusalem, 64; questioning sincerity of prayers, 23, 46, 173, 259-60; riot at Capitol, 217; support for student, 211Trump, Melania, 147Tubman, Harriet, 42, 249, 261-62Twain, Mark (“The War Prayer”), 69, 96, 144, 188, 214, 262-63, 280Twenty-first Amendment, 203Tyler, John, 88Tyndale, William, 62types of prayer, 101

“under God,” 38, 67, 83, 94, 106, 152, 191, 214, 272undue burden, 287Unitarians, 41United Farm Workers, 72United States v. SCRAP (1973), 106U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, 77, 104. 149, 264-66U.S. military academies, 72U.S. space program, 266-67U.S. state prayers, 267

Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 106Vereide, Abraham, 172Vigils, 268-69Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, 39Virginia Declaration of Rights. 149Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 124

Wagner, C. Peter, 162Wahaj, Siraj, 165Waldman, Steven, 205Walker, David (Meditations), 248 Wallace v. Jaffree (1985), 99, 211, 270-71wall of separation between church and state, 194, 271war bonds, 272-73War Room, 162Ward, John Quincy Adams, 282Washington, Booker T., 248

— 346 — — 347 —

Scripture References

Genesis, Chapter 1, 266Numbers 6:25, 126Numbers 23:23, 158I Kings 3:9, 258I Kings, Chapter 17-18, 279I Kings, Chapter 18, 75, 182I Chronicles 4:10, II Chronicles 7:14, 122, 153Psalms, 58Psalm 1, 126Psalm 12:5, 111Psalm 13, 283Psalm 16:1, 279Psalm 16, 83Psalm 19:14, 29Psalm 23, 60 Psalm 35, 82Psalm 65, 175Psalm 91:5, 47Psalm 107, 175Psalm 109:9-10, 201

Psalm 133:1, 126Ezekiel 37, 249Isaiah 5:20, 289Micah 6:8, 274Matthew 5:44, 132Matthew 6:6, 177Matthew 6:9-13, 146Matthew 25:21, 258Mark, Chapter 4, Luke 11:2-4, 146Luke 18:9-14, 182John 14:6, 242Acts 19:11-12, 196Romans 8:26, 58II Corinthians 6:2, 112Ephesians 6:12, 163, 288Ephesians 6:18, 58I Thessalonians 5:17, 95I Timothy 2:1-2, 200-201Hebrews, 53James 5:16, 111

About the Author

John R. Vile, Ph.D., is professor of political science and dean of the University Honors College at Middle

Tennessee State University. In addition to other awards, Vile has been named as the Phi Kappa Phi

Scholar for 2020-2022.

Vile has written and edited a variety of books on legal issues, the U.S. Constitution, and the American

Founding period. They include the following: Essential Supreme Court Decisions, 18th ed. (2022); A Companion

to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments, 7th ed. (2021); America’s National Anthem: “The Star-

Spangled Banner” In U.S. History, Culture, and Law (2021); The Bible in American Law and Politics: A Reference

Guide (2020); A Constellation of Great Men: Restoring the Character Sketches of Dr. Benjamin Rush of

Pennsylvania of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence (2019); The Liberty Bell and Its Legacy: An

Encyclopedia of an American Icon in U.S. History and Culture (2019); The Declaration of Independence: America’s

First Founding Document in U.S. History and Culture(2019); The American Flag: An Encyclopedia of the Stars and

Stripes in U.S. History, Culture, and Law (2018); Constitutional Law in Contemporary America, 2 vols. (2017);

The Constitutional Convention of 1787: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of America’s Founding, 2 vols., 2nd ed.

(2016); Conventional Wisdom: The Alternative Article V Mechanism for Proposing Amendments to the U.S.

Constitution (2016); The Civil War and Reconstruction Eras (2018); The Jacksonian and Antebellum Eras (2017);

The Early Republic (2016); Founding Documents of America: Documents Decoded (2015); American Immigration

and Citizenship (2016); Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues,

1789–2015, 4th ed. (2015); The United States Constitution: One Document, Many Choices (2015); The Wisest

Council in the World: Restoring the Character Sketches by William Pierce of Georgia of the Delegates to the

Constitutional Convention of 1787 (2015); Re-Framers: 170 Eccentric, Visionary, and Patriotic Proposals to

Rewrite the U.S. Constitution (2014); The Men Who Made the Constitution: Lives of the Delegates to the

Constitutional Convention of 1787 (2013); Encyclopedia of the Fourth Amendment (2013); The Writing and

Ratification of the U.S. Constitution: Practical Virtue in Action (2012); Encyclopedia of the First Amendment, rev.

online ed. (2017); James Madison: Founder, Philosopher, Founder and Statesman (2008); The Encyclopedia of Civil

Liberties in America (2005); Great American Judges: An Encyclopedia (2003); Great American Lawyers: An

Encyclopedia (2002); Tennessee Government and Politics (1998); Constitutional Change in the United States

(1994); The Theory and Practice of Constitutional Change in America (1993); Contemporary Questions Surrounding

the Constitutional Amending Process (1993); The Constitutional Amending Process in American Political Thought

(1992); Rewriting the United States Constitution (1991); and History of the American Legal System: Interactive

Encyclopedia (CD-ROM, 2000).

the fIRST AMENDMENT PRESS™

Contact us at FreeSpeechCenter@mtsu.edu

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ew religious experiences are more universal than that of prayer. Although its forms vary, it is practiced not only by the adherents of

the three great monotheistic faiths in all their denominational

manifestations, but also by adherents of other religions and, indeed,

sometimes by those who profess to have no faith at all. Abraham Lin-

coln noted that rival combatants in the U.S. Civil War prayed to the

same God and there is a strong tradition of prayer in Native American, American African,

and other ethnic communities. Like other religious experiences, prayer impacts public

life, especially in America, where the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

provides for the free exercise of religion while prohibiting its official establishment.

Much as he described the role of the Bible in The Bible in American Law and Politics:

A Reference Guide, in this book Vile sympathetically explores how prayer has been under-

stood, practiced, expounded, and even exploited throughout U.S. history in the public

square, while being legally constrained in public school settings to prevent coercion or

state endorsement of particular religious beliefs. In addition to explaining judicial

decisions that have treated prayers in such settings, the volume shows how politicians,

especially presidents, continue to utilize prayer to unite

citizens in times of anxiety, conflict, and grief in public

speeches and sometimes through proclamations of thanks-

giving after harvests, the end of wars, and major historic

achievements. Vile also highlights prayers as expressed in

American aphorisms, literature, films and movies, music

and other forms of art, and discusses individuals who

were the first members of their faiths to pray in Congress

or in other public settings.

F

AUTHOR JOHN R. VILE

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$39.95