Prayer in America

“And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:1-8, ESV)

 James P. Moore, Jr., in his book One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America, says:

 “AMERICAN PRAYER has been behind a number of firsts in the cultural realm. The first book printed in America, for example, was a prayer book, and the first songbook published was a hymnal. . . . Every one of the country’s major anthems, including ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ ‘America,’ and ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee,’ speaks in some way of prayer.
. . . Visiting the Washington Monument, few tourists realize that engraved on the brass cap of the obelisk 555 feet above the ground are the words ‘Praise be to God.’ . . . [E]vidence of American prayer can be found everywhere in the nation’s capital.
. . . [P]residents, joined by justices of the Supreme Court and members of Congress, have welcomed the chance to attend annual prayer breakfasts on the National Day of Prayer, an observance instituted over fifty years ago, and why elected officials publicly bristle when judges try to eliminate words like ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance. . . .
In a word, then, prayer is dynamic. It is not simply a static force in a person’s life or in the life of the nation. . . . For someone . . . singing ‘God Bless America’ on the day before September 11, 2001, and then again forty-eight hours later, the entire meaning changed. . . .
   To dismiss prayer in the life of America is to embark on a fool’s errand. Prayer has been and always will be an integral part of the national character. It is clearly a subject that must be explored in far greater depth if anyone is to understand the people who have made the United States what it is today and what it will be tomorrow.” (xix-xxii)