Why I am Participating in the National Day of Prayer

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I must confess that I am suspicious of a National Day of Prayer (the first Thursday in May), especially when it is a matter of law and is proclaimed by the president. My suspicion predates the current political moment. It existed before Donald Trump and before the acquiescence and complicity of the so-called religious right to Trumpism. (https://www.onfaith.co/onfaith/2010/04/27/the-dangers-of-a-national-day-of-prayer/9027)
I am suspicious of the National Day of Prayer because it opens the door to a civil religion that in my judgement is idolatry. It is a worship of the state as an ultimate entity when the state is not and cannot be ultimate. To worship a created thing rather than the creator is idolatry. The civil religion therefore is idolatry that has the danger to make various religious traditions denominations of itself.
Last year, the presiding elder of my church asked me to organize a National Day of Prayer service in cooperation with a local consortium of Christian churches. I said yes because I do believe in the worth of prayer, and it is the duty of religious organizations and communities to pray for the nation. Christians are instructed to pray for leaders of the nations: “For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” (I Timothy 2:2)
While the National Day of Prayer is supposed to be for people of all faiths, the National Day of Prayer Task Force website is run by people who call themselves Christians. When I looked at the staff, it was clear that these were some of the same people who support President Trump. There is a statement of faith that is exclusively Christian in its orientation. There is information on voter registration and an exhortation to encourage friends and family to vote. I am not mad at this. I think churches and religious communities ought to encourage good citizenship, and voting is an important duty that comes with living in a free society.
What makes my participation difficult this year is because I do not understand how anyone who calls themselves a Christian can support Mr. Trump. A Christian is a follower of Christ. It means to belong to the party of Christ. The people who support Trump are not followers of Christ, but they have become followers of Trump. Let us set aside Mr. Trump’s past sexual behavior. Let us set aside his bragging about predatory behavior and the several women who have come forward to say that he did what he said he did without their consent. Let us set aside his unscrupulous and possibly illegal business practices, and his vulgarity. Let us set aside the ways that he demeans the office of the presidency on a daily basis with his disrespectful name calling of his enemies. Let us set aside his attacks on the free press, the FBI, his own Department of Justice, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller. What no person who claims to follow Jesus ought to overlook is his slander against President Obama and his continual lying.
Jesus of Nazareth taught in the Gospel of John: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” (John 8:44) Jesus goes on to say that the people who do not believe him cannot hear him because they are not of God.
The Greek word that is translated as “devil” also means “false accuser” and “slanderer.” Trump became the birther in chief before he became commander in chief. He led the effort to slander President Obama by denying the truth that President Obama was born in the United States. He talked about having paid investigators working on the case and of the information they were uncovering. I may have missed something, but I have never seen any of these investigators or seen a report from them. During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump made a very short statement that President Obama was born in the United States. It was too little, too late.
Mr. Trump’s falsehoods continue. He has told more lies than any president in the history of fact checking. Let us imagine that the Accuser, the Slanderer is the Cosmic impulse to deceive, and that people who succumb to spreading false accusations, slanders and lies are under this influence. Now, we have religious leaders who say that they are followers of Jesus supporting a leader under the influence of Cosmic deception.
The theme for this year’s National Day of Prayer is: “Pray for America – Unity.” Jesus did not come to bring unity. His story is one of bringing division. Jesus says that he has come to turn family members against each other, that he did not come to bring peace but a sword. (Matthew 10:34-36) The Letter to the Ephesians describes the sword of the Spirit as the word of God. (Ephesians 6:17)
There can be no unity among Christians as long as some who call themselves Christians are more followers of Trump and the Republican Party than they are of Jesus. When they speak, they do not speak of the teachings of Jesus. They speak of their political agenda, but not of the compassion and hard sayings of Jesus.
Jesus taught the Golden Rule: “In EVERYTHING do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” No exceptions. This includes baking a wedding cake for same-sex couples, respecting a woman’s right to choose, welcoming the stranger, refusing to countenance taking children from their undocumented parents, and respecting a transsexual’s right to use the restroom of their sexual identification. This is because we, ourselves, would not want to be on the other end of these injustices.
Still, I believe in the worth of prayer. Perhaps prayer can help us where rational discourse has failed. So, the evening of the National Day of Prayer, our church will host a prayer service to pray for the nation with faith in a God who “is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think.” (Ephesians 3:20)
 
 

Valerie Elverton Dixon is founder of JustPeaceTheory.com and author of “Just Peace Theory Book One: Spiritual Morality, Radical Love, and the Public Conversation.”

3 thoughts on “Why I am Participating in the National Day of Prayer

  1. Thank you for writing this. As a Peace and Justice United Methodist Christian, I agree with you writing.

  2. You accuse Trump supporters as idolatry yet so is your article.
    The birther issue was that Obama published a false birth certificate,… and for three years milked it for political gain with his supporters… and while keeping above the fray. Ocne the legal document was published, the issue subsided… Is not this idolatry also?
    The Golder Rule is a platitude. God and Jesus do not pick sides.
    Does not the Bible address Individual salvation or collective salvation, that is subject to interpretation. Cannot I be saved unless ever6ybody is saved? And this question also applies to you and and your group of supporters?
    How can you follow the Golden Rule when you accuse me of something I am not? You can’t read my mind. Take the issue of government spending… does not the poorer of the poor suffers the most when this leads to social-economic collapse. Will not the collapse of the system in America initiate a chain reactions to worldwide Misery? I suspect that you are a member of the broad Middle class like me, that is cascading rapidly into the poverty class, since we do not have excess Capital to invest money; many of us only have 500 Dollars in liquid savings to repair our cars, that is a necessity to go to work. Am I evil for have this opinion?
    BTW, I am a good person. Yes, I voted to Trump. I would suggest that you open up your house to a homeless person. Yes, I did this and I insisted that he get his GED… and He did and now he’s proud to be supporting himself. And you accuse me of not being a Christian. Genesis Seven says in the Hebrew Bible. …Thou MAY triumph over sin. Incorporated in this according to the Rabbi web master implies that …Thou SHELL please God, and also, thou still CAN also triumph … (ie, David). WE humans are imperfect… to believe we are not, makes us into GODS. These are the questions I continually ask myself each day. For what It’s worth. I was imperfect in response to you. I will ask
    God and you to forgive me in my prayers ron hansing 5.7.18

  3. The Golden Rule is NOT a platitude. It is a commandment. It is a way of being in the world that requires moral imagination. Do not be deceived. Both God and Jesus pick sides. They side with the poor. Jesus says: as you have done to the least of these, you have done it unto me.” See Matthew 25.
    And, we are required to pick a side. Jesus said: “Do you think that I came to bring peace to earth? No indeed! I came to make people choose sides.” (Luke 12:51 Contemporary English Bible)
    Those of us who call ourselves Christians have an obligation to try our best, day by blessed day, to live the Sermon on the Mount. It is difficult, but we ought to try because this is our witness.
    God bless and help us all.
    Peace,
    Valerie

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