National Day of Prayer observance overshadowed by political drama

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Every year between 2001 and 2008, former President Bush’s calendar was cleared on the first Thursday in May to mark the National Day of Prayer in the White House East Room with prominent evangelicals.

Now the Obama White House is facing questions of inside-the-Beltway etiquette: Should Obama maintain the open door to conservative critics like James and Shirley Dobson, and if so, should they accept? Or will the White House have an official observance at all?

With those questions unanswered, the National Day of Prayer Task Force headed by Shirley Dobson is moving ahead with other plans.

“We’re not the coordinators of that event,” said Brian Toon, vice chairman of the task force. “That’s controlled completely by the White House. We have been honored to be guests at the event in the past, but we have not heard a peep from them.”

In years past, Toon said, a White House liaison has contacted the ministry at least a month in advance to ask about their participation in the White House events that featured music, Scripture readings and remarks by the president and Shirley Dobson.

She and her husband, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, were seated prominently in the front row next to the president and first lady.

The White House, which usually does not officially announce events until shortly before they occur, declined to comment on whether it would hold an event this year, much less who would be invited.

This year, Dobson’s task force has opted to hold its annual event on Capitol Hill in the morning—at the same time when its representatives usually are at the White House.

“We do pray for the president at our (Capitol Hill) observance, and we have asked for a speaker from the Obama administration and we’re waiting for them to get back to us,” Toon said.

He insisted the group is “not politically inclined” towards Republicans or Democrats, even though early Obama policy changes—opening federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and international family planning groups—have riled Christian conservatives.

President Truman signed into law the National Day of Prayer in 1952. President Reagan amended the law in 1988 to stipulate the observances would be held the first Thursday in May.

The task force’s work has been criticized in recent years by some who say evangelical Christians have “hijacked” the observances. Task force representatives counter that their events reflect a Christian perspective, but all Americans are free to observe the day according to their religious viewpoints.

Prior to the Bush years, task force leaders held more low-key events, including at Lafayette Park across the street during the Clinton administration.

“There was no East Room event until George W.,” Toon said.

While he recalled being at White House receptions with rabbis and imams, Toon said the Capitol Hill event has tended to be “very Christian.”

Other task force-related events will include private pilots who fly and pray over the nation’s capitals and observances at national monuments, Indian reservations and town halls.

If there is no White House event this year, it would be a disappointment, Toon said.

“We’re not politically inclined either direction,” he said. “Our passion is to pray for all of our nation’s leaders and their families.”

But wherever they are in Washington, the president still will be in their prayers, he said.

“We can still do that from across the Mall,” he said.