Thursday, May 7, 2009

Obama Says No Day Of Prayer Observances At White House

The Anchoress has thoughts and the link at National Day of Prayer; America = Isra-El

I think the article she links is a tad misleading in some ways. That is it is sort of hiding the ball on how long the tradition of the President doing stuff for this day has been around

For instance it states
For the past eight years, the White House recognized the National Day of Prayer with a service in the East Room, but this year, President Obama decided against holding a public ceremony.

But then later on we find

Under the Bush administration, the White House hosted an interfaith service each year, inviting protestant, Catholic and Jewish leaders for an event at the East Room.
President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush also marked the day with a White House observance
.

Did not Clinton also observe it. I see to recall that Mother Teresa was at Prayer breakfast and Clinton was there and I can recall him being at other events marking the day

2 comments:

Jersey McJones said...

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." Matthew 6:6

Prior adminsitrations have done what Obama has done, quietly showing respect for prayer rather than making a show of it. It is sad that people are stupid enough to be impressed by the cynical, pandering, public show of prayer by men of such poor character as George Bush.

JMJ

James H said...

Jersey,

I am making note that again this is not Just Obama versus Bush thing. As I pointed out above this appears to be tradition that at least goes back to Reagan. I do recall Clinton marking the day.

So it appears to me to be a break with tradition to some degree