Tracing the National Day of Prayer: America's Spiritual Heritage

Rick Green

This is the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's Wall Builders, where we take on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Rick Green, here with David and Tim Barton. And it's Foundations of Freedom Thursday. That's our day to really dive into your questions, so make sure you send them in Radio at wallbuilders.com. That's radio at wallbuilders.com. David Barton, of course, America's premier historian and our founder here at WallBuilders.

Tim Barton, national speaker, pastor and president of WallBuilders, and I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach, and we look forward to getting your gives us a chance to dive into the principles, but go where the audience wants to go. In other words, what are the things on your mind, what are the things that you're seeing right now in your communities, even as you watch the news and you see what's happening nationally and internationally and you're weighing the questions of is this constitutional, is this biblical, what can we learn from history? It helps us to zero in and, honestly, it's fun, because a lot of the questions we get asked I have no idea what the answer is, and so I'm learning with you and it's just a fun way to do this program. So thanks for being a part of Foundations of Freedom Thursday by sending those questions Once again radio@wallbuilders.com. And, guys, normally at this point I'd be saying, all right, let's jump right into those questions.

But this is a special day, man, this is National Day of Prayer. I bet we could not add up how many National Day of Prayer events between the three of us we have been to participated in, and probably maybe all 50 states. Well, David, you've probably done all 50 states in DOPs over the years. Well, that would mean you'd have been doing it 50 years. So unless you went well, you probably, knowing you, you've done three in a day. I don't know I could see you doing that. Anyway, it's a special day. Let's talk about how we started having a National Day of Prayer.

And the one question I've got for you guys I'm going to be the audience as they go, hopefully today, to somewhere in their community and join with folks and have a Day of prayer event. They're probably going to see their mayor or maybe a state rep or maybe even the governor, and some people are going to say well, you're not supposed to mix those two. The public officials are not supposed to come and do that, because now it's putting pressure on people to pray or whatever. So I guess let me just be the audience and toss that question to you. How should we respond when people complain about that? Because you remember when they got onto Rick Perry for praying for rain I think it was when we had the big drought or fires, I can't remember but the left all said he wasn't supposed to go to that event and pray. He's the governor. He's not allowed to do that.

David Barton

Well, we also had the same thing when the Georgia governor, Sonny Perdue, called for a day of prayer. And the same thing when Bobby Jindal called for a day of prayer after the oil spilled down Louisiana coast. There were several governors who called for days of prayer because it was an emergency, needed God's help. And it was interesting, even with the Kansas legislator. He was working on calling for a day of prayer but he wanted to do the Abraham Lincoln day of prayer and add fasting humiliation in, and the media literally beat his brains in for saying how dare you say that we should be humiliated? No, no, no. Humiliation means humbling yourself. They had no clue what humiliation even meant. So there's a lot of flack out there when civic leaders try to do National Day of Prayer for sure.

Tim Barton

Well and Dad, I would even point out that if you go back historically right, I mean you're talking about moments when governors recognized there was a significant need and therefore we're going to have a day. At that point it's really statewide, right? So it's a national day of prayer. So every state in the nation, right, the Christians around the nation and maybe some around the world are joining in this moment. But you're talking about states where governors had a prayer proclamation because there was a significant need.

If you back up historically, it used to be that every early governor when you go back to the founding era I mean virtually every single governor you're going to have a hard time finding an exception to this. They knew there was such a need for prayer in general that they would do prayer proclamations on average to a year. On average, every spring they're doing a proclamation for prayer accumulation and fasting. Every fall they do a proclamation for prayer and thanksgiving Prayer was just understood to be so normal and natural. So, Rick, even to your kind of toss at the beginning of this question, what should people say if we look at political leaders getting involved now and people think they shouldn't be involved? When we look at this big picture. By 1815, there had been more than 1,400 official government prayer proclamations, and this would be by governors, by the Continental Congress, by Congress, by presidents more than 1,400 by 1815. And this is only including the New England states. And the reason for that is because the records from the New England states apparently were kept much better. And maybe you know, in the period of the Civil War, right, maybe some things got burned and you know who knows how, all the details where some of these states don't have great records for what happened in some of the earlier years. But in the New England states there's very good records. So from the New England states alone there's more than 1400 official government prayer proclamations by 1815. And when you look at the founding fathers every single founding father who became a governor, every single founding father who had been a president, you can look in their life and find them doing official government prayer proclamations. This is just the way they understood life and American government should operate.

So now that we think for a government official to be involved, you know how could they have the audacity to do this? In earlier days it was, how could you have the audacity not to do this right that you think you're the one that sends the rain? You're ridiculous. We know exactly where the rain comes from and we know who we need to pray to and we know that we have needs that are beyond us, beyond what we can navigate and handle in our own power. We're going to God, we're going to humble ourselves, we're going to fast and pray and seek God's face.

And one of the very standard things when you go back to the humiliation, fasting and prayer proclamations generally those happen in the spring. Not unusual that if you track this back historically you can go back to. The pilgrims are really the ones who laid the groundwork for this. We usually think of the pilgrims as having the kind of the first day of Thanksgiving, right, the tradition of Thanksgiving. That's what we think of with the pilgrims.

But it was only two years after their official beginning kind of Thanksgiving movement that became an annual tradition in America. Two years later they were having a significant drought and Governor Bradford called for a colony-wide day of prayer and fasting, humiliation, that God would send rain. And miraculously you can go back and read the story. I mean just miraculously God sent rain. They got just enough water to keep the crops from completely withering and going away, but not so much that it drowned them. You read the story. It's absolutely incredible, but they recognized. Hey, we should just make this an annual thing. Every single spring we should have a day of prayer and fasting, and we can add everything to the list we think is important, but we should do this every spring, and then every fall we're going to have a day of Thanksgiving to thank God for God's provision and all the things he's done, and we can thank him for all the he's done throughout the year.

This was an annual tradition started by the pilgrims, but this carried on through the founding era. This is the way it was done, and so you can't name a single founding father who was a government elected official who did not have involvement in days of prayer and fasting, where sometimes they were in the state legislature, they were a lieutenant governor, they were part of some kind of general assembly and they were actively participating in days of prayer and fasting. This is a very common thing historically at WallBuilders, we've been blessed that we have over probably 800 of these original prayer proclamations from early American governors, presidents and the Continental Congress, so these are things that we actually, with firsthand documents, original documents can show very well. But there's so much more to this that when people look today and they think whoa wait, a second right, separation of church and state, or whatever their argument might be, that it's so historically ungrounded.

The claims and the attacks against the political involvement or National Day of Prayer used to be going back to even George Washington, the first president to do a prayer proclamation. And of course he was the first president to do that, because he was the first president. But when the Bill of Rights got sent and at that point it was amendments to the Constitution when those amendments got sent from the first Congress back to the state to be ratified, there was a motion that we should have a day of prayer and thanksgiving for what we've accomplished. Washington wholeheartedly agrees.

He does this prayer proclamation and his opening line is acknowledging it is the duty of all nations to do exactly what they were doing. They believed not just that politicians could, but they believed they had an actual responsibility as political leaders, as leaders of a nation, as leaders of states. They had an actual responsibility as political leaders, as leaders of a nation, as leaders of states. They had an actual responsibility to go and thank God, to acknowledge God and, at times, to humbly pray and fast and seek God's intervention in situations. That was a duty and responsibility. Not just something they could do, but something they should do. Responsibility not just something they could do, but something they should do.

David Barton

You know, even with the founding fathers, after they start that tradition, it's interesting that before the Civil War the country got away from that tradition and presidents whether it's Tyler or Van Buren or Jackson or whoever they stopped issuing those national calls to prayer. And so Lincoln starts back into it when he becomes president. He goes back to prayer and fasting, prayer and thanksgiving. He starts calling the nation back to God and there's just a period of time there where we'd forgotten, apparently, and we came back to it. And then we get into another period of forgetting as we go through Reconstruction and all the national division we have in the 1880s and the rise of progressives, we forget again. And then we come back again.

And it's interesting that the National Day of Prayers, we have it now as a federally established day and this is not an optional day. This is established by federal law. Interestingly, do you guys know what president established this as a annual holiday? It was not, it was. It was what I would say. It was what, it was a conditional, it was a matter of choice for presidents up to this. But since this particular president, it's no longer a matter of choice by federal law. You have to have a national day of prayer at this point in time. Any idea where it came from.

Rick Green

Conservative Joe Biden. No?

David Barton

 Well, I will say he did it first. He's the first National Day of Prayer proclamation that didn't mention the word prayer anywhere in the proclamation. So that's a first.

Not the first you were asking for, but that was the first, not the first. I was asking for Well.

Tim Barton

Also, I think in his first proclamation he barely mentions God, you're right God or prayer, I think in his first proclamation he barely mentions.

David Barton

God, oh, you're right, 

Tim Barton

God or prayer, Absolutely, and I think he does. I think he does reference God, but it's like one time and I think he alludes to prayer. But what he says is right prayer is very important for some people in their faith. For others, they look for hope in different areas and so, like, wherever you find hope, like we encourage you today to go find hope where you find hope right.

David Barton

I will tell you, with that statement that he put in there, he clearly had not read the federal law requiring what's to be done with the proclamations.

Tim Barton

Or maybe he treated that federal law like the federal immigration laws. Well, that's true too, and he thought I'm not going to do that. But let's go back. National Day of Prayer. What president is responsible? I think all of us, and speaking at National Day of Prayer events, we have heard these things before, we've talked about them before and I did not review my notes before coming out, so I am only trying to recollect. I think it was Harry Truman,

David Barton

Harry Truman's right.

It was in the Korean War. 

Rick Green

See, I was going to guess Eisenhower if I was going to be serious about it, I would not have guessed Truman.

David Barton

Eisenhower is what I thought it'd be, because Eisenhower came in and said the nation's too secular and so he set up the congressional prayer breakfast every year, but it was actually the year before that Truman said no, no, no, we've got a war going on in Korea. Communism is sweeping the world. We need God, we need prayer. We don't need communism, we need God.

And so it starts actually with Truman. 

Tim Barton

Well, you guys, hang with me, I'll teach you more about American history. I will inform you about Harry Truman. You hang out with me a little bit more, guys, I will help you learn something. Don't worry about it. 

Rick Green

I'm genuinely going to ask you this, Tim. So I wonder, especially as y'all are doing research on American story and I don't know if y'all have gotten that far yet in your storyline but I wonder, if Truman was; David you said Korean War so this would have been later in his presidency, not during World War II. Then Is that what you're saying, right? I wonder if he was really impacted by the end of World War II and the bomb and all that kind of stuff and he had an even greater need for the Lord.

David Barton

Well, he, all the way through, was very God-oriented, there's no question about it. When he proclaimed Israel, recognition of Israel, 11 minutes after Israel's independence, what he did throughout? He wrote to ministers, he talked to ministers. He told the nation this is a Christian nation. He talked about being a Bible nation. He was very adamant about faith, very outspoken. Now he was very liberal, but in that liberality he was not a progressive that wanted to progress past religion or progress past the Constitution or whatever. He's just a genuine liberal. But he was a genuine faith guy as well, and he knew who FDR was.

Tim Barton

I may push back a little on him not being as progressive because he was FDR’s vice president and he knew who FDR was and if you are running with FDR and unless FDR, because I don't know this maybe FDR is like hey, I need to have more moderate balance.

Let me add Harry Truman, but I don't think 

David Barton

It's interesting, he was the ad only for Truman's last term, FDR’s last term, right.

Yeah, oh, Truman, right, FDR's last term, 

Tim Barton

But this is why I don't think that would be the case. And again, guys, everybody listening right now, you are listening to us have conversations that are not scripted, that we have not done the research on.

Rick Green

These are the around the fire I wonder conversations. 

Tim Barton

That's exactly right. But I mean at this point right FDR. He's a well-established candidate, so people aren't choosing him, again, based on who his vice president is, right. So I don't think he would be choosing Truman. And everybody listening, this is not research, this is me just trying to reason and logic through this. I don't think he would choose a vice president at this point because you're thinking he's going to add votes I'm not going to have and I can't win without him and I need somebody moderate because people know I've done the New Deal and it's progressive and the pushback. It doesn't seem like that's where FDR is coming from. All that to say is I'm not sure I totally agree with you that Truman is very clear on his faith, that he's very motivated, but you can love Jesus with your whole heart and be really wrong on some issues.

David Barton

You know, he was really different from FDR in many areas. One was he was very different in race areas. He was awesome because it was Truman who desegregated the military, which FDR refused to do. So Truman gets in, desegregates the military, which is very different from FDR. And Truman hated communism and FDR didn't like it, but he didn't have a hatred for it. But Truman genuinely hates communism and he thought that was the scourge of the world and if we didn't get God involved and if we became communists we'd lose all of our freedoms. So he had some interesting differences. But you know, he was a liberal. He was a progressive in that sense, but not a progressive like Biden or Obama or those kind of progressives. He was kind of an old school liberal. But you know, I don't know that people even know the difference today when we use the term liberal and progressive, because those two things mean the same thing today.

Rick Green

Well, it's interesting that it started that long ago. National Day of Prayer, and of course you know rich history, man. Anybody that listens to our program at all has heard stories of the founding fathers calling on the nation to prayer, the Continental Congress, the governors and the presidents and all of those different early American examples of that. But what you guys are saying with Truman is it's also what would you call that? I guess that's close to modern not quite modern, but more recent.

David Barton

Well, it set the precedent for modern, and probably the most recent precedent was actually Reagan, because Reagan came in and said, hey, let's do this on a certain day, because Truman said we do it every year and Reagan said, no, we're going to do this on the first Thursday of May of every year. And so that's essentially what Reagan did was kind of seal this deal in the new era by putting a fixed date on it where Truman said we're going to do it every year, but I'm not telling you what day.

Rick Green

Well, lord knows, we need it. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. We're talking about National Day of Prayer here on Foundations of Freedom Thursday. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show.

Break

Rick Green

Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us here on WallBuilders. It's Foundations of Freedom Thursday, but it's a special Thursday. This is National Day of Prayer. We've been spending most of our day today talking about the history of National Day of Prayer and, guys, we haven't really hit on the importance of National Day of Prayer. I mean kind of some quotes of what others in history said. We know we need a better God consciousness in our country and a National Day of Prayer helps to do that. You know all these events we've been to over the years. There's something special about the community coming together, leaders in the community coming together and actually praying together, and most of them that I've been to they go through and they pray for every level of government, they pray for the schools, they pretty much pray for the whole community, which is obviously a good thing and brings people together from all different persuasions.

Tim Barton

There's no doubt and you know we mentioned before the break that we've all been a part of National Day of Prayer events, and one of the things that I love being able to do is, as both of you have gone before me right, you are my Hebrews 11. Look at those who have gone before you and let them be examples to you, and you know y'all been doing this for so many decades that you know you've found so many stories over the last several hundred years of y'all's life and experience.

Rick Green

I was wondering.

David Barton

I was wondering how far he was going to go on that.

But I remember when Abraham Lincoln gave me that proclamation to deliver, it was pretty fun. I was going to keep dating you until you stopped me.

Rick Green

It was nothing like praying with Patrick Henry until he's like give me liberty or give me death. Then it gets serious.

Tim Barton

Well, one of the things that we love doing is being able to tell the stories, and especially, we certainly highlight so much of the faith of the founding fathers, the faith foundation of America, the biblical foundations of America and there is so much good documentation for that. When people talk about America being a secular nation it’s really because they don’t understand the history. They haven’t done the research, and there's some people that would claim to have done the research and we don't see it. Well, you have to be completely intentionally ignoring it when it's so evident. We can point to books like the Origins of American Constitutionalism, where a group of professors went through and they documented who the founding fathers quoted and cited the most in their writings, and what they identified was that 34% of all of the quotations they found in the founders' writings were quotations from the Bible. They identified. They only included things that were in quotation marks, so that it was a kind of a accurate assessment. So they're not kind of trying to figure out and allude what you know. Does this phrase sound familiar? But it might be from here. What's interesting, though, is, even though they're trying to keep this level playing field, so they're only measuring what's in quotation marks they acknowledged that they recognize so many Bible references that were very obvious Bible references that weren't in quotation marks, that if they included what the very obvious things were, it would have been far higher than 34% of the quotes and references of the founders' writings coming from the Bible. And the reason I point this out this was not a study done by a group of Christian professors. This was a study done by intellectually honest professors who were saying we just want to see what really influenced the founding fathers. And the Bible is so far above and beyond any other influence of the founding fathers as far as evidence in their writing. And again, this is why, when you study the founders writings, it's so obvious what influenced them. But when you come to the national day of prayer, what's also super fun is when you look at the founding fathers being influenced by the Bible. And really we could go through much of American history. How many Americans were influenced by the Bible, people that are influenced by the Bible, that that have a strong faith connection.

Oftentimes you see, as we mentioned these, these prayer proclamations where you have people come together in prayer and there are so many fun stories of where things were going a certain direction and people prayed and all of a sudden it shifts the entire tide. In fact, dad, I think earlier this year you were at a church and you did like an hour long presentation just telling stories of times when the church, when Christians got together, when leaders and this is in America when they got together and they would have times of prayer and specifically at times of prayer and fasting right. So they're really serious, they're committed to this movement and the miracles that God did. And, of course, every National Day of Prayer, when we give these speeches, we will highlight some of these moments that historically are so clear that people prayed and everything changed. And I thought I mean, guys, we will highlight some of these moments that historically are so clear that people prayed and everything changed. And I thought I mean, guys, we're almost out of time today, but I thought it'd be fun.

Real quick, what is one of your favorite history stories where people prayed and it became so evident God was moving. It changed the outcome. It changed the result. It changed the direction. What is a fun American history prayer story?

David Barton

The one that I like the most. And I like it because it's not what you would normally expect, or at least not what I would and it's the one that Abraham Lincoln did, because we've gone for several presidents who did not call the nation to prayer. He did, and when he does it it's in 1863. It's in the middle of the Civil War. And when he does it it's in 1863. It's in the middle of the Civil War. At the time he called for prayer. The Union and all the major battle. There are dozens of battles in Civil War, all the major battles. In the first three years the Union won two battles, that's it. They're just getting their head handed to them. The Confederates are very confident of victory.

And what I like about his prayer proclamation is it's for time of fasting, but it's a prayer proclamation. It's almost like you're not aware of Civil War is happening. He's saying, guys, we have individually got to get a hold of God. We've got to get back where he's Lord of our life. We have to get the Bible back in our life. And it's not like he's saying, pray for victory, pray for the army, pray for me to have wisdom and what to do. It's pray that we get right with God as individuals, and I thought that was so striking because it would be so tempting at that point in time to pray about the things that are dominating your thinking. And after he did that and the nation humbled themselves and prayed, the union only lost one battle in the next two years and they ended up winning the war. But he wasn't praying for a win of war, he was praying that we'd get right with God, and I thought that's good.

Tim Barton

And this is not to say that there were not calls for prayer at that time that God would help either side win, right, because you have the Confederacy having times of prayer, asking God to intervene. Certainly the Union did too. This did happen. But you're referring to the 1863 Prayer and Fasting Proclamation from Abraham Lincoln, which people can look up online. You probably can even find it on wallbuilders.com

David Barton

We have it posted Right.

Tim Barton

Right. We have this, one of the original printings of that proclamation from back in that time really incredible. But to your point, where Lincoln could have made it very much pray that our side wins and their side loses, he really kept a spiritual emphasis, which is super fun. Rick, I know we're almost out of time. Do you have a thought? American history.

Rick Green

Man, I was actually going to two quick things. I was going to first of all, send people to wallbuilders.com and folks, if you click on resources right there on the homepage, it's going to pull up a ton of these proclamations, prayers that took place, letters from founders talking about prayers that took place. And even since you guys were talking about the importance of Truman starting National Day of Prayer, there's a Truman Christmas card from 1950 that talks about just all kinds of cool stuff in here. And almost every state maybe every state, I don't know, but there are proclamations in here. You can look up your own state and see where a governor, even in recent years, has called on the state to prayer. So I think that's pretty cool.

And then I'll just mention it's not an actual prayer but a call to prayer, Ben Franklin at the Constitutional Convention, and how it wasn't even prayer itself, it was the God consciousness, it was the call to prayer and getting them to remember, hey, we need to rely on God. As he said, the Father of Lights illuminates our understandings. It just changed the attitude and really helped to focus everybody back on those very principles. You were talking about, Tim, where they quote the Bible over and over and over again, and so even sometimes it's not. It's not even once we get into that corporate prayer. It's the idea of acknowledging God, which of course, you guys share quotes all the time from the founders about acknowledging God and getting the people to think like that makes such a huge difference for our culture.

Tim Barton

When I would follow up that after Franklin's call the prayer, they did take an extended recess right, George Washington talks about that. They went to church for three days. They heard these patriotic spiritual orations for three days. They come back July 4th, on the anniversary. They do have a pastor come in and then they continue on from that moment forward they have chaplains regularly, pastors coming and leading them in prayer and it did shift the entire convention.

We can go back to the beginning of the American Revolution, Continental Congress, the opening motion. Right when they get together, one of the very first things they do is somebody makes a motion for prayer. Finally they agree upon prayer. The Reverend Jacob Duchesne comes in right for two hours. They go into prayer and Bible study, where it was recorded that even the stern old Quakers had tears running down their cheeks at the end of the Reverend Jacob Duchesne's prayer. Just so many cool moments of prayer, and so we'd encourage everybody today, on the National Day of Prayer, take time to pray. Pray for our nation, pray for our leaders, pray for what God is doing he's not done with his nation. We need to take time and pray.

David Barton

And if you're not, sure what to pray, go to the resources Rick mentioned. Look at some of those original prayer proclamations. Just pray some of those prayers that have been written out in previous generations. They're still good today.

Rick Green

That's a great idea. Gather the family around and read several of those together as a prayer today. Thanks for listening. You've been listening to the WallBuilder Show. Thank you.