OVERVIEW OF NATIONAL PRAYER DAY
The National Day of Prayer is a day designated by the United States congress as a day when all Americans regardless of faith can come together and pray to God in their own way. It is held on the first Thursday in May. A "National Day of Prayer Task Force" was created in order to coordinate the event.
HISTORY OF NATIONAL PRAYER DAY
There have been several national days of prayer in the U.S. before the day was made official in 1952. The Continental Congress issued a day of prayer in 1775 to designate "a time for prayer in forming a new nation". Thomas Jefferson argued however, that although individual religious organizations had the right to designate a day of prayer, the U.S. government should not have that right.
On April 17 1952, President Truman signed a bill proclaiming the National Day of Prayer into law. It was in 1972 that the National Prayer Committee was formed. It went on to create the National Day of Prayer Task Force, with the intended purpose of coordinating events for the National Day of Prayer. In 1988, President Reagan signed a bill into law decreeing that the National Day of Prayer should be held on the first Thursday of May.
The intention of the National Day of Prayer was always that it would be a day when members of all faiths could pray together in their own way. It would involve Christians, Jews, Muslims, as well as Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, Aboriginals, Zoroastrians, and anyone who wished to participate.
NATIONAL PRAYER DAY TRIVIA
Who wrote these words in 1808, in response to national days of prayer?
"Fasting and prayer are religious exercises; the enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the time for these exercises, and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and right can never be safer than in their hands, where the Constitution has deposited it.".
Thomas Jefferson
Source: The English Wikipedia
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