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National Day of Prayer snub stirs controversy

President Obama  chose to not host an event at White House.

Staff photo Ron Alvey Nancy Hanscom reads the Bible under a tent in the parking lot of First Baptist Church Annex on Wednesday, May 6, in Fairborn.

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By Meredith Moss, Staff Writer Updated 10:29 AM Thursday, May 7, 2009

Today is the National Day of Prayer, but not everyone sees it as a blessing.

While millions of Americans, including many in the Miami Valley, are holding special events in honor of the day, President Obama — unlike his predecessor — has chosen not to host an event at the White House.

Gary Percesepe, executive director of the Greater Dayton Christian Connections and a pastor at Highlands United Church of Christ in Springfield, believes the president is sending an important message by his action.

“I’m a Christian and I think if we’re going to have a National Day of Prayer we should include the nation — all people of faith who want to pray together,” said Percesepe. “For better or worse, The National Day of Prayer has become identified with a group of conservative Christians who are perceived by many in the religious world as not being as inclusive as they wish they would be. This event tends to leave a lot of people outside the tent.”

Created in 1952 by a joint resolution of Congress and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman, the National Day of Prayer is organized and promoted by a privately funded task force headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colo. This year’s chairman is Shirley Dobson, wife of Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson, a longtime leader of the Christian right movement.

Marlene Johnson, Yellow Springs National Day of Prayer coordinator, said, “This is basically for people who believe in Judeo-Christian faith.”

Adam Demetrician, discipleship director at Christian Life Center in Butler Twp., said, “The idea is to lift up our nation,” adding he is “saddened to see that this wasn’t a part of his (Obama’s) presidency.”

Demetrician said the idea is to be inclusive.

“It’s ecumenical in the fact that we are drawing from multiple (Christian) denominations,” he said. “We’re looking for the bottom common denominator, which is Jesus Christ.”

Although only Christian church events are listed on the group’s national Web site, it states that “people with other theological and philosophical views are, of course, free to organize and participate in activities that are consistent with their own beliefs.”

But other religious groups have opted out. And some, such as Woven Branches, an interfaith gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender group, stage a May breakfast each year.

“It’s a response to a faith initiative that we feel is exclusionary,” said Amy Russell, minister of the Miami Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. “A national day of prayer would include everyone who recognizes prayer as a part of their faith; this day was created to exclude people who believe in the rights of every one to participate in prayer.”

Pat Meadows, executive director of the National Conference of Community and Justice, said the act of prayer is good, “but we would always encourage universal prayer that is inclusive.” Meadows said she knows of no other religious groups besides Christians that hold local events for the National Day of Prayer.

Percesepe said Obama is signaling that he would like to see a much broader understanding of religious faith.

“There continues to be great divisions in the religious world,” he said. “It’s a great irony that the word ‘religion’ itself means “to bring together, to bind up, to heal.”

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