In a more inclusive form, a National Day of Prayer wouldn't be an altogether disagreeable gesture. Many Americans are prayerful people, and presidents have been consistently proclaiming national days of prayer since the 1950s.
But like most aspects of presidents' public religiosity these days, the National Day of Prayer has become a kind of political weapon. It hasn't always been this way.
Presidents since Reagan have been far more eager than their predecessors to issue proclamations celebrating religion. Leaving aside the two standard National Day of Prayer proclamations that presidents have long issued each May, the growth in religiously oriented proclamations before and since Reagan is astounding. In fact, examining the more than 6,000 proclamations from Franklin Roosevelt to George W. Bush reveals a more than five-fold increase in the per-term average since 1981.
And this is only one part of a broader trend. Compared to their modern-era predecessors, presidents since Reagan have invoked God and faith much more often, merged God and country with more regularity and greater certitude, and substantially increased their trips to speak to religious audiences (with conservative groups like the National Association of Evangelicals getting a heavy proportion of these visits). They've even upped their references to Christ during Christmastime.
In all cases, the goal has been the same: signal support for people of faith. If goal itself is innocuous, the outcome has been anything but. Presidential religiosity has become narrow and partisan-and people have noticed.
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