Last week, President Trump made an appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.
Trump’s speech contained a number of comments on religion–even hinting at his own deepened faith since the bullet grazed his ear in July 2024–but actually didn’t focus much on the breakfast’s titular object: prayer.
Trump may not place much emphasis on prayer, but thankfully, others in our nation do. I saw evidence of this recently when an older women came up to me at an event and began telling me about a prayer meeting she has hosted every night at her home for the last 1,000+ days. Although she didn’t have time to give me many specifics, I got the idea that she and her friends started this regular gathering in order to pray for our nation, its citizens, and their wellbeing, imploring God that many would return to a greater faith in Him. Come to think of it, perhaps the fact that Trump admits he now has a greater personal faith in God is a direct result of her prayers!
This woman’s faithful little act of communal gathering should challenge all of us. Sure, many of us are quick to complain about the problems we see in the world, or even pontificate how we think those problems should be resolved … but how often do we seek God’s face for both his guidance and will in matters of national importance? Sadly, the answer to that is probably a lot less than we care to admit!
Perhaps that’s because we simply don’t know how to pray for our nation anymore. If that’s the case, we would do well to take a cue from Christian ministers during the time of America’s founding, popularly known as the “Black Robe Regiment.” The thoughts of these individuals are preserved in “The Political Sermons of the American Founding,” and some of those same thoughts focus on prayer.
For example, in 1792, Harvard graduate and Massachusetts minister David Tappan encouraged his listeners to pray the following for one of their primary leaders:
[T]hat his Excellency may ever form his whole private and public conduct upon the divine model proposed in the life and precepts of the Christian lawgiver. That so his personal example and official measures may unite their influence to spread piety and virtue as well as every temporal blessing, through the community.
Translation: Pray that the personal and private lives of our elected leaders would be moral and upright, rather than falling into corruption and dishonesty, and that this same righteous living would be copied in the lives of those they govern.
Then in 1798, Yale graduate John Thayer encouraged his congregants not only to repent and humble themselves before God, but also to spend a good deal of time thanking God:
The first blessing which demands our cordial thanks to God is, that we live under the freest and most easy government in the world. …
Another cause of thanksgiving to God is, that the administration of this most excellent constitution, ever since its first establishment, has been committed to men eminent for their wisdom, firmness, and patriotic services. …
A third motive, which we have, of the sincerest thanks to heaven is, that, while a spirit of disorganization and disorder has produced such baleful effects in other countries, America, in spite of the effervescence produced among us by the extraordinary exertions of foreign and domestic intriguers, yet remains in a happy state of tranquillity.
Translation: Thank God for the freedoms we enjoy, the Constitution and those elected to uphold it, and for the blessings of peace we have been granted.
Also in 1798, Timothy Dwight, a Congregational minister from Connecticut, implored his listeners to come together for corporate prayer, doing the following:
The house of God is also the house of social prayer. Here nations meet with God to ask, and to receive, national blessings. On the Sabbath, and in the sanctuary, the children of the Redeemer will, to the end of the world, assemble for this glorious end. Here he is ever present to give more than they can ask. If we faithfully unite, here, in seeking his protection, ‘no weapon formed against us will prosper.’
Translation: Humbly seek God’s mercy in continuing the blessings He has given, while also seeking his mighty hand in protecting us from our enemies–both at home and abroad.
Yes, cultural renewal comes through good leaders. But as 19th-century British politician Lord Acton so famously said, “Power tends to corrupt.” And if we want to ensure that our leaders remain good, pursuing righteous policies for our nation, then one of the simplest things we can do is get on our knees every day and pray for them, for our fellow citizens, and for ourselves to walk in the way of truth and righteousness.
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The republication of this article is made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal.
Image Credit: Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, Public Domain
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