The National Day of Prayer is an annual event passed by joint resolution of Congress in 1952 and signed into law by President Truman.  Of course the tradition of calling for special days set aside for prayer goes back much further, indeed to the American Revolution and to the First Continental Congress in 1775.  The National Day of Prayer is observed on the first Thursday of May each year.  Because our nation continues to navigate through extremely challenging days, the National Day of Prayer Task Force chose “One Nation Under God” as this year’s theme.  It is perhaps something to remember moreover, that this year is a pivotal election year.  The inspiration for the 2012 theme is found in Psalm 33:12, which offers this important reminder: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord...” 

Another verse worth referencing is Nahum 1:7 which states, “The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.”  Indeed, the Book of Nahum is interesting, in that, it is actually a warning to Israel about God’s wrath and the destruction of the wicked, and a prophecy about the downfall of the city of Nineveh.  There may be some allusion here to these United States!  But then there are the words “for such a time as this,” taken from the Book of Esther.  It is in Esther we find a message of hope and also of deliverance, and one may at least pray there’s an allusion to us in that Book as well.    

Esther was a beautiful Jewish maiden.  She was orphaned and brought up by her cousin Mordecai, who held office and served Xerxes the king of Persia.  After dethroning his very difficult wife Vashti, the king chose Esther to take her place as queen.  Mordecai and Esther did not reveal their relationship, however, probably because they did not want her Jewish parentage to enter in and become a point of contention or prejudice.  Meanwhile another officer named Haman hated Jews almost pathologically, so much that he actually presumed upon the king’s authority and ordered their persecution throughout the kingdom.  It is upon that occasion that Mordecai approaches Esther and asks her to intervene on their people’s behalf.  At first she does not appreciate her influence, and she does not quite know the limits of her position.  She is cautious at least, even afraid to broach the king on this subject knowing how hot tempered he could be.  She might be viewed as being difficult like Vashti.  She might blow her political capital so to speak, her query dismissed as mere nuisance or worse as a bald imposition. 

Mordecai nevertheless persuades her to find courage and to persevere, by reminding her of the gravity of the situation and of greater purpose beyond her mortal self.  He references the unlikely series of events that brought her to the throne and suggests to Esther that she may have come into her position just “for such a time as this.”  It is a peculiarity of the Book of Esther that the name of God does not once occur in it, but the reality of God is clearly present.  Esther obtains permission from the king to arrange a banquet and to invite Haman.  She petitions the king at the banquet to stop all the outrages being committed against Jews in the kingdom.  When asked by the king who is responsible for the terrible things she describes, she fingers none other than Haman who is there present.  In an amazing turnabout, Haman is hung on the very gallows he had built and prepared for Mordecai.  Talk about poetic justice!  As for the Jews, they “rested from their enemies” and were allowed to take revenge—their desperate situation having turned in an instant “from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day” (Esther 9:22). 

Today these United States of America face a desperate situation economically and politically, and the nation is in dire need of prayer.  The people need Mordecai’s encouragement, in order to weather unemployment and a rapidly approaching debt crisis, taxes and overregulation; they need to be reminded like Esther, of their exalted position in the Republic.  Americans have enemies around the world to be sure.  They also have enemies within and our own share of officers in the government who presume upon the authority of the people and who subvert the written Constitution and intent of the Founders.  It behooves us to remember, however, that turnabouts come quickly.  Exposing evildoers in public can have a dramatic effect as it did with ACORN, and one single election can reverse four years of very bad policy practically in an instant.

________________________Wesley Allen Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors from West Point and Oxford.  Widely published in the academic and opinion press, he serves as State Director of the Republican freedom Coalition (RFC) and is currently running for U. S. Congress (TX-District 25 in the Republican Primary.  He is also author of two books, Horse Sense for the New Millennium (2011), and The Nexus of Faith and Freedom (2012).  Both books are available on-line at http://www.wesriddle,net/ and from fine bookstores everywhere.  Email: Wes@WesRiddle.com.

 A purely traditional or customary approach to the rule of law does not adequately defend freedom.  Rationalist approaches are even less capable, because they lack the element of fixity required by a legal system.  A fixed constitution requires reference to substantive principles, from which tradition is derived--reference points anterior to, and controlling upon, the development of pure tradition.  These reference points are ultimately religious and axiomatic in nature.  In a way, it is the “establishment of religion” that will restore for us the Constitution and secure the Blessings of Liberty that were intended.  If we consult the official public record, including legislative transcripts dealing with the First Amendment, there is no other conclusion but that the Supreme Court was woefully (if not willfully) off the mark in its 1962 decision banning prayer in a New York school district.

            The latest and most thorough research based on primary sources establishes clearly that the origins of ordinary Americans’ values were not in classical republicanism or rational humanism, but in reformed Protestant Christianity.  Neither were the elite a lot of skeptics, secularists and “Deists.”  The vast majority of the Founders were church-going Christians, and none were as hostile to religion as, say, Justice Hugo Black.  Excellent work proving this point has been done by M.E. Bradford, W. W. Sweet, and Rene D. Williamson.  The Founders’ beliefs are important, because they shed light on the intent of the First Amendment.  Disestablishment of official churches where it occurred did not equate to modern secularism, nor did the First Amendment injunction preventing the national Congress from establishing a religion disallow the states from doing so.  Indeed, James Madison’s discussions in debates about the First Amendment reveal it was an object of the amendment to prevent Congress from threatening the religious diversity of the states, which ranged from established churches to doctrinal requirements of various sorts.

            Massachusetts, for instance, had an established church until 1833.  Ironically, the First Amendment wording as voted on by the House came from Fisher Ames, conservative from Massachusetts.  Wording was compromised in conference committee before sending the amendment on to the Senate for a vote.  Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, stalwart Calvinists from Connecticut, worked on that committee project.  At the time, their state had a law that fined anyone 50 shillings for not going to church.  One had to be Protestant to serve in the New Hampshire legislature until 1877.  Roman Catholics could not hold office in North Carolina until 1835, in New Jersey until 1844.  In Maryland, until 1826, one had to be Christian to hold office.  As North Carolina “liberalized,” it still required public office holders to be Christian until 1868; thereafter, they had to profess a belief in God.  Of course, the First Amendment did not prevent the appointment of chaplains or the establishment of Thanksgiving Day at the national level either.  In fact, the day after Congress passed the First Amendment and sent it to the states for ratification, the House adopted the resolution calling fora day of national prayer and thanksgiving with language thanking God for the “opportunity peacefully to establish a constitutional government. . . .”

            Thomas Jefferson’s words “wall of separation” have been bandied to support the 1962 High Court decision and other decisions derived from it.  The words come from an 1802 letter and are taken totally out of context.  Indeed, we have only to look at Jefferson’s second inaugural address to find what he really said regarding church and state.  Jefferson clearly states that the free exercise of religion is independent of the general government under the Constitution; that is, Jefferson left religion as the Constitution found it, “under the direction or discipline of state or church authorities . . . .”  His interpretation squares identically with Madison’s rationale and the intent of the First Amendment.  The wall of separation, such as it was, was intended to be between the federal government and the states and not between the people and their religion.

            The American Whig Party of the last century (and not a few of the Founders) equated the leading principles of the Bible with those of the Constitution, but it has not been my intent to equate the Constitution with religion or religion with the Constitution--only to point out using the example of religion that the intended and fixed nature of the Constitution (and the purpose of its written format) have been subjected to a kind of cumulative violation.  And indeed, this fact plays havoc with various aspects of American political tradition.  Time has a way of losing what is not fixed by strict construction.  A fluid Constitution means the loss of our whole political tradition at some point.

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Wesley Allen Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors from West Point and Oxford.  Widely published in the academic and opinion press, he serves as State Director of the Republican freedom Coalition (RFC) and is currently running for U. S. Congress (TX-District 25 in the Republican Primary.  He is also author of two books, Horse Sense for the New Millennium (2011), and The Nexus of Faith and Freedom(2012).  Both books are available on-line at http://www.wesriddle,net/ and from fine bookstores everywhere.  Email:  Wes@WesRiddle.com.