Obama to Skip Prayer Event

For the past eight years, former President George W. Bush hosted a religious gathering in the White House to commemorate what is billed as the National Day of Prayer. Now, in a return to pre-Bush policy, President Obama will simply mark the day with a proclamation rather than host an event.

The National Day of Prayer has been around since 1952, when Congress bestowed this arbitrary honor to the first Thursday of May, but it was Bush who fully embraced the idea, inviting religious leaders to come to the East Wing to offer their own versions of a practice that is said to facilitate communication between man and God, whether that creator be affiliated with Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam or the rest.

For some, the scrapping of the White House prayer gathering will be an outrage. For others, it will restore a proper separation between church and state. Here's how Robert Gibbs described the change:

"Prayer is something the president does every day," he said. "We're doing a proclamation, which I know that many administrations in the past have done."

Pressed by reporters as to the lack of a formal ceremony, Mr. Gibbs said the proclamation was Mr. Obama's choice.

"That's the way the president will publicly observe National Prayer Day - privately, he'll pray as he does every day," Mr. Gibbs said.

So, should we, as a society be promoting the idea of prayer? Apparently, this president, like the last, does believe in the power of prayer, as he practices it every day of his life. But does his privacy signal that he is less sure of its efficacy than W. is, or, perhaps he just sees the matter of prayer as a personal decision.

For the government to actively promote prayer, it seems to me that it should be able to say why it is doing so. According to the largest study ever conducted on prayer, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that praying works. The study examined the effects of prayer upon heart patients:

Patients who knowingly received prayers developed more post-surgery complications than did patients who unknowingly received prayers--and patients who were prayed for did no better than patients who weren't prayed for. In fact, patients who received prayers without their knowledge ended up withe more major complications than did patients who received no prayers at all.

While scientific studies on prayer are dismissed because they are said not to capture God's ultimate plan, it does seem strange that government should be in the business of encouraging an activity that doesn't show a whole lot of benefit. Then again, perhaps praying is itself the reward, kind of like meditation. Lastly, we might consider the following video, produced by a group called "Why Won't God Heal Amputees?"



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