Day of Prayer Marked at Area Observances
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Millions of Americans on Thursday observed the National Day of Prayer--a government-endorsed holiday that increasingly bears a conservative evangelical stamp--in small services on city hall steps, prayer breakfasts and at in a nationally televised service from a Van Nuys mega-church.
Although the day has been observed regularly on different dates since the early 1950s, evangelical and Pentecostal leaders have widely promoted the observances since 1988, when Congress and the White House officially established the date as the first Thursday in May.
Religious right leader James Dobson, founder of the Focus on the Family radio program, said more than 20,000 prayer gatherings took place Thursday. Dobson appeared with his wife, Shirley, who chairs a volunteer Day of Prayer task force, outside the Capitol in Washington in a live feed to a three-hour program televised nationally from the 8,900-member Church on the Way in Van Nuys.
Entertainer Pat Boone--dressed in sport coat, tie and trademark white bucks instead of his recent record-promoting, pseudo heavy metal garb--called for repentance and read Scripture. A minister from Chicago leveled criticism at cross-dressing NBA star Dennis Rodman and TV comic Ellen DeGeneres, who Wednesday introduced her sitcom character as lesbian in a much ballyhooed show shortly after publicly coming out herself.
“The coming out of Ellen should have been our shame rather than a celebration,” said the Rev. Joseph Stowell, president of Moody Bible Institute of Chicago.
The tone shifted shortly afterward, however, as Isaac Canales of Pasadena’s Fuller Theological Seminary lamented the callous treatment of immigrants, homeless and the poor along with what he termed a prevailing “who cares?” attitude by drivers who cut off other motorists on the freeway or routinely give measly tips to waitresses.
“We have lost respect for each other; our country has lost the fear of the Lord,” Canales declared to applause from the audience of nearly 1,800 people.
In the audience, Young Wha Yun of Van Nuys, a Korean American who attends the Church on the Way, praised the National Day of Prayer service. “It’s wonderful to get together to pray for the nation--we become a blessing by being here,” he said.
Because praying for the country is the day’s dominant theme, city halls are common sites for local Day of Prayer ceremonies. Nearly 100 people prayed outside Bellflower City Hall during the lunch hour and about 300 attended an informal breakfast on the steps of Santa Monica City Hall.
One of the Santa Monica speakers was Bob Gay, state coordinator for the Promise Keepers movement, which opens a two-day rally tonight for upward of 40,000 men in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The all-male evangelical movement stresses responsibility as husbands, fathers and churchgoers.
“This was the best program we’ve had in eight years,” organizer James Flanagan said. He admitted, however, that the gathering had a nearly exclusive evangelical makeup. Catholics have participated in the past. But mainstream Jewish rabbis stay away because members of the proselytizing Jews for Jesus have taken part each year.
The National Day of Prayer has had no impact in the Jewish community, said Rabbi Harold Schulweis of Valley Beth Shalom, the largest synagogue in the San Fernando Valley. “In Jewish understanding, prayer is critical self-judgment and much more serious than a routinized, public declaration or some kind of magical incantation to solve the nation’s quest for spiritual purpose and moral sensitivity,” Schulweis said.
The major Catholic observance Thursday in Los Angeles was in connection with Law Day, which is observed every May 1. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony celebrated Mass on Thursday evening at a church near Loyola School of Law.
The Protestant-style National Day of Prayer began with a passel of prayer breakfasts, including one at a Presbyterian church in Newport Beach addressed by Hugh Hewitt, co-host of KCET’s “Life & Times,” and a quarterly gathering of the Love L.A. pastors coalition at the Church on the Way. The Rev. Jack Hayford, pastor of the host church, co-founded the 8-year-old fellowship with onetime Hollywood Presbyterian Pastor Lloyd Ogilvie, now the U.S. Senate chaplain.
The evening program at Church on the Way, however, was planned and executed by a ministry based in Minneapolis and televised by Orange County-based Trinity Broadcasting Network.
The No. 1 goal of the National Day of Prayer “is the spiritual recommitment of people and getting back to spiritual roots,” Dobson said on the telecast. “We see some evidence of that happening.”
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