It is hard to imagine how a National Prayer Breakfast could be controversial, but it has become that. This tradition stretching back through five decades of American political life and including every American president during that period, has become controversial under President Obama. A gathering which has included people as diverse as Tony Blair and Mother Teresa has somehow come to be seen as exclusionary. How?

The National Prayer Breakfast, although very inclusive, does have some framework. The same broad Judeo-Christian values that were recognized early by the Founding Fathers are part of the event. Those values inevitably involve some proscribed actions and beliefs. Atheism, for example, is incompatible with the National Prayer Breakfast. Prayers, after all, are directed at a divine being.

In fact, the National Prayer Breakfast is supported by a Christian organization called the “Fellowship” or the “Family.” Those ideologically on the Left have begun to openly call for political leaders to attend alternative prayer events, with the emphasis on those areas in which traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs are deemed no longer in synch with modern life.

President Obama, when he addressed the National Prayer Breakfast, called for a return to civility in politics. He equated the lack of “civility” with citizens pressing their claim that Obama was not actually born in the United States. Obama also equated the lack of “civility” with those who question the sincerity of Obama’s faith. He also specifically tied “civility” to common efforts by “Americans of faith, and no faith, united around a common purpose.”

The president’s remarks seemed to minimize the importance of the traditional religious faith of Christians and of Jews in favor of a sort of Confucian protocol of manners, a society of communal rather than personal good works, and a religious vessel so hollowed out as to effectively be agnostic or atheistic.  Stripping traditional spiritual values, the foundational principles of our nation, out of the National Prayer Breakfast seems part of a broad attack on those parts of religion that place stop signs on immoral behavior. The emphasis of Obama on “civility,” while  not wrong per se, appears to make hurt feelings, acceptance at any cost, and the inclusion of every type of behavior as moral behavior always able to trump the idea that there are objective wrongs or sinful behavior, that preachers and prophets (in the tradition of Jews and Christians) condemn such behavior no matter how popular it might be, and that divine forgiveness requires repentance and remorse.

The National Prayer Breakfast, a private event, was never intended to end religious values in the name of tolerance. It was intended instead to celebrate those values that priests, ministers, and rabbis throughout American history have championed and preserved. Although those values are broad, like America, the values are not infinitely malleable or subject to political or popular modification.

Photo of Obama at National Prayer Breakfast: AP Images

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Bonnie said:

How can Obama possibly miss the point? It's in plain view for all to see, right there on the top of his head. Perhaps he is a vampire and can't see himself in the mirror.

February 06, 2010

Plain View said:

You forgot to mention the obvious... It's no longer secret that the UN is working towards a one-religion world. The religion will be the Gaia pro-environment religion. This is why global warming is so important to them. It will help destroy faith and replace it with a state-sponsored belief system that is controlled by the state. Check the Club of Budapest web site for details. Like the Club of Rome, this group also determines agenda for the UN. How this regularly gets past every single "alternative" news site makes me believe all of them are paid for by the bankers. PROVE ME WRONG. I DARE YOU.

February 06, 2010

T. Dan Tolleson said:

Right and wrong doesn't change, regardless of one's preferences no matter how strongly held What a breath of fresh air to hear Bruce Walker finally summarize, in the second-to-last paragraph, the traditional biblical perspective that Obama is working to snuff out: ". . . that there are objective wrongs or sinful behavior, that preachers and prophets (in the tradition of Jews and Christians) condemn such behavior no matter how popular it might be, and that divine forgiveness requires repentance and remorse." It's too bad that Bruce Walker himself -- just like most commentators who are shamefully unaware of the pedigree of Friedrich Nietzsche's language of moral relativism -- lapses back into the language of moral relativism in the last paragraph when he could have summarized his article using the invigorating traditional biblical language of virtue, morality, and morals. [Take a look!] Oh, well . . . maybe he can thoughtfully re-examine his vocabulary and then edit his work more consistently next time.

February 06, 2010

Thomas Paine said:

Obama a puppet of the UN The UN is working with the New World order to create their new man made religion. The Lucist Trust is their spiritural guide organization. Here is an exerpt from their website under goals and objectives: "There is an inner spiritual government of the planet, known under such different names as the spiritual Hierarchy, the society of Illumined Minds, or Christ and his Church, according to various religious traditions. Humanity is never left without spiritual guidance or direction under the Plan." By the way, they mention the coming of a new spiritual leader called "The Avatar". We must preserve our Judeo Christian values. Good must previal over evil.

February 06, 2010

Flu-Bird said:

What a joke So obama wants cilivtry back in politics? well his fellow liberals have absolutly no ideas about any real civiltry at all

February 07, 2010

Mitch Carnell said:

Prayer Breakfast This article reminds me of the criticism that my church, pastor and I received when we started ,Say Something Nice Sunday, on the first Sunday in June. We were told that we were watering down the gospel. One minister even called it, "Gospel-free Sunday. Per haps a closer reading of the Scriptures might help those who think Obama devalued the Christian faith. What about, "They will know that you are mine and I am yours by the way you love one another?"

February 07, 2010 | url

brian bixler said:

Prayer Breakfast Excellent analysis of the subtilty of obama's words/message. You will know them by their fruits. I want nothing that comes from this tree...

February 08, 2010

susan said:

1990 we were going to go back to the kind of rates structure that we had during Bill Clinton in the 1990s Obama Agnostic http://usspost.com/obama-agnos...-com-5527/

February 11, 2010

Ralph Ramsey said:

Mr Could Satan have said it better than Obama? I don't think so. Remember, Obama said "Yes, but..." to the question he was asked-- concerning Christ being "the Way, the Truth and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father but by Me..." Obama must believe that it must be a total lack of "civility" to say and believe this. To

February 14, 2010

Star said:

... to say whether or not the pres. was wrong in that he was absent it is not for me to say. If one has faith in God then what they do will speak for itself. Faith causes you to do b/c what you believe is what you will do. I know that you cannot have faith and have no works b/c faith produces works.

February 16, 2010