Us and Them: Public Theology in the Breach
It was once taken for granted in the United States that crises and important occasions were marked by prayer. From 1789, when George Washington began the custom of setting aside days for national thanksgiving, to 1953, when Dwight Eisenhower opened his inauguration with a prayer he had written himself[1] (and there are many more examples), the country has been blessed with a rich history of its political leaders prayerfully declaring their dependance upon God.