President Joe Biden has called, as is the U.S. custom on the first Thursday in May, for a national day of prayer. In the statement released by the White House, however, the president’s call to prayer is nothing of the sort. It isn’t, be sure, a prayer – and not merely because it never once mentions God – but also, and importantly, because it’s really a self-congratulatory speech worthy of the Tower of Babel.
It says, “…we remember and celebrate the role that the healing balm of prayer can play in our lives and in the life of our Nation. As we continue to confront the crises and challenges of our time – from a deadly pandemic, to the loss of lives and livelihoods in its wake, to a reckoning on racial justice, to the existential threat of climate change – Americans of faith can call upon the power of prayer to provide hope and uplift us for the work ahead.” The question is, to whom is this prayer addressed? How does prayer have power of healing if there’s no actual recipient or target to the prayer. You see, and this is the dirty little secret of the modern state, when they mention prayer or religion, they really mean subjective superstition. The real power, insofar as they’re concerned is the state…it’s themselves. If you think the state is Christian, you’re being played. Every problem the President lists is, as far as he sees it, is answered in Washington, not heaven. Man’s throne is the thing, not God’s.
He goes on: “As the late Congressman John Lewis once said, ‘Nothing can stop the power of a committed and determined people to make a difference in our society. Why? Because human beings are the most dynamic link to the divine on this planet.”
Get that? There it is. Nothing can stop man! Man rocks! Man is cool! More power to man…ahem, to the government of man anyway. See it? Man can fix the problems of…what? Of sin and death? No. Of society. And how? Through man. The doctrine is a perversion of the great doxology at the end of Romans 11. It’s secular humanism writ large. The President and his followers, the statists, the idolators say: for from us and to us and for us are all things! Praise us! And if they are to appeal to God it’s not from a position of a broken and contrite heart, a heart that mourns over its sin and inability to be righteous, that begs for mercy at the cross of Christ. No. It saunters up to the Almighty and flippantly says, “we are the most dynamic force of life…so hear us roar and do as you’re told.”
To all of this be warned. This isn’t a Christian president and this is not a Christian prayer. A Christian prayer is only bold in one area: the assurance of mercy by grace alone through the divine gift of faith alone. A Christian prayer rises up with praise to the true God that saves; it praises God, not self. A Christian prayer knows the words of the Lord that says “he who exalts himself will be humbled.” So, do not pray with the President but instead pray that he and our country repent of their arrogance and see their sin and turn to Him in true repentance. Pray that our country turns from its doomsday march that fears everything under the sun but not the wrath of God upon sin. And know that the power of Christ to save is greater, eternally greater, than the power of sin to destroy. But, again, have no part of this pagan day of prayer and instead pray for America to turn to Christ to be healed.
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