The National Day of Prayer is an annual event, established by the U.S. Congress in 1952. Since 1988, it has been designated for the first Thursday of May, which fell on May 2 this year. What should be an occasion for congregations to meet together separately and earnestly pray for their nation has instead become a vast ecumenical media event. There is little praying in the midst of a lot of hoopla. There is shallow "repentance" of relatively meaningless things, of some of the symptoms of America's illness, instead of a genuine addressing of America's moral and spiritual debauchery.

This year it will be conducted from Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. and will feature Bill Bright, Luis Palau, James Dobson, Greg Laurie, Lloyd Ogilvie, Josh McDowell, and Bill Bennett. [These are big] names in the movement to bring all churches together in spite of their doctrinal heresies, in direct and open disobedience to the Word of God. Bill Bright speaks highly of the pope and wants unity between Catholics and non-Catholics.

That is part of the cause of America's problem. Can we not see in the newspapers every day what Rome has contributed to America's moral decline? James Dobson promoted Mother Teresa, in spite of her false gospel, and never warns his many Catholic listeners of Rome's blasphemous dogmas, filling their ears, instead, with his self-esteem principle. That is part of the cause of America's problem. America doesn't need more self esteem. It needs to fall on its idolatrous, lascivious knees and submit to Almighty God. Bill Bennett is a nice and knowledgeable man who cares for his country, but he is part of the problem, being himself deluded by Rome's false doctrines. He sees only the symptoms and is blind to the true causes of America's decline, the chief of which is religious apostasy.

Luis Palau joins hands with Catholics and Church of Christ and other false groups in his evangelistic meetings, thus completely disobeying God's command of separation from false gospels….[He reportedly sends converts right back to the churches they come from.] It is part of the cause of America's problem. For the last five years, the National Day of Prayer was aired from Pentecostal Jack Hayford's Church on the Way in California, among others…. Hayford believes in such nonsense as "baby tongues speaking"… that a believer must begin with "baby tongues" and progress from there. He joined hands with thousands of Roman Catholics and had not one word to say about their error -- or about the silly nonsense of spirit slaying and spirit drunkenness and other such things that were prominent at the meeting.

In addition, the National Day of Prayer will feature Christian rock music and charismatic praise groups, which ignore God's command to separate from the things of the world and to make a difference between the holy and the profane. The root cause of America's ills is the apostasy and carnality and compromise of her churches (including her independent Baptist churches, large numbers of which are as lukewarm as Laodicea, and which, like Sardis, have a name that they live but are dead), and the National Day of Prayer will only contribute to that cause.

My friends, we DESPERATELY need to pray. Churches need to be praying instead of partying. But the ecumenical-charismatic-christian rock crowd are among the chief causes of America's spiritual problems, and it is impossible for the cause to become the solution. (5/2/02, David Cloud, Fund. Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org)