Faith in the Public Square: The National Day of Prayer
Secular activists want you to believe that faith has no place in the public square. They claim the Church should stay silent while culture and government move further from the truth.
But history tells a different story. Since our founding, America has recognized that we depend entirely on God. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln called the nation to a day of "humiliation, fasting, and prayer." His words are a searing indictment of a people who have pushed God to the margins:
"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."
Lincoln’s call was clear: we must humble ourselves before God, confess our national sins, and pray for forgiveness. Read Lincoln’s full address here.
Today, the National Day of Prayer remains a vital moment to do the same. It is a day for each of us to recognize that without God’s blessing, our state and nation cannot thrive. After all, Ohio’s own State Motto—echoing Matthew 19:26—reminds us: "With God all things are possible."
When the Church prays, the ground shifts. We must continue to bring our faith into the halls of government and the center of our communities.
For more information, contact CCV at 513-733-5775 or contact@ccv.org. For media inquiries, email media@ccv.org.
As Ohio's largest Christian public policy organization, Center for Christian Virtue seeks the good of our neighbors by advocating for public policy that reflects the truth of the Gospel.
