Obama & the National Day of Prayer

I know it's in the news right now how a lot of people are upset that President Obama is not really observing the National Day of Prayer like former presidents have done in the past, but you know for me (and this may surprise some people coming from me), but its really not that big of a deal for me. I guess most people, knowing that I'm a conservative Christian pastor would expect me to be very upset, but I'm really not. And here's why?

First of all, much of these National Day of Prayer Ceremonies are nothing more than a lot of political show. If someone is not living as a devoted believer on a daily basis, with prayer being a regular part of their lives anyway... then what good is it to all of a sudden to pretend to be one, one day out of the year? In my opinion - none at all.

Second, I generally do not like these National Day of Prayer Ceremonies because they are so ecumenical in nature. To me it is simply theologically dishonest and hypocritical to hold hands with people of many varying faiths and pretend to all be praying to the same God. The most dramatic example probably being Christians and Muslims both participating at the same time. Here you have two faiths that couldn't be more opposite, supposing and pretending to be brothers uniting together for prayer. The book of Amos 3:3 states, "Can two walk together unless they are agreed?" And the obvious answer is no, they can't. Even Christians and Orthodox Jews can't honestly meet together for prayer as brothers. Biblically we can only go to God in prayer through Jesus the Messiah, and they reject Jesus as the Messiah. So, all these different religious groups coming together for such purposes as prayer or worship or even missions with no basis in truth, in my opinion is not theologically honest or Biblically correct. Now agreeing to work together for some kind of specific social reform like world hunger, abortion, or the traditional view of marriage is completely different; I have no problem with that. But when you start talking about praying together and worshiping together, thats different b/c each one is making the implication that the other faith is just as valid as theirs, and that is not always true.

So, for me it's not a real big deal that President Obama is not participating in this event. The only little thing that does bother me about it is the question... why is he doing this and who is he doing it for? Let's face it... he's a politician, he's supposed to do things like this, especially since he's made the claim to be a born again Christian. Now, of course, I don't believe he's a Christian anymore than Job's turkey, but he himself has made the claim, so why is doing this? What is his motivation for breaking this presidential traditional? Is there a certain minority group of the population that he is doing this for? These are the only things that I wonder about. Maybe he's finally revealing his true self... an Unbeliever. If so, I respect him for at least being real.