I see that Thursday, May 5, is supposed to be the  2022 National Day of Prayer. This Day of Prayer may be announced in a Presidential Proclamation, but it is being run https://www.nationaldayofprayer.org. At their website you can visit their store where you will find for sale a variety of tee shirts, polo shirts. mugs, totes, and caps, all the Armor of God of mega-church religion.

The theme of this year’s Day of Prayer is “exalt the lord, who has established us based on Colossians 2:6-7 NASB.” I was puzzled when I looked up Col 2:6-7 in the NASB, for it reads: “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.” I suppose this year’s theme is derived from “established” (bebaioumevnoi). Of course, “Established,” taken out of context, can have a variety of meanings. So I want to know: “Established” in or upon whom or what? I’m guessing that, as used here, in connection with the American National Day of Prayer, who has established us is intended to mean “who has made us the Establishment.”

There is another, considerable ambiguity in the theme. Who, exactly, is “the Lord”? Oh, well, everyone knows that. The God of Christians is the same as the God of feminists is the same as the God of Muslims is the same as the Gods of the Hopi is the same as the Gods of Hindus is the same as the God of the Rastafarians is the same as the God of the Sikhs is the same as the God of Jews, etc., etc. Oh well, this is just good old-fashioned American syncretism at work. But are all these gods actually the same? I think that if you question these religious groups closely you will find that their gods are not all the same. But on the National Day of Prayer we are to treat “God” as an elastic term that good will can stretch to cover all the various notions of god, so that for this day they are all honorary “God.”

Why am I being so snarky about this? After all, no one is forcing me to participate in the National Day of Prayer. No, but by promoting a single “Lord/God” with decidedly Christian tinges they are trying to force me and everyone else to accept the implicit idea that “America Is A Christian Country,” for Christian hegemony in the United States is the principle underlying this “National Day of Prayer.”