MoJo has the down-low:

Shirley Dobson, wife of James Dobson, the conservative founder of Focus on the Family, is this year's chairperson of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a non-governmental organization based in Focus on the Family's offices in Colorado Springs and charged with organizing various events. According to Jay Keller, national field director of the Interfaith Alliance, Dobson has made a point of "excluding Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists, and even mainline Christians" from the National Day of Prayer.

Thanks to Dobson, this year's task force volunteers are required to sign pledges, stating: "I commit that NDP activities I serve with will be conducted solely by Christians while those of differing beliefs are welcome to attend." Volunteers must also affirm that they "believe that the Holy Bible is the inerrant Word of The Living God" and that "Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only One by which I can obtain salvation and have an ongoing relationship with God." Such oaths violate the non-sectarian nature of the National Day of Prayer and clearly align "a government-sponsored event with a particular Christian denomination, in violation of the basic provisions of the First Amendment to the Constitution," says Keller.

Check out the National Day of Prayer Task Force homepage. It's pretty creepy, with imagined paintings of George Washington kneeling devoutly beside his steed, flyers declaring prayer "America's strength and shield," and a video connecting prayer with various monuments in Washington. It's Civil Religion as reimagined by the black-velvet-Elvis set.

It used to be that the NDP was an excuse for the church ladies to get together with their cronies from other denominations. In recent years, it's been getting more and more conservative. I personally won't have anything to do with it, nor will I support my churches' involvement in it. There's plenty of ways to work across faith lines that don't involve empowering the narrow-minded.

There are political and spiritual consequences to the Dobson brand of exclusivism. Randall Balmer recently caught Barack Obama explaining them at the Compassion Forum:

Obama suggested that the danger in the political realm is a kind of religious absolutism, and the danger to the faith is self-righteousness. “And it is important for us not to try to kill the debate by saying, ‘Well, God tells me I’m right, and so I’m not going to listen to you.’ Rather, we’ve got to translate whatever it is that we believe into a language that allows for argument, allows for debate, and also allows that we may be wrong.’”

If I didn't know better, I'd say he'd been reading Habermas.

We have got to get serious about this stuff, though. The National Day of Prayer might sound like an irrelevant observance of no importance. But if people like Shirley Dobson have their way, their religion will choke out all others, leaving us with a weakened monoculture. It's not good for faith, and it's certainly not good for our politics. Obama may be pathologically addicted to dialogue, but in this case, he's got a point. Politics can't work without some difference of opinion, and faith...well, unless you're not telling me something, ain't nobody hearing the voice of God these days.

You can sign a petition for a Inclusive Day of Prayer put together by the good folks at Jews On First. Or you can participate in the National Day of Reason, if that's your bag.