President Donald Trump is facing his first of the many annual events that presidents usually attend. This will be the 64th Annual National Prayer Breakfast, which is on the first Thursday in February.
The first president to attend the breakfast was Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. He called it a “wholly enjoyable occasion,” and he talked about the importance of religion. He also said:
“Today I think that prayer is just simply necessity, because by prayer I believe we mean an effort to get in touch with the Infinite.”
Members of Congress are invited and are told they can “put aside” their jobs of politicians. People of every denomination are invited. Some people who are not religious come to the event as well. We really shouldn’t be favoring religious people over those who are not religious, though.
Will Trump Attend?
This is the question on many people’s minds. Donald Trump definitely talked about being a Christian during the campaign. The 2017 Prayer Breakfast will be on February 2. Every President since Eisenhower has attended the breakfast. Several Senators are telling Trump he should go.
Sens. John Boozman (R-Ark.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) have invited Trump to attend. Coons said this about it back in December, 2016:
“It is a unique time to set aside differences and stand together as a country. I urge President-elect Trump to continue both the traditions of inclusiveness and of Presidents taking an active role in the prayer breakfast.”
I’m sure Trump would love to suck up to Evangelicals at the event. During the campaign, he really pandered to Christians a lot. He even pointed out and ridiculed non-Christians at a rally once. He said:
“Raise your hand if you’re not a Christian conservative … There’s a couple people. That’s all right. I think we’ll keep them, right? Should we keep them in the room, yes? I think so.”
We’ll see if we get to hear Trump pray at the National Prayer Breakfast.
Here is President Obama’s last National Prayer Breakfast speech:
Featured image by whologwhy via Flickr, available under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
