November 20, 2005
One Nation Under God
Last Sunday on EWTN you may have seen my interview with James Moore, author of One Nation Under God. If you didn’t, this is an important book. Jim is the former Undersecretary of Commerce in the Reagan administration, and for the last eight years he has been working on a history of prayer in the United States. For the last six years Jim and I have been collaborating on his book and a book I’m doing on the history of devotion to Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jim’s book is opening on a tremendous note of success. It was introduced at the Washington National Cathedral with an audience of two thousand people. It is published by Doubleday and also has a CD and an audiotape, which one can get along with the book. Eventually there will be a television series on this subject.
Jim’s book is one of great interest to us because it points out that the separation of church and state guaranteed by the constitution does not in any way mandate the privatization of religion and the absence of religion in public life. The very first meeting of the men who founded the United States began with prayer, and ever since then every meeting of the government, including both houses, has been preceded by prayer in the morning. The nonsense that there cannot be prayer in public school is revealed very clearly by this history of prayer. Also it gives us much insight into when people pray and which unlikely people pray. Not only does it include all the presidents, but also people like Yogi Berra and Andy Warhol, both of whom were apparently people who prayed.
I would suggest that you look on the Internet at 1nug.com. It is interesting to note that within one day of my program, their website had 30,000 hits. Get hold of this book and it will tell you a great deal on what America is about.
Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR
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