Commentary: Praying the American way

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- If American politicians have taught their foreign counterparts anything in the last half century, it is how and when to pray: early in the morning, with orange juice, fresh fruit, muffins, scrambled eggs and a pot of coffee in front of them.

Thursday, there were some 4,000 people from 170 countries in the Washington Hilton to celebrate the 50th National Prayer Breakfast with President George Bush that way.

Let the cynics aver that in other parts of the globe faith is in decline, this event proved them wrong. Indeed, the German parliamentary delegation even included a post-Communist deputy, whose party had once built the Berlin Wall.

But who was to argue with that? "Hopefully, he'll have learned something here," a devout Christian in the group said. This is of course what some had hoped when then-President Clinton showed up with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at the 1999 Prayer Breakfast.

Not everyone was pleased. A high-ranking Washington evangelical scoffed, "What? Do I have to listen to Arafat talking about Jesus? I have not shown my face there ever since." But that's another story.

"Since we met last year, millions of Americans have been let to prayer," said Bush Thursday.

He could have said the same about Europeans, an increasing number of whom have become prayer breakfast aficionados to the extent that they now grade these annual proceedings.

"Coming on the heels of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, this year's Breakfast was the most impressive so far," said the Rev. Wolfgang Baake, head of Germany's Christian Media Academy.

It was quite a spectacle, too, come to think of it. Where else would you have the strapping U.S. Chief of Naval Operations and the president's national security adviser lead the world in prayer in a manner befitting P.K.s, or preacher's kids, (which is of course what Adm. Vernon Clark and Condoleezza Rice were)?

The National Prayer Breakfast that began in the Eisenhower Administration has become one of those pieces of Americana that keeps spreading at home and abroad with seemingly ever-increasing speed.

Governors do it, mayors do it, military commanders do it. The Parks and Recreations Department of Asheville, N.C., does it, Outdoor Motoring Clubs do it. The Prophetess Gerry Clayton does it, whoever she might be.

Type "Prayer Breakfast" into the Google search engine, and some 27,400 Web addresses pop up, including some from France, supposedly the most secularized Western country.

There are members of parliament in Paris who pray together over their petit déjeuner, and they have colleagues in Berlin who do the same at their Frühstück.

And of course this is true all over the world, Down Under as in Africa, in Asia and Latin America.

"Why breakfast, though?" Diane Knippers, President of the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy, was asked.

She pondered the question for awhile and then speculated: "Well, there is the Protestant tradition of having devotions first thing in the morning. Then, at what other time of the day could you get that many people together?"

Knippers thought there might also be pecuniary considerations. "If you have to combine worship with a meal, breakfast would definitely be the cheapest."

If you asked Congressman Bart Stupak, D-Mich., he'd tell you that for him the best hour on the Hill is between 7:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. every Thursday when he and 50-60 colleagues from both sides of the aisle pray and "sing their hearts out" over breakfast.

Stupak, a former policeman and faithful Catholic, is this year's chairman of the House Prayer Group, which has its equivalent in the Senate; but that one gets together on Wednesdays.

Even a religion correspondent has his cynical moments. So he wondered if these Democrats and Republicans acted somewhat like the British and German frontline soldiers in World War I:

At Christmas they sang, prayed and shared rations with each other. The minute Christmas was over, they returned to their trenches and resumed firing.

"Oh no," replied Bob Meissner Stupak's press secretary, "The Congressman says, 'When we are done (praying) the one thing we take away is friendship.' He reacts very negatively to naked partisanship."

When one of Stupak's two sons committed suicide two years, Meissner related, among the first people to rush to his hometown of Menominee, Mich., was Congressman Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., a veteran member of the House Prayer Group.

Said Meissner, "These two men enjoy a very deep friendship."