Obama breaks from Bush on prayer day
link. About time!

President Obama's latest break from his predecessor is drawing some ire among some Christian groups.

While former President Bush held formal events in the White House each year to mark the National Day of Prayer, Obama is opting today for a private observance and will later issue an official proclamation.

"We are disappointed in the lack of participation by the Obama administration," Shirley Dobson, chairwoman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, said in a statement. "At this time in our country's history, we would hope our president would recognize more fully the importance of prayer."

The theme for the 58th annual observance is "Prayer... America's Hope" and is based on Psalm 33:22: "May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you."

But other religious groups praised Obama for dialing back the observance, and accused the task force of trying to exclude non-Christians. Dobson is the spouse of James Dobson of Focus on the Family, a politically active Christian conservative group.

"It is a shame that the National Day of Prayer Task Force seems to think it owns the National Day of Prayer," the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, said in a statement. The alliance sent a letter to Obama urging him to make this year's observance more inclusive of other faiths.

"Once again, the Task Force is misrepresenting the purpose of this national observance," Gaddy added. "President Obama is not the pastor-in-chief of the nation and Shirley Dobson's Task Force is not the spiritual judge of the president's personal or official actions."