“In our own search for peace and good will, in spite of setbacks and criticisms and sometimes the undertaking of tasks that are not easily performed, I have a sense of confidence that if we emphasize and reinforce those ties of mutual faith and our subservience and humility before God and an acquiescence in his deeply sought guidance, that we can prevail.
The leaders of our Nation look with a great deal of concern over the past experiences when kings and princesses had tied themselves to God, to the church, sometimes even in an exalted position relative to God, and had cloaked maladministration and injustice in the protection of the church. So, in our Constitution, we carefully prescribed that there should be no establishment of religion in this country.
So, we worship freely. But that does not mean that leaders of our Nation and the people of our Nation are not called upon to worship, because those who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and our Constitution did it under the aegis of, the guidance of, with a full belief in God.”
– President Jimmy Carter, National Prayer Breakfast, 1978
