Prayer

La Casa de Maria Retreat and Conference Center will host an interfaith day of prayer from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today at 801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara. The theme of the conference will be "Celebrating Our Common Ground." The event will feature representatives of many religions discussing prayer according to their faiths.

In reading "Far-Off Healing" [May 2], I could not help but think about the old Peanuts comic strip in which Linus and Charlie Brown ponder one of faith's imponderables, how many angels fit on the head of a pin, the answer being "10 if they are skinny and 5 if they are fat." Trying to gauge the effect of "distant prayer efforts" of one faith or another seems to be just that. We will never know the answer, and I doubt that, in looking closely, a "scientific study" will be able to say much one way or the other.

Last Tuesday, I attended a meeting of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors to support the living wage proposal. First, we were invited to join in prayer. However, the gentleman offering the invocation seemed not to understand where he was and why he was there. Instead of inviting all present to join in a spirit of cooperation by calling upon their own God or higher power for guidance during the proceedings, he subjected us to a mini-sermon extolling the virtues of accepting Jesus Christ.

The Presbyterian Church adopted a historic statement of faith Saturday that places sexual equality and environmental concerns into the official church canon. Commissioners to the 203rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted, 412 to 40, to place "A Brief Statement of Faith" in the church's Book of Confessions, alongside such documents as the 4th-Century Nicene Creed and the 16th-Century Heidelberg Catechism. After the vote, they stood up and cheered.

Catholic Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk, president of U.S. bishops, has urged prayers and financial support for Kurds and other refugees in the Middle East. Catholic Relief Services has provided nearly $4 million in emergency relief to the Kurds, hundreds of thousands of whom fled their homes following an Iraqi crackdown that came in the wake of the Persian Gulf War.

With Rick Perry likely to enter the Republican presidential race within days or weeks, thousands of fundamentalist Christians cheered the Texas governor Saturday at a stadium prayer rally that appeared to boost his standing with religious conservatives, a key GOP voting bloc. Perry organized the daylong service of prayer and fasting, featuring appearances by prominent figures on the Christian right. Stadium officials said the crowd exceeded 30,000, far more than any event staged by the announced Republican presidential contenders.

The Appeal of Conscience Foundation says 5,000 copies of Hebrew-Russian prayer books were shipped last week to Moscow for distribution to synagogues throughout the Soviet Union.

An attorney active in religious liberty issues told the 21st annual San Fernando Valley Prayer Breakfast on Thursday that the freedom to pray in public settings is much better established in law than most people realize. "We've swallowed the line that prayer, even silent prayer, is to be kept in the closet," said Brad W. Dacus of Sacramento, western regional coordinator of the Rutherford Institute, a conservative legal-defense agency based in Charlottesville, Va.

A Connecticut couple has sued the town zoning commission for prohibiting them from holding prayer meetings in their home. The American Center for Law and Justice, a law firm founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, filed suit on behalf of Robert and Mary Murphy, who have held weekly prayer meetings and Bible studies in their home since 1995. As many as 25 people attend the gatherings, they said.

The Virginia Military Institute's tradition of prayer before evening meals is unconstitutional, according to a federal Court of Appeals, which rejected arguments that the prayer is voluntary because the cadets are adults. The ruling emphasizes that the extraordinary obedience demanded of VMI cadets doesn't give them the freedom to choose not to participate in what has been called a nondeno- minational, voluntary dinner prayer.