The date President Donald Trump selected for America’s rededication to God event has significance as the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th year of independence.
The all-day prayer and praise event will occur on Sunday, May 17, in Washington, D.C.
Trump announced at the National Prayer Breakfast in February, “We’re inviting Americans from all across the country to come together on our National Mall to pray, to give thanks.”
“We’re going to rededicate America as ‘one nation under God,’” he added, prompting a standing ovation and sustained applause from the attendees.
“I’ve always said you just can’t have a great country if you don’t have religion. You have to believe in something. You have to believe that what we’re doing, there’s a reason for it,” the president argued.
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The official U.S. House of Representatives’ history site notes, “In mid-March 1776, New Jersey Delegate William Livingston, a 52-year-old brigadier general in the colonial militia and member of the Continental Congress, submitted a resolution calling for a national day of fasting in support of America’s defense against what he called ‘the warlike preparations of the British Ministry.’”
“Three-and-a-half months before approving the Declaration of Independence, lawmakers agreed to Livingston’s bill setting aside May 17, 1776, for a day of prayer and reflection,” the site added.
The resolution read, in part, “In times of impending calamity and distress; when the liberties of America are imminently endangered by the secret machinations and open assaults of an insidious and vindictive administration, it becomes the indispensable duty of these hitherto free and happy colonies, with true penitence of heart, and the most reverent devotion, publickly to acknowledge the over ruling providence of God.”
The first battle of the Revolutionary War had already been fought the previous spring in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, in April 1775, as well as Bunker Hill in Boston the following month. The Continental Congress had selected George Washington as commander-in-chief of the colonies’ army on June 15, 1775.
So the Continental Army was in the field, but the colonies were still hoping for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
However, should England persist with the war, Livingston sought divine intervention “to crown the continental arms, by sea and land, with victory and success.”
He also called for prayers “to bless our civil rulers, and the representatives of the people, in their several assemblies and conventions; to preserve and strengthen their union, to inspire them with an ardent, disinterested love of their country; to give wisdom and stability to their counsels; and direct them to the most efficacious measures for establishing the rights of America on the most honourable and permanent basis.”
As I write about in my book, “We Hold These Truths,” the Continental Army issued multiple proclamations calling for prayer and thanksgiving, including after the U.S. win over the British during the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, and the combined American and French victory at Yorktown in 1781.
The Yorktown proclamation read, in part, “Whereas it hath pleased Almighty God, the Father of Mercies, remarkably to assist and support the United States of America in their important struggle for liberty against the long-continued efforts of a powerful nation, it is the duty of all ranks to observe and thankfully acknowledge the interpositions of his Providence in their behalf — Through the whole of the contest from its first rise to this time the influence of Divine Providence may be clearly perceived in many signal instances.”
After taking his oath of office with his hand placed on the Bible on April 30, 1789, George Washington said in his inaugural address, “It would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States…”
“No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency,” he added.
President Trump issued a proclamation in January titled “A Year of Celebration and Rededication, 2026.”
In the proclamation, he observed that just as the founding generation sought God’s aid and blessing in their march to freedom, so too, Americans now should “pray that our noble cause continues to be guided by the hand of providence and the grace of God — and that the fire of freedom will forever burn brightly in the heart of every American. Above all, this year, we pray and endeavor that the triumph of the American spirit and the glorious truths expressed in our Declaration of Independence will shine more radiantly than ever before.”
Some of the speakers at the Rededicate 250 event will include House Speaker Mike Johnson; Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Bishop Robert Barron; Cardinal Timothy Dolan; Reverends Franklin Graham and Samuel Rodriguez; Pastors Jack Graham, Jentzen Franklin, and Lorenzo Sewell; Rabbi Meir Soloveichik; and Christian author Eric Metaxas.
Some of the music performers will include Liberty Worship Collective, Grand Canyon University Choir, and Hillsdale College Choir.
The event is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. and go until 7 p.m.
So on May 17 of this year, Americans will be doing exactly as their progenitors did in 1776.
This article originally appeared on The Western Journal and is reposted with permission.
