Trump to attend interfaith National Prayer Service

(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

published 21 January 2017

President Donald Trump will spend his first morning in office at the National Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral, following a longstanding tradition that dates to the United States' first president.

The interfaith ceremony will host 26 religious leaders representing the Catholic, Protestant, Greek Orthodox, Mormon, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, and Baha'i traditions. Among notable attendees are Dr. Alveda King, a niece of Dr. Martin Luther King; Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society Center; and Cissie Graham Lynch, the granddaughter of evangelist Billy Graham.

The event "will be in keeping with the uniting and uplifting inaugural events, demonstrating President-elect Trump's commitment to be president for all Americans," said a statement from the inaugural committee before the inauguration.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.