Buoyed by a recent appellate court victory, Utahns will gather Thursday in 10 churches and public places to pray for the United States and its leaders as part of the National Day of Prayer.

Events are scheduled from Logan to Vernal to Payson and include breakfasts, an all-night vigil and an evening prayer outside the Utah Capitol.

Many question the constitutionality of proclamations by government leaders encouraging an explicitly religious act. Others don't like that the day is observed almost exclusively by evangelical Christians.

For Greg Clark, a bioengineering professor at the University of Utah, the National Day of Prayer undermines the credibility of government because it has mayors, governors and even the president proclaiming something that is "demonstrably false."

"What's striking about prayer is that anybody can pray and anybody can see for him or herself that prayer fails," said Clark, faculty adviser for the group Secular Humanism, Inquiry and Freethought (SHIFT) at the U. "It's an interesting curiosity that people persist in prayer."

Greg Johnson, Utah coordinator for the evangelical National Day of Prayer Task Force, disagrees.

"I could line up millions of people who say prayer is meaningful for them," said Johnson, president of the Utah group Standing Together and a board member of the National Association of Evangelicals. "It's not right for modern-day secularist or nonreligious people to suggest that, because they think this is offensive, we don't get to do this anymore."

A cloud loomed over the National Day of Prayer last year in the wake of a federal judge's ruling in Wisconsin that Congress violated the Constitution in 1952 when it declared the annual day and required the president to issue a yearly proclamation urging citizens to pray for the nation.

Judge Barbara Crabb said in April 2010 that it is no more within the purview of government to declare a National Day of Prayer than to encourage "citizens to fast during the month of Ramadan, attend a synagogue, purify themselves in a sweat lodge or practice rune magic."

But a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out Crabb's ruling last month. The appellate court said the plaintiff, the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, couldn't sue because President Barack Obama's proclamation of a National Day of Prayer hadn't caused the group any harm.

The foundation will ask the full appellate court, based in Chicago, for a rehearing later this month, co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said Wednesday.

The foundation is also appealing a state case in Colorado and, this spring, sued Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to block her proclamations encouraging prayer in that state.

No such lawsuit is planned in Utah, Gaylor said, although the foundation has received complaints from the state. The foundation sent a letter to Gov. Gary Herbert this spring, asking him not to proclaim the National Day of Prayer or attend its events.

Herbert, whose office says it has no record of receiving such a letter, did issue a declaration, as governors typically do, but he won't be attending prayer events Thursday. Last year, he spoke at a prayer breakfast.

Gaylor said the Utah events are divisive because of their evangelical slant.

"This event excludes not only the nonreligious, but also nonevangelical Christians, including Mormons — the dominant faith in Utah — Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims, etc.," Gaylor and her co-president, Dan Barker, said in a news release.

While nonevangelical Christians who hold elective office often speak at the events sponsored by evangelicals, they aren't asked to lead prayers. Neither are Mormons, Jews or Catholics who happen to attend, Johnson said.

"We don't make an apology for having an exclusively evangelical service," Johnson said. "We are just one expression of the National Day of Prayer."

Others are welcome to attend, or stage their own prayer events.

The day has always been tied to evangelical Christianity — in origin and in name, since evangelicals adopted the name of the day in their organization, the National Day of Prayer Task Force.

It was the Rev. Billy Graham who persuaded Congress and President Harry Truman to declare the first National Day of Prayer in 1952. Evangelical Christians then persuaded Congress and President Ronald Reagan to designate it as the first Thursday in May, beginning in 1988.

kmoulton@sltrib.com —

Area events

Evangelical Christians in Utah plan 10 events, many with a Mexican flair for Cinco de Mayo, to observe the National Day of Prayer, including three key ones in the Salt Lake City area.

A community leadership breakfast, with Pastor Ira Popper of Draper's Adventure Foursquare Church as the keynote speaker, will be held at 7:30 a.m. at the Sheraton Salt Lake City, 150 W. 500 South. Tickets are $20.

Music and public prayers are planned in an evening prayer gathering at 6:30 p.m. at the Utah Capitol. The event will be on the front lawn, or, if the weather is inclement, inside the Rotunda. In Murray, Calvary Chapel Salt Lake, 460 W. Century Drive (4350 South), will stage a prayer observance with a free breakfast at 8 a.m. The guest speaker will be Canyons Church Pastor Mike Gray.

The National Day of Prayer Task Force, an evangelical Christian organization, lists events on its website,nationaldayofprayer.org.