Message Videotaped for Christian Rally : President Invokes Power of Prayer Against Evil

President Reagan invoked the power of prayer in a message to tens of thousands of Christians who gathered Friday for a rally aimed at showing that religion is thriving in America.

“I am convinced that prayer has made it possible for me to continue in this office,” Reagan said in a videotaped address to the dawn-to-dusk “Washington for Jesus in ‘88,” which attracted an estimated 150,000 people.

The Washington for Jesus event, which bore the strong imprint of the evangelical Christians who helped to organize it, featured speakers, singers, a march and a chance for Christians to be with others who shared their beliefs.

Called Nonpolitical

Organizers said that the rally was nonpolitical and that none of the political candidates had been invited to speak. The only exception was Reagan.

“Today, American society must face serious problems from within and without, which threaten to steal our liberties and destroy our freedoms,” Reagan told the gathering. “Abortion, child abuse, pornography and drug addiction eat away at our most precious national resource--our children.

“Yet we do not falter in the face of such evil for there is a wind of prayer blowing throughout our land.”

The President spoke of the racial, ethnic and religious diversity of the crowd, telling them, “You are the living, indivisible witness to the unity and diversity in our country, our country which is one nation under God.”

That was also a theme that rally organizers emphasized at a news conference Friday morning. Sponsors said the audience came from all 50 states and from more than 100 countries.

The day was cool and rainy, and some in the crowd huddled under blankets and umbrellas. Many brought lawn chairs and coolers, and even those who were far from the action on stage were able to see the traditional Christian messages on high-tech screens set up along the Mall.

“I think this is the best thing that could happen to this country,” said Lou DiMeglio, a 29-year-old father from Norwalk, Conn., who carried a banner reading, “Take Drugs Out of School and Put God Back In.”

“This country was founded on the word of God, and we should get back to the word of God,” DiMeglio said.

Organizers said they hoped the gathering would show that all Americans how ardent and unified Christians still are, despite the well-publicized downfall of TV evangelists Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker.

“The world thought the scandals of the last year brought the church to its knees,” James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida said. “The church will arise from its knees, cleaner and purer and stronger.”

More than 100 religious figures, including singer Pat Boone and peacher Oral Roberts, lined up to take turns preaching .

Rally organizers had hoped to draw 300,000 participants to the event, but temperatures in the 50s and light rain may have kept some people away. A similar Washington for Jesus rally in 1980 attracted approximately 200,000 people.

The 1980 rally was seen as a key event in the emergence of conservative Christian groups. Some analysts said that it helped bring out voters to support Reagan’s presidential bid.

Most participants and rally organizers stressed that the gathering Friday had no political message. “We are not coming here to vote for anybody,” said the Rev. John Gimenez of Virginia Beach, Va., national chairman of the event. “No political candidate has been invited. We did not in any way want to diminish why we are here.”

“I didn’t come for any political reason,” said Elizabeth Gross, a 60-year-old black woman who came from Seattle. “My purpose in coming is what they’re saying up there,” she said, gesturing toward a stage on the mall. “I want to be a witness for Jesus.”

Rosey Grier, one-time aide to slain Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, told reporters that the nation’s drug abuse epidemic and the crime rate are symptoms of America’s moral malaise, one they hoped to help heal.

“Violence has to stop in our land,” said Grier, who witnessed the assassination of presidential candidate Kennedy in the Ambassador hotel 20 years ago.

Rally organizers made strong efforts to attract blacks to the rally and, apparently in response to a concern voiced by at least one Washington minister, asked participants to bring canned food to the event for the city’s homeless.

“Initially, I was not too enthusiastic about Washington for Jesus in ‘88, with all those evangelicals coming to Washington and leaving us with all our problems,” the Rev. John Staggers, a black minister in Washington, told an April 28 press conference. “But now I’ve been revolutionized. We need to talk about how we can work toward reconciliation.”

Friday’s rally began at 6 a.m. and ran until 6 p.m. It was to be followed by seven days of prayer to be held in a tent in front of the Smithsonian Institution. The vigil will culminate in the National Day of Prayer next Thursday.

On Thursday night, about 10,000 people turned the Mall into a crazy-quilt of sleeping bags, blankets and parkas during a vigil in temperatures that the National Weather Service pegged at 46 degrees Fahrenheit.

Red Cross station chief Ken Brodie kept engines running all night in half a dozen vans to warm “in excess of 500 people (who were) . . . just real, real cold.”