How Permanent Daylight Saving Time Could Affect Religious Americans
Newsweek · C · trust 55/100
0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. Some religious Americans have expressed concern about the prospect that legislation could make daylight saving time permanent in the United States, saying it would negatively affect their morning prayer during winter.
Orthodox Jews have spoken out against a permanent clock shift as proposed by the Sunshine Protection Act, which would affect not only prayer times for some religious communities but also work and school scheduling.
The Trump administration has urged Congress to make daylight saving time permanent and pass the Sunshine Protection Act, a bipartisan bill introduced by Representative Vern Buchanan, a Florida Republican, that would end the twice-yearly clock changes and keep much of the country on daylight saving time year-round.
The House of Representatives passed the legislation with overwhelming support in a 308-117 vote, and it is currently before the Senate.
The idea behind eliminating the clock shift is to provide more afternoon and evening daylight in winter, save fuel and potentially boost the economy while doing so. However, a Newsweek analysis found that the effect of making daylight saving time permanent would vary significantly based on geography, latitude and position within a time zone.
According to the Pew Research Center's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study , 62 percent of American adults describe themselves as Christians, 2 percent as Jewish, 1 percent as Muslim, 1 percent as Buddhist, 1 percent as Hindu and less than 1 percent as other world religions. Here is how a switch to permanent daylight saving time could affect adherents.
Christians are unlikely to be greatly affected by the change, unless in specific contexts such as monasteries and religious orders that maintain canonical prayer hours and center their prayers around sunrise or sunset. Most Christians do not have prescribed daily prayer times like those found in other faiths.
Orthodox Jews, according to Pew, comprise almost one in 10 Jews living across the U.S., which has an estimated Jewish population of 5.8 million adults, the think tank's 2021 data shows.
They are required to pray three times a day: in the morning (shacharit), in the afternoon (minchah) and in the evening (arvith or maariv). Shacharit, the morning prayer, is recited sometime between sunrise and midday, though most prefer to do it before work or school. The prayer lasts half an hour on average.
A permanent daylight saving time would push sunrise an hour later in winter, making it more complicated for Orthodox Jews to recite the morning prayer before leaving the house.
"The later the morning is, the later that prayers can be taking place," said Rabbi A.D. Motzen, the national director of government affairs for Agudath Israel of America, an organization representing Orthodox Jews, in a statement reported by USA Today .
"California is least affected, but go to Indiana or Michigan and the reality is harsher," he added. "In most places where Orthodox Jews live, sunrise would be after 8 o'clock. In L.A., it would only be 10 days a year—but in South Bend, Indiana, it's close to 150 days a year."
"Many Jews gather each morning in synagogues for morning prayer," Rabbi Josh Joseph of the Orthodox Union, the country's largest Orthodox Jewish organization, told the outlet. "If sunrise is pushed back an hour, services can't begin until an hour later."
According to a letter sent by Agudath Israel to congressional offices discouraging a permanent switch to daylight saving time, "the times for prayers and their accompanying rituals will be thrown into disarray—which, in turn, will put into jeopardy their proper fulfillment, discourage synagogue attendance, and result in late arrival for work."
Muslims in the U.S. would also be affected by the change when it comes to fajr, the first of the five daily mandatory Islamic prayers. This consists of two units (rakats) of Sunnah and two of Fardh, which are performed between the break of dawn and sunrise.
As for Orthodox Jews, the change proposed under the Sunshine Protection Act would affect Muslims in winter time, with morning prayers occurring much later on the clock and evening observances pushed later into the night.
"Sunrise would be around 9 a.m. and morning prayers would start around 7:30 a.m., so it would be a hassle for those who observe the prayers at the mosque if they have to figure out their commute schedule around the prayer times," Naureen Akhter, the public affairs director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, New Jersey, said in a statement to NorthJersey.com.
The switch would also affect Ramadan, a month of fasting and prayer. "The number of hours we fast won't change, the times will just get shifted," Akhter said.
A shift to permanent daylight saving time would postpone both the predawn meal, suhoor, and the meal for the breaking of the fast, iftar, followed by the late-night prayers.
Buddhism does not have strictly prescribed or mandatory daily prayer times, which means adherents would not likely be affected by a change to permanent daylight saving time. As with the Christian community, the switch might have a bigger impact on Buddhist monasteries, which follow structured daily routines with fixed times for communal chanting and meditation, often starting early in the morning. But these rules do not apply to everyday lay followers.
Some Hindus may be affected by permanent daylight saving time because certain religious practices, such as Sandhyavandanam, are traditionally performed around dawn, noon and dusk and are tied to the sun's position rather than the clock. Under permanent daylight saving time, winter sunrises would occur about an hour later by the clock, meaning morning observances linked to sunrise would also take place later. For some practitioners, this could create scheduling…
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