WASHINGTON (RNS) — Interesting to a type of camaraderie more and more uncommon on Capitol Hill, President Joe Biden lauded the facility of religion in his speech on the Nationwide Prayer Breakfast on Thursday (Feb. 3), calling for unity at an unusually intimate iteration of the annual non secular gathering.
Talking in an auditorium within the guests middle of the U.S. Capitol, Biden singled out these within the room who had just lately misplaced family members, recalled with frustration the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol assault and lamented the waves of loss of life spurred by the continued pandemic.
Amid such difficulties and division, Biden instructed the viewers comprising largely members of Congress that his Christian religion reminded him of the significance of service. “In a second of an awesome division, our democracy is at grave danger. I pray that we comply with what Jesus taught us: to serve slightly than be served,” he stated.
Biden added: “Moderately than drive us aside, religion can transfer us collectively. As a result of all the good confessional faiths share the identical basic primary beliefs: not simply religion in the next energy, however religion to see one another as we should always. Not as enemies however as neighbors. Not as adversaries however as fellow Individuals, as leaders of this nation who work and pray collectively.”
Religion, the president stated, is available in many varieties, which embody religion in American values. “I pray to maintain the religion (in) the very promise of America: believing that there’s nothing we will’t do, the place each particular person is created equal within the picture of God, irrespective of the place we come from, who we’re, what our shade or how we select to hope — or whether or not or not we select to hope — (we) should be handled equally all through their lives.”
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Thursday’s prayer breakfast was smaller than earlier than the pandemic, a byproduct of COVID-19 restrictions and an effort by organizers to refocus the gathering. In recent times the now 70-year-old occasion had develop into a sprawling collection of assemblies with a world roster of greater than 3,000 attendees, usually held on the Washington Hilton resort.
In 2018, a lady was accused of trying to take advantage of the occasion as an agent of Russia, and two years later President Donald Trump, celebrating his acquittal on the prayer breakfast after his first impeachment, instructed Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi was a liar for saying she prayed for him.
Organizers instructed this 12 months was meant to shift the main target of the Nationwide Prayer Breakfast: Its keynote speaker was Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer and longtime advocate for felony justice reform and racial equality. Founding father of the Equal Justice Initiative and creator of the bestselling ebook “Simply Mercy,” Stevenson was instrumental in creating the Nationwide Memorial for Peace and Justice, the Alabama memorial to the 4,400 victims of lynchings within the U.S.
Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat and Presbyterian who spoke on the prayer breakfast and was one in every of its chief organizers for a number of years, told Religion News Service this week the gathering’s small measurement was partly as a result of an effort to “reset” the occasion by framing it as a “narrower engagement between Congress, the president, and a few inspirational singers and audio system.”
The prayer breakfast was co-chaired by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, and Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, who additionally spoke, together with different leaders from each events.
Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat and pastor of a historic Black church in Georgia, opened the occasion with a prayer, noting that “Justice is what love appears to be like like in public.” He was accompanied by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington state, who learn from Proverbs. Democratic Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer of New York learn from Deuteronomy and Leviticus, sometimes slipping into Hebrew as he did so. Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell learn subsequent, reciting a passage from Matthew.
Biden took benefit of the extra intimate gathering to achieve out to his political adversaries. Referring to the Capitol as, “in authorities phrases, a sacred place,” he bemoaned that Republicans and Democrats spend much less time collectively than prior to now, and he stated he considers McConnell, a stalwart opponent of his agenda, a buddy.
Biden, a Catholic, cited St. Augustine, who “wrote {that a} individuals was a mess outlined by a standard object of their love,” the president stated.
“I consider the frequent objects of our love that outline us as Individuals are alternative, liberty, dignity, respect, honor, service, reality — issues all people acknowledges each right here and around the globe. As I stand on this citadel of democracy that was attacked one 12 months in the past, the difficulty for us is unity. How can we unite us once more?”
The president additionally framed the latest hostage scenario at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, for example of unity that overcame sectarian division. Whereas Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and others had been held at gunpoint, Biden stated, a band of interfaith colleagues worked to help him.
“Whether or not you’re in a synagogue or a church or a mosque or temple, whether or not you’re non secular or not, we’re all imperfect human beings attempting the perfect we will as a result of we will’t know the longer term, we will’t know what’s coming,” he stated. “That’s America: From darkness we discovered pleasure, hope and light-weight.”
Biden was adopted by Vice President Kamala Harris, who mirrored on her personal religious upbringing attending Twenty-third Avenue Church of God in Oakland, California.
“Religion just isn’t passive. Religion motivates motion. It lifts us up and it provides us objective,” she stated.
Harris closed her transient remarks with a prayer.
“God, grant us religion, not solely in you, however in each other,” she stated. “Allow us to be form, allow us to be beneficiant, allow us to be filled with grace. Allow us to see the sunshine in all of your individuals, and be guided by that gentle for all our days.”
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Stevenson primarily based his speak on the phrases of the biblical prophet Micah: “What does the Lord require of you however to do justice, and to like kindness, and to stroll humbly along with your God?”
“Whether or not it’s gun violence or gang violence or home violence or sexual violence or police violence or aggression of any kind, we’ve got to know that these items separate us from doing justice, from loving mercy,” he stated.
Because the occasion wound down, Rep. Lucy McBath, a Georgia Democrat, learn from Philippians 4:4-9 shortly earlier than Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Mississippi Republican, closed the proceedings in prayer.
“Father, I elevate up these of us who’ve been put in positions to guide this nation,” Hyde-Smith prayed. “Convict our hearts to proper the wrongs and to be courageous and steadfast towards evil. Might your shall be completed and the choices made be pleasing unto you.”
