Christians Spend 90 Hours Straight Reading Bible at Capitol to Anyone Who'd Listen
Faith and Christian philosophy played major roles in the founding of our country, but that foundation is slowly being eroded.
While the majority of Americans still identify as Christian, that number is becoming smaller.
“An extensive new survey of more than 35,000 U.S. adults finds that the percentages who say they believe in God, pray daily and regularly go to church or other religious services all have declined modestly in recent years,” explained Pew Research Center in 2015.
Now, one group is trying to change that. As part of the upcoming National Day of Prayer, an organization is bringing the “good word” to the people by reading every word of the Bible nonstop.
“Established in 1990 by Dr. John Hash and Dr. Corinthia Boone, the U.S. Capitol Bible Reading Marathon brings hundreds of believers to the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol to read aloud the entire Word of God without commentary over ninety continuous hours,” the organization explained.
“The public reading of God’s Holy Word will call the nation to return to God’s precepts and will lay a solid foundation for the National Day of Prayer,” the group continued.
It’s an ambitious task: Volunteers will take turns reading the entire Bible cover-to-cover, from Genesis to Revelation. The point of the event is not to blatantly preach — speakers are not allowed to add commentary to the reading — but rather to simply expose people to what the Bible says.
“That means four and a half days, roughly, and we’re going to have somebody read the Bible all the way through the day, through the night, rain, shine, we’re going to have somebody here all the time,” one of the event organizers explained in a video.
“We now have churches who have come for an hour with their groups, we have young schools bringing their children, we have pastors, we have people that are visitors who stop by to read, we have people who signed up six months ago to read the Bible, to hear the word of God, right here on the west plaza of the U.S. Capitol,” they continued.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the readers had begun but had a long way to go.
“We’ve already started it,” the spokesperson explained. “We’re now into the middle of Genesis, and we’re going to go all the way to Revelation when we’ll have a closing ceremony on the National Day of Prayer.”
That day — Thursday, May 3rd — has a long history in America.
“The National Day of Prayer is an annual observance held on the first Thursday of May, inviting people of all faiths to pray for the nation. It was created in 1952 by a joint resolution of the United States Congress, and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman,” states the event’s website.
“The National Day of Prayer has great significance for us as a nation as it enables us to recall and to teach the way in which our founding fathers sought the wisdom of God when faced with critical decisions,” the site continues.
“It stands as a call for us to humbly come before God, seeking His guidance for our leaders and His grace upon us as a people.”
That goal of bringing wisdom to national leaders making tough decisions is part of why the four-day-long Bible session is happening outside of the Capitol.
“Right above us is where Congress is in session,” explained the event’s representative. “They can hear them when they come out. Any visitors walking here on the plaza, they can hear that.”
With over 70 percent of Americans identifying as Judeo-Christian and the nation’s history clearly linked to that philosophy’s core tenants, there’s no doubt that faith is strong part of the country. That’s something that transcends partisan politics and petty disagreements — and exactly why the National Day of Prayer was jointly established by both sides of the aisle.
Religion is clearly a divisive topic, but even many non-Christians acknowledge that prayer and faith can be powerful.
At a time when critical decisions are being made that impact the direction of the country and the world, reminding citizens and lawmakers of the “Good Book” and giving people a chance to reflect may be exactly what is needed.
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