Podcast with Pastor Jack Hibbs on his Prayer Before U.S. Congress and the Controversy that Followed

Topic: His Prayer in the U.S. Congress.

The first time Congress ever met together, in September 1774, in Philadelphia, they opened in prayer. A local clergyman, Jacob Duche, said the prayer, and he read the Scripture reading for that day was Psalm 35—Plead my cause, O Lord. George Washington was there. Sam Adams was there. John Adams was there. America’s founding fathers agreed with Congress opening in prayer, and Congress has been praying ever since. But fast forward to January 30, in the Year of our Lord 2024, and Speaker Mike Johnson asked Jack Hibbs, a California-based pastor, to say the prayer. And many on the left blew a gasket. 26 members of Congress, including Ilhan Omar, objected to Speaker Mike Johnson for inviting Jack Hibbs to speak. By inviting Hibbs, Speaker Mike Johnson was guilty, said the Congressmen, of using “the platform of the Guest Chaplain to lend the imprimatur of Congress to an ill-qualified hate preacher who shares the Speaker’s Christian Nationalist agenda and his antipathy toward church-state separation.” Jack Hibbs, pastor of Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills, California, and author Living in the Daze of Deception, joins Jerry Newcombe to discuss prayer in Congress. www.jackhibbs.com