WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden on Thursday called for a confrontation of “political extremism” that inspired the U.S. Capitol Revolt and appealed to the collective force during such turbulent times in statements at the National Prayer Breakfast, a Washington tradition that asks political fighters to put aside their differences for a morning.
Breakfast has caused controversy in the past, especially when President Donald Trump used last year’s quota to wipe out his political opponents and question their faith.. Some liberals have viewed the event with caution because of the faith-based conservative group behind it.
Still, Biden campaigned for the White House as someone who could unify Americans and the breakfast gave the nation’s second Catholic president a chance to talk about his vision of the faith as a definitive force. .
“For so many of our nation, this is a dark, gloomy time,” Biden told event attendees. “So where are we going? Faith “.
Senator Chris Coons, D-Del., Said the event is “positive and inclusive” that “recognizes the teachings of Jesus, but is not limited to Christianity.”
Breakfast is advancing at a time when the country’s capital is facing a series of historic crises. Biden is fighting for significant Republican support from Congress for a coronavirus response package, increasing the likelihood that he will only trust Democrats to pass legislation.
Many in Washington continue to sail after the deadly insurgency at the U.S. Capitol last month, to which Biden alluded in his statements on Thursday, referring to the “political extremism” that drove the siege. Trump faces a second trial of unprecedented dismissal in the Senate next week for his role in inciting riots.
Biden’s message Thursday marked his latest call to return Washington to a more traditional footing after four years of Trump’s aggressive style. During the 2020 breakfast, Trump noted Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah who had voted to convict the president during his first indictment. Trump even included a newspaper with a headline that said “ACQUIRED” about his own image.
All the presidents have attended the breakfast since Dwight D. Eisenhower made his first appearance in 1953. The event went completely virtual this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, with Biden and the other speakers going appear through recorded comments. Four living ex-presidents sent messages at breakfast, with three speaking on tape while Coons read a message from former President Jimmy Carter, making Trump’s absence obvious.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, co-chair of the GOP at this year’s breakfast, noted the faith-based regular meetings on Capitol Hill that attract senators from both ends of the ideological spectrum as a model for the event. “We don’t see each other’s eyes philosophically, politically, but we embrace each other as brothers of faith,” Scott said in an interview.
Breakfast has been fueled by civil and gay rights activists from the administration of President Barack Obama, with much of the opposition centered on the Fellowship Foundation, the long-held conservative faith-based organization. event support. Religious liberals staged a protest outside of Trump’s first appearance in 2017, criticizing his limits on refugee admission to the United States, and a Russian gun rights activist convicted of acting as an unregistered foreign agent attended breakfast twice during its administration.
Norman Solomon, co-founder and national director of the progressive activist group RootsAction, warned Biden not to “reach any passage to fanaticism.”
“We don’t need any unity with bigotry,” Solomon said. “I’m afraid a subtext of this commitment is ‘we can’t all understand each other.’ But that’s not appropriate in this case, given the well-known right-wing, anti-gay baggage of the event’s sponsors.”
Solomon said Democratic presidents have continued the tradition of attending an event where their Republican counterparts often felt more comfortable because they feared being labeled “anti-religious or non-religious.” He said Biden, a devout Catholic who attends Mass every week, could send a better unifying message by skipping the event and attending one that is truly bipartisan.
“God knows there are many religious leaders and meetings that are devout and affirm human equality,” he said. “This is not one of them.”
Rachel Laser, president and CEO of American United for Church and State Separation, agreed that “there are much better ways” than breakfast for Biden to connect with people based on beliefs shared spirituals.
“We would love to work with the administration to find a way to change the sponsorship of an event like this and make it a place for Americans of all different religious beliefs,” Laser said.
Still, Democratic leaders, aware of Biden’s devout Catholic faith and calls for healing, have largely refrained from making public comments about this year’s event. Pelosi, D-California, recorded his own message at the event Thursday morning.
Both Laser and Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, a member of the faith initiative at the Center for American Progress’s liberal think tank, pointed to the Christian symbolism seen during last month’s Capitol Uprising as an opening for Biden to offer a plural language. and open about faith in the future. .
“I hope President Biden recognizes that we are in a new moment,” Graves-Fitzsimmons said, “and that the threat of Christian nationalism is a threat to both the sacred religious pluralism of the United States and Christianity.”
___
Associated Press religious coverage is supported by Lilly Endowment through The Conversation US. The AP is solely responsible for this content.