WASHINGTON — After listening to a testimony from a leading Arkansas politician, Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor, President Barack Obama on Thursday called on a nation rife with divisions to find common ground in prayer.
Obama’s suggestion came at the 61st National Prayer Breakfast, an annual Washington event where well-connected Americans, including the president, gather to pray for U.S. and global leaders.
Obama referred in his 20-minute speech to Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., two leaders who he said turned to the power of prayer during difficult times.
“Today, the divisions in our country are, thankfully, not as deep or destructive as when Lincoln led,” Obama said. “But they are real.”
The key to bridging political gaps, he said, was to humbly call on God for help.
“We are united in the knowledge of a redeeming Savior, wh ose g race is sufficient for the multitude of our sins and whose love is never failing,” Obama said.
For the third time, Pryor was a co-chairman of the event, which attracted more than 3,000 guests from every state and 160 countries.
Dignitaries includedSecretary of State John Kerry and the prime ministers of Serbia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The attendees packed a huge hotel ballroom and overflowed into separate dining halls for the breakfast, which was sponsored by House and Senate prayer groups that gather each week to worship and by The Fellowship Foundation, a politically connected Virginia nonprofit that works to “develop and maintain an informal association of people banded together in the spirit of Jesus, and then go out as ‘ambassadors of reconciliation,’ modeling Jesus’ principles,” according to its website.
Obama also thanked his departing director of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Joshua Dubois. He said that each day, Dubois has sent Obama a piece of inspirational Scripture to read.
“It has meant the world to me,” Obama said.
Each Wednesday morning, senators meet in the Capitol to pray. Pryor said this week more than 20 legislators were there.
“In the modern world and especially in a city like this, there are thousands of things that drive us apart: politics, ideology and even religion,” Pryor told the crowd. “Today,we come together in the spirit of Jesus, who taught us to love one another, treat others as we want to be treated and love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.”
P ryor ’s co-chairman, Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, stressed the importance of the House and Senate prayer groups.
“Taking time each week to meet to take off the disguises we wear to pray and share our lives together makes life better,” he said.
The event included a speech by Benjamin Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and the f irst doctor to successfully separate twinsconjoined at the head.
Carson stressed the importance of education. He also criticized the nation for not lowering taxes on millionaires but otherwise avoided political topics.
He conjured the image of the bald eagle, the national bird, in a call for national unity.
“Why is that eagle able to fly high?” he asked. “Because it has two wings, a right wing and a left wing.”
Randy Herlocker of North Little Rock has attended the prayer breakfast regularly since 1991.
The senior vice president at Iberiabank said the breakfast was well worth the $175 fee,because he’s developed lasting relationships with people he’s met at the event over the years.
“The breakfast is just part of it,” Herlocker explained. “The real connection is having people come together in the person of Jesus Christ.”
A main goal of the event, he said, was to celebrate Jesus Christ in an “inclusive” way - separate from the rules of a denomination or religious tradition.
Similarly, Herlocker said, partisan politics and political labels should take a back seat.
“It doesn’t matter to me who is president,” Herlocker said. “Leaders and presidents are established by God.”
In an interview, Pryor recalled that he was on the receiving end of a lot of prayers when he battled cancer 16 years ago.
“I do believe in the power of prayer,” he said. “To me, it is real.”
Obama said the good will of the prayer breakfast often doesn’t last long.
After past breakfasts, he said he’s returned to the Oval Office and turned on the television to see members of both parties going after one another.
“It’s like we didn’t pray,” Obama said. “You’d like to think the shelf life wasn’t so short.”
Front Section, Pages 4 on 02/08/2013