[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 142 (Tuesday, September 20, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1303-E1304]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





               64TH NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST: PART THREE

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JEFF DUNCAN

                           of south carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 20, 2016

  Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, every week when the House 
of Representatives is in session, I like to attend the Weekly Members' 
Prayer Breakfast in the Capitol. The United States Senate also holds a 
Prayer Breakfast each week as well. This weekly meeting of 
Congressional Members of faith, gave birth to the yearly National 
Prayer Breakfast. On Thursday, February 4, 2016 I had the privilege of 
attending the 64th Annual National Prayer Breakfast chaired by 
Representatives Robert Aderholt and Juan Vargas. I would like to submit 
Part three of the transcript:


               64th National Prayer Breakfast: Part Three

       Mr. Burnett: Yes, we are really fortunate and we are very 
     grateful. But our faith has in fact led us to entirely build 
     our TV careers and film careers on family friendly 
     franchises, I mean shows like what was mentioned--The Voice, 
     Apprentice, Shark Tank, Survivor. Often every week four 
     nights out of seven, we have the number one show in America. 
     It is a lot of leverage, which is what matters in Hollywood. 
     We took that leverage and we told Hollywood we wanted to make 
     a brand new series called The Bible. Yes, The Bible on prime 
     time American TV.
       Of course our friends told us we are going to destroy our 
     great careers because mixing entertainment and religion is 
     going to make people really angry. But worst of all, they 
     said we were idiots because nobody is going to watch The 
     Bible on prime time TV--they know the story and they can get 
     that in church. Well, as the Americans in this room know, The 
     Bible became the most talked about television show in 
     America, the number one series that year, and 100 million of 
     you watching.
       And here is what is really great--The Bible was also shown 
     in Canada but they showed it up against the first game for 
     the National Hockey League--but head to head, The Bible beat 
     hockey. I guess we do know now up in Canada we can officially 
     say that hockey is not God.
       Ms. Downey: At that time, The Bible was also up against a 
     show called The Walking Dead and we won, and my favorite 
     headline ran on CNN, ``God beats zombies.'' But far more 
     important than the ratings were the stories of families 
     sitting together in their living rooms watching The Bible. 
     The stories of how God's love for us unfolded through the 
     ages, moved them, and engaged them because faith was and is 
     alive and well in America. The series helped to ignite a much 
     larger conversation about God and faith in this country. We 
     were also humbled that people were inspired to see us, a 
     Hollywood couple of producers daring to speak out about our 
     love of Jesus, daring to talk about our faith in God, and our 
     sincere belief in the power of prayer. I can honestly say 
     that I have never made a decision in my life, big or small, 
     that I didn't pray about first. The Bible series began with a 
     prayer that started as a whisper in our hearts. Our dear 
     friend, Rick Warren had said to us once, ``The most dangerous 
     prayer you can pray is, Lord, use me, because then you have 
     to be ready that He might just do so.'' All we did was ask 
     him to use us.
       Mr. Burnett: And use us, he did, trust me. Yeah, it was a 
     TV show but we are also still telling the story of the most 
     sacred book of all time, the Bible, and we knew we had to get 
     it right. It is a really important, huge responsibility on 
     our shoulders. So the first thing that we did was sign up 40 
     scholars and advisors--by the way, many of you are in this 
     room right now--you know who you are--you backed us from the 
     very beginning and stood shoulder to shoulder with us. And we 
     thank you so much, all of you in this room who backed us.
       You know it was difficult to bridge all the theological 
     gaps, the sway of denominations, but we prayed our way 
     through the process and managed to create a series that 
     brought people together and glorified God. I think it is fair 
     to say--we have become Hollywood's noisiest Christians. You 
     know at least 90 million Americans attend church each Sunday 
     in this country; millions more find inspiration and hope in 
     the person, the story, and the teachings of Jesus Christ. The 
     Christian community is a mainstream community. They watch the 
     NFL they watch The Voice, they buy tickets to Star Wars and 
     go to Beyonce concerts. It is a community that loves Jesus, 
     loves their country, it is a very cool community made up of 
     millions of young believers. Many who have tattoos, earrings, 
     they ride skateboards, they surf, they tweet, they are 
     entrepreneurs and are a vibrant part of the new American 
     economy. It is a very broad audience indeed. It is a 
     community that we are really proud to be a part of, and a 
     community that has covered us in prayer--as to our own 
     surprise we almost became the international spokespeople for 
     the Bible.
       Ms. Downey: The making of The Bible series was covered in 
     prayer every step of the way. I can still remember sitting in 
     the Moroccan desert under the shade of a rock and reading 
     Scripture with actors, or praying together with them as they 
     prepared for a scene. When we were getting ready to shoot the 
     crucifixion scene, I sent out an email requesting that 
     prayers would be sent ahead of us to clear the way. There 
     were emotional and spiritual challenges of filming such a 
     scene, as well as the physical challenge because we had to 
     hang an actor on a cross and that day the winds were very 
     high and the sun was scorching, and we prayed for safety, and 
     that God would use this series to open hearts to him. We had 
     a man on the set whose job it was to wrangle snakes and 
     scorpions from each of the locations, and normally he found 
     about 1 or 2 snakes a day, but on the morning of the 
     crucifixion, he removed 48 snakes from around the hillside of 
     Golgotha and we believe that was the power of prayer at 
     work--the symbolism of the snake wasn't lost on any of us. We 
     also prayed as we cast the series. We were only a few months 
     away from beginning filming and we still hadn't cast the most 
     important role of Jesus.
       So I sent out an email to all my contacts with a header 
     ``Looking for Jesus.'' We asked in prayer that the right 
     actor would show up. Through a series of remarkable 
     coincidences, we came across Portuguese actor, Diogo Morgado. 
     As he walked up our garden path to meet us for the first 
     time, I turned to Mark and said ``There he is; there's our 
     Jesus.'' He was an answer to a prayer, and his touching and 
     affecting performance as Jesus helped to inspire millions of 
     people around the world.
       Mr. Burnett: Yes, that role of Jesus was so important and 
     it was last minute casting, and it was the answer to prayer, 
     and the incredible Hispanic actor Diogo Morgado beautifully 
     portrayed, as you saw on the screen, Jesus in The Bible 
     series. Everyone in the whole country was talking about this 
     Hispanic actor. And it reminds me of a great story.
       There are a couple of old men who are Christians, they 
     lived next door to each other. One was an old black man; one 
     was an old white man. They loved each other and they did 
     everything together. In fact, they've only had one 
     disagreement, the old black man was sure Jesus was black, and 
     the old white man was just as sure that Jesus was a white 
     man. Neither could ever convince the other. One day these 
     great friends died together in a car accident. On their way 
     up to heaven the old black man said ``Buddy, we're about to 
     find out I was right all along, Jesus is a black man.'' And 
     the old white man said ``I'm sorry you're going to have to 
     find out this way, because when we meet him, you're going to 
     see that Jesus in fact a white man.'' They got there in great 
     anticipation and Jesus walked out to meet them, and he smiled 
     at them and said, ``Buenos dias.''
       Ms. Downey: Well, you know I suppose when you think about 
     it, Jesus could have been Irish. He lived at home until he 
     was 30. He never got married, and his mother thought he was 
     God. You know, as a husband and wife producer team, not only 
     do we get to do what we love to do but we get to do it 
     together, and we have fun, you can tell, we have fun. But we 
     also know that being in media comes with responsibility, for 
     to those to whom much is given, much is expected. We are so 
     pleased that our step of faith has reinvigorated faith and 
     family programming in this country, and has hopefully 
     inspired a whole new generation of artists to invest their 
     talent and content that inspires and unifies. This is why we 
     named the company that produced The Bible, Light Workers 
     Media, because we have always believed that it is far more 
     effective to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Let 
     me say that again, we believe it is far more effective to 
     light a candle, than to curse the darkness, and that is what 
     we try to do--to light as many candles as we can. We just 
     keep lighting candles in this often very dark, hostile and 
     hurting world.
       Mr. Burnett: It is very easy to divide people, and it is 
     very difficult to bring people together. Did you know what we 
     learned making The Bible? That just among Christians alone, 
     there are over 30,000 denominations. When you think about 
     that, it is crazy, right? And many have argued about their 
     views of Jesus for thousands of years. So for us, working 
     across the Protestant and the Catholic community, working in 
     a very detailed way with the Jewish community, it was very, 
     very challenging to make everybody happy as we told the story 
     of The Bible. But we worked very, very hard, and as many 
     people here advised us so closely, we learned to become 
     bridge builders; and bridge building became our mission.
       Ms. Downey: Building bridges has become so much of our 
     mission and I know the power of a bridge from my own life's 
     journey growing up in war torn Ireland. But today, if you go 
     to Derry, you will find something new there. Peace has been 
     restored there and there is now a walking bridge built across 
     the River Foyle, and it is aptly called The Peace Bridge. It 
     stands in defiance of all that once divided us--our very own 
     bridge over troubled water. Protestant and Catholic children 
     now play together, but more than that, the old hurts are 
     healing. The leaders in Northern Ireland finally sat down and 
     talked to each other, and listened to each other, and started 
     to work things out together. We are at a time in the world's 
     history where there is so much pain and fear, and division 
     everywhere, and these divisions show up in race, and in 
     religion, and in politics. The dividing lines are easy to 
     find. The bridges to peace are harder to build. May we all 
     find our dividing lines and work until we have built our own 
     bridges of peace across them. On this day of the National 
     Prayer Breakfast, we pray that with God's help, our world

[[Page E1304]]

     can heal some of the hurts that wound us and the confusion 
     that divides us, but it begins with us and perhaps a good 
     place to start is to simply see the image of God in the eyes 
     of everyone you meet. As Jesus said, ``By this everyone will 
     know that you follow me, that you love one another.'' For in 
     this spirit is the power of true faith that we learn to love 
     each other. We know that television and film can be powerful 
     ways of bringing inspiration and hope through emotional 
     stories that open your heart. As my dear friend the late Maya 
     Angelou said, ``People will forget what you said. People will 
     forget what you did. But people will never forget how you 
     made them feel.'' Thank you so much, and may God bless you.
       Rep. Vargas: Wow, thank you so much. Muchisimas gracias. I 
     have to say, thank you again, Mark. Thank you so much. Our 
     purpose in this breakfast every year is to lift up Jesus as a 
     solution to the problems of the world, and ask for the Lord's 
     help. In that vein, we came together today to love and pray 
     for the President of the United States, and his family, and 
     we do this with all our hearts and we appreciate the message 
     that you brought today to us, it was so uplifting. Mr. 
     President, when we were in law school together, I had lunch 
     with one of our smartest classmates, in fact I mentioned his 
     name to you. And I asked him who he thought was really, 
     really smart, and he said ``This guy named Barack Obama; he's 
     really, really smart; and he may even become a Supreme Court 
     Justice some day.'' So there's still time, Mr. President. 
     There's still time, you're a young man.
       But all kidding aside, Mr. President, we honor you for your 
     dignity. We honor you for your integrity. We honor you for 
     your faith, the way you honor God with your life and your 
     service to all of us. Ladies and gentlemen, for one last time 
     at our National Prayer Breakfast, it is my honor to introduce 
     the President of the United States.

                          ____________________