[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
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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
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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.
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