Lawmakers Gather in DC for National Prayer and Repentance
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, were among the lawmakers and others who recently gathered in Washington, D.C., for the 2026 National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance.
Johnson said it was “heavy on his heart” that the gathering should prioritize formal repentance.
“We’re the most free, most successful, most powerful, most benevolent nation that has ever been, and the reason we are is because we’re set in this foundation, our Judeo-Christian heritage, the biblical foundation of the country,” he said. “It is beyond dispute. We cannot take this freedom for granted. Reagan said it is not inherited in the bloodstream. He said it has to be fought for, and protected, and taught and passed along to the next generation, or they will not understand it.”
Cruz led a prayer for repentance.
“We come to you, and we seek your face,” he said. “We come to you, and we ask forgiveness. We come to you, and we ask that you heal this land. Father, we come to you, and we ask that you will bring about a new day in America. America was founded as a shining city on a hill. And yet we see our nation torn apart by anger and bitterness. We ask that you make that anger and bitterness go away. We ask that you replace it with love.”
Individuals from every state, most of whom were legislators, spent hours rising to the stage to pray over their states and the United States, with Republican Minnesota state Sen. Andrew Mathews drawing noticeable applause. Mathews, a 38-year-old pastor who has served in the Minnesota state Senate since 2017, invoked God’s mercy upon his state, which has been front and center on the national stage in recent months amid widespread fraud allegations and backlash to federal immigration enforcement that has grown violent.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said the biggest takeaway from the event this year was remembering the Christian heritage of the United States and the overwhelming influence of faith upon the founders, reported the Christian Post.
“As we go into the 250th anniversary, it was rediscovering our biblical foundation, our Christian heritage and not shrinking back from that,” he said. “So our goal today was to pray into that, to acknowledge it, to encourage people to return to that understanding, that foundation, so that we might return to the moral truths that are contained in the word of God/”
–Alan Goforth
