(RNS) — Speaking to a refashioned National Prayer Breakfast gathered at the Capitol with a new board and in a new location, President Joe Biden encouraged leaders of Congress to find ways to unify despite their political and religious differences.“My prayer for this prayer breakfast is to start to see each other again, look at each other again, travel with each other again, argue like hell with each other again, but then still go to lunch together,” he said Thursday (Feb. 2), addressing an audience of a couple of hundred people in the Capitol Visitor Center that included Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi.
Biden used the topic of faith to comment on the diversity of Congress, pointing out that in addition to including people of different faiths and no faith it is also the most ethnically and racially diverse body in its history.
“Differences express infinite creativity of God, who is able to see his reflection in countless ways in different people,” the president said. “It’s also an expression of American conviction that our diversity is one of our greatest strengths.”
Biden’s remarks occurred on the day when there were two prayer breakfast events for the first time since Dwight Eisenhower became the first president to make an appearance, in the 1950s. Besides the gathering at the Capitol, one hosted by the Fellowship Foundation …
Biden tells dueling prayer breakfasts that ‘diversity is one of our greatest strengths’
