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On Sunday, Oct. 25, more than 35,000 Christians gathered to pray and worship at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the night before the Senate’s vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Many who gathered came from all across the country. I flew from San Diego to join the movement known as Let Us Worship, which has gathered Christians together to worship in 45 cities across the U.S. since the coronavirus restrictions threatened to stop believers from practicing their faith in-person.
However, the emphasis on this particular worship night was centered on interceding for America, including praying for the confirmation of Barrett to the court. Before the main event at the National Mall, many Christians gathered to worship at the steps of the Supreme Court and again at the Lincoln Memorial.
As far as I know, there was only one instance where one of the Christians worshipping was attacked, and that was when an alleged Satanist dumped a bowl of blood on a member of the Let Us Worship team. The leader of the Let Us Worship movement, Sean Feucht, posted a picture on Instagram of the man drenched in blood with a caption saying: “YOU KNOW YOUR’RE BREAKING THROUGH IN DC WHEN A SATANIST DUMPS A BOWL OF BLOOD ALL OVER YOUR TEAM’S FACE!!!!”
This has actually been a common occurrence during the worship events across the country, especially in areas with the most civil unrest. It is no coincidence that the greater the civil unrest, the greater the spiritual opposition. But what’s going on in the U.S. right now is a spiritual battle in more ways than I can describe in this brief article. We can try to hide behind our politics, the words of officials we look up to or even the notion that “I can’t have an opinion on that because I’m a Christian and my religious beliefs shouldn’t influence my political decisions.” But at the end of the day, where we stand as Christians matters, especially on issues like abortion. If Jesus wanted us to sit around and do nothing, I don’t think he would have given us so many commandments that often include impacting the lives of other people.
What I loved most about this trip to DC was the opportunity to be a part of church history in the making. When I look back on my life, I don’t want to explain to my children why I sat back and watched as innocent lives were taken from their mother’s womb, just to have their body parts exploited and sold for profit, as a recent report uncovered this year. Instead, I want to be able to confidently say I lived a life that valued all humans, even in their most vulnerable form.
We don’t know for sure what the future holds for abortion laws, as Barrett repeatedly stated during her hearings that if such a case rose to the Supreme Court, she would look at it from a constitutional lens rather than a personal one. But as thousands of us gathered at the National Mall, we stood firm in hope that our generation would be the one to see the end of this atrocity against the unborn, that the words of our nation’s founders would ring true and that all Americans would have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Written by: Jen Pfeiler
Grace Chaves