'America Reads the Bible' Event a Time to Reflect on the Future through God's Word

Bunni Pounds, Creator of America Reads the Bible, Reads John 17 during on Closing Day.
Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching. – 1 Timothy 4:13

WASHINGTON - America Reads the Bible, a recent event held at the Museum of the Bible, brought together hundreds of leaders, public figures, and everyday participants to read the Bible aloud from beginning to end in the shadow of our nation’s Capital. The event featured continuous readings from Genesis to Revelation for 12 hours each day, supplemented by powerful praise and worship music at the top of every hour.

Organized as part of the United States’ 250th Birthday, the initiative aimed to highlight the historical and cultural influence of Scripture in American life. More than 475 participants from across government, ministry, business, and entertainment took part, creating what organizers described as one of the largest coordinated public Bible readings in the nation’s history.

For many of the participants, the event was more than an opportunity to read Scripture in a public forum to mark a significant milestone in our nation’s history. It was a time to reflect on what the Bible means to them personally, and a chance to place God's significance in our heritage of freedom, liberty, and truth.

“If you ask God to reveal the truth to you, if you seek Him, the Bible says you will find Him,” says Allan Parker, president of The Justice Foundation. “This is the book that He wrote about Himself, about the past and about the future. And I can testify as a lawyer and as a Christian, that it gives you comfort, encouragement, guidance, wisdom, strength, and courage. It is well worth the effort.”

“Our Heavenly Father gave us a foundation for truth, and we need to stick with that truth,” adds Julianna Ormond, co-founder of We Are the Watchmen, a Florida-based ministry, whose mission is to equip the Church to engage the culture. “That's why reading the Bible is so important. Because if we're all working from the foundation of the Bible, we understand each other, we speak the same language.”

Michele Bachmann and Dr. Ben Carson have dedicated their lives to public service. For Bachmann, a former Minnesota Congresswoman and Carson, a highly skilled neurosurgeon who also served in President Trump’s first cabinet as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Bible represents something far greater than a book of good works and glad tidings. It contains the foundational building blocks for what became the United States of America.

“Our founding document, the Declaration of Independence says that our rights come from our creator, and we've lived that.” Dr. Carson explains. “That was really the reason I believe that we went from a ragtag bunch of militiamen to the pinnacle of the world. That was not a coincidence. That was because we accepted God. We put it on all of our money. It says, ‘In God We Trust.’”

“There's no question, there is no peer to the Bible,” points out Bachmann, who currently serves as the Dean of the Government School at Regent University. “This is because not just those who wrote the founding documents of America, but going back to those who were compelled to come to America, the Pilgrims and the Puritans, they came because they read the Bible and they believed that God was speaking to them about coming here to live according to the Bible and to share the Gospel with the people who preceded them. The Bible is the foundational document for this nation, unique to many nations on earth. People came here wanting to live out and aspired to live the Bible.”

For as much as the Bible is seen as a crucial document in the origins of the United States of America, often quoted by historical luminaries such as John Adams, Patrick Henry, and Benjamin Franklin, what is commonly known as God’s Word has at times been scrutinized for not being inclusive of all faiths and creeds. Yet there is something insurmountable about its impact that has sadly been forgotten by contemporary culture.

“As you go back and look at the Founding Fathers era, a political scientist at the University of Houston said, “The average length of a constitution is 17 to 19 years,” shares David Barton, founder and president of Wall Builders, an organization devoted to promoting the religious basis of the United States. “France had a revolution approximately at the same time we did, and they've been through 15 constitutions. We've had one. So, we're unique. And the question this political scientist asked is, ‘Where did our founders get their ideas?’ And so, they went through 15,000 founding writings. It took them 15 years, but they found 3,154 direct quotes of the Founding Fathers. They found that roughly 34% of those quotes came out of the Bible. So far and away the Bible is number one, the one cited source in producing the greatest political document in the history of the world.”

Denise Gitsham, a political commentator seen regularly on NewsNation, takes a simpler yet positive approach to the Bible’s place in the societal fabric of our nation now and moving forward.

“Our nation was founded on Biblical principles,” says Gitsham, who ran for Congress in California in 2016. “There is no America apart from God and the Word of God. “There's nothing more important than to not only seal our legacy from the last 250 years but to set the tone for how we want to go into the next 250.”

While the America Reads the Bible event is seen as a positive step toward restoring the Bible to American ideals, there is much work to be done. This sense of newfound unity found in the never-changing principles of God’s Word is only possible if people come together in the name of peace and positive change.

“I think of President (Abraham) Lincoln at this moment,” says Bachmann. “He needed the Lord in everything that he did and thank God that he gave his life to Christ. And that is what we need right now. Because if we turn away from the Bible, then our nation goes down. But as we turn toward the Bible, our nation goes up. And that is Biblical. We need that more than effort because we're being fed a sea of lies in our era. And so, we need to stand on the eternal truth because it never changes.”

Adds Gitsham, “This is our Ephesians 6 moment, armoring up to go in a spiritual battle. This is more than just about reading the Bible. It's about using the Word of God offensively so that we are piercing the soul of the nation.”

“In the Old Testament, hating your neighbor was a sin,” concludes Parker. “You were supposed to rebuke your neighbor if they did something wrong because He wanted everyone to do righteousness. We should love every human being, pray for their salvation and help them live a better life, which is what the Bible really offers. If we do that, America will be a better place.”