FIRST ON FOX – Blacks and Whites, Catholics and Protestants, Democrats and Republicans will gather at a historically Black church in Mississippi and at locations across the United States to pray two days before the judiciary takes up the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, a pivotal judiciary case in which the court may reverse the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
“This is where we’re coming together in unity on the sanctity of human life,” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, which is organizing the gathering, told Fox News in an interview on Sunday. He celebrated “the ethnic diversity, the denominational diversity, even the political diversity, that will be gathered” in this one event.
The event, Pray Together For Life, will take place at New Horizon Church in Jackson, Mississippi, a historically Black church, and at locations across the United States, where video streaming will connect Christians from each corner of the country. Perkins told Fox News that churches on the United States’ northern and southern borders will participate remotely, as will a church on the West Coast and a gathering in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.
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The speaker list, provided to Fox News, includes Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and Democratic Mississippi state Rep. Ronnie Crudup Jr., former executive assistant at the church. It also includes Monica Sparks, president of Democrats for Life.
Gov. Tate Reeves May 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
The list includes Bishop Joseph Kopacz, the Roman Catholic bishop of Jackson; Bishop Vincent Mathews, Jr., of the Tabernacle Church of God in Christ; Jack Hibbs, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, and Carter Conlon, senior pastor of the inter-denominational Times Square Church in New York City.
The list also includes pro-life Christians of different skin colors, with White leaders like Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser and Alliance Defending Freedom President Mike Farris to Black leaders like Radiance Foundation Co-Founder Ryan Bomberger, evangelist Alveda King, and Human Coalition Action Chairman Dr. Deborah Honeycutt to the Hispanic pro-life leader and former Planned Parenthood employee Mayra Rodriguez. Josiah Presley, an abortion survivor from South Korea, will also speak.
Adrienne Pena-Garza, the Hidalgo County GOP chairwoman, will speak at the southern border event, while former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann will speak at the northern border and Hibbs will speak host the West Coast event.
Pro-life activists Bailey Benham and Flip Benham, who have each been arrested at protests outside of abortion facilities, will also speak at the Mississippi event.
Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., during a meeting with inner city pastors at the White House in Washington. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Perkins told Fox News that the diversity of the event made him think of the early church in Acts 2:1, which reads, “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.” He also cited Philippians 2:2, in which the Apostle Paul encourages the Philippians to be “of one accord and of one mind.”
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“We’re going to Jackson with one mind and one purpose, and that is to pray that America will get this right when it comes to the sanctity of human life,” Perkins said.
“This is where Christians come together, it’s a starting point for finding unity,” he added. “The whole focus is going to be on life, understanding the significance of this moment, praying for the nation, praying for the court that America would get it right after nearly fifty years.”
Perkins said that if the court overturns Roe, the Christians “understand that this will go back to the states.” So they will pray “that states are ready, the church is ready, people are ready” to transition to a post-Roe world where pro-life charities can meet “needs that may be greater than they have been in the past.”
Tony Perkins headshot
He said that the pro-life Christians at the event will unite around “understanding that abortion has been a blight on this nation.”
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Americans can attend the events in Jackson, Mississippi, at the Supreme Court in D.C., at the northern and southern borders and in the West Coast. Potential attendees can register for the in-person events online or find information on how to livestream the event from the comfort of their own homes.