The National Prayer Breakfast is an annual event hosted by the United States Congress since 1953 and features prestigious guest speakers from the political, civic, and entertainment world, including the President of the United States. The gathering attracts approximately 3,500 guests per year and was created by non-profit organization the Fellowship Foundation. Its stated vision is “to promote and share the idea of gathering together in the Spirit of Jesus of Nazareth.” It has recently been under scrutiny because of concerns about how it has been funded and used as an arm for political lobbying. Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation states that the NPB is a “quasi- governmental gather, which pressures the president and Congress to put on a display of piety that sends a message the the United States is a Christian nation.”

This piece is essentially a reflection on this state of affairs. How did we get to this point of “sane-washing” and normalizing the obviously corrupt mechanism of the Christian Nationalist lobby?

The piece alternates between measure-less sections in which the players explore independent, intricate passages of rhythmic filigree and fully measured sections in which the instruments converge on bombastic unison eruptions.