IV 
117TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 874 
Supporting the designation of a National Year of Humiliation, Fasting, and 
Prayer. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 19, 2022 
Mrs. RODGERS of Washington submitted the following resolution; which was 
referred to the Committee on Oversight and Reform 
RESOLUTION 
Supporting the designation of a National Year of 
Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer. 
Whereas the people of the United States have unspoken sen-
timents and concerns about our Nation; 
Whereas we believe our Nation is unique, distinctive, and ex-
ceptional; 
Whereas American exceptionalism is too often misunderstood 
to mean something that it is not, and it does not mean— 
(1) justification to dominate or condescend to other 
nations or indulge in flattery to ourselves that we are 
better; or 
(2) that we are a chosen people or that cir-
cumstances give us privilege to circumvent law; 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
22:24 Jan 19, 2022
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00001
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR874.IH
HR874
pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 874 IH 
Whereas our Nation is bound by the same universal moral 
principles that must bind and shape the behaviors of all 
civilized nations. In this regard we are the same as all 
nations. And yet we are different—very different in a 
very important way; 
Whereas it is not wealth or military power that makes us ex-
ceptional. It is not our institutions nor the genius of our 
written Constitution or our Bill of Rights. Not directly. 
These are manifestations of something more fundamental 
and profound; 
Whereas our exceptionalism is based on something else, a sin-
gular belief, a proposition underlying all legal and con-
stitutional beliefs; 
Whereas our assertions of human equality and unalienable 
rights: life, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness, the 
right to find meaning and purpose and value in our indi-
vidual lives, derives from a single assertion—that life, 
given to us by Creator God, is the moral basis of the 
unshakable bedrock of our Republic; 
Whereas that proposition—the thing that makes us distinc-
tive—is that we believe a Creator God endowed us with 
rights. Not just us. Everybody. Everywhere; 
Whereas it is a gigantic revolutionary belief. And it is belief. 
It is our faith statement. It is what speaks to the soul 
of our Nation; 
Whereas there are many great and ancient nations that be-
lieve in freedom as we do. Most countries in the world 
claim the rule of law and have written constitutions. 
Many use the language of rights and equality and declare 
for human dignity. But none have a coherent basis for 
doing so; 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
22:24 Jan 19, 2022
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00002
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR874.IH
HR874
pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 874 IH 
Whereas we alone occupy that space. God gave us rights— 
made us in His image and therefore demonstrated all 
human beings are created equal. Even the unborn. From 
conception; 
Whereas the poor, the infirm, the old, the weak, all colors 
and kinds, all races, all of us are endowed by the Creator, 
equally, because we are made in His image; 
Whereas, without this fundamental belief, rights become only 
social protocol, conventions, historic inheritances, crea-
tures of state citizenship, class, identity, features of con-
sensus, and they become malleable and fading creatures 
in the capricious hands of willful men; 
Whereas America is different because God endowed us with 
rights; 
Whereas that belief is either true or it is false. If it is false, 
then we Americans, among all mankind, are most to be 
pitied. The experiment must fail. It cannot and must not 
succeed; 
Whereas, if it is true, then we have built our country on a 
foundation that cannot be shaken if we are true to it— 
we are anchored to the eternal bedrock of all truths. As 
Lincoln said, ‘‘as a nation of free men we will live forever 
or die by suicide’’; 
Whereas to those whom are given much, much is expected. 
And somewhere deep down inside ordinary Americans 
know this. It is in the air we breathe; 
Whereas only we ourselves can end this great experiment, 
and there are no external mortal forces that can over-
come the bulwarks of that eternal truth; 
Whereas what we believe matters, our invisible immaterial be-
liefs are the strength of the national soul, and the things 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
22:24 Jan 19, 2022
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00003
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR874.IH
HR874
pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 874 IH 
that we hold to and serve are the foundations of our in-
stitutions, our laws, our liberty, and the hope of the Na-
tion; 
Whereas, when the Founders established this Republic 250 
years ago and created the institutions that guide us, they 
were well aware that those institutions were insufficient 
in themselves to govern a free people; 
Whereas the lifeblood and heartbeat of the Nation is moral 
character. Not the institutions. Not the institutions or 
even the laws in themselves. For laws and institutions are 
corruption without the rectitude and wisdom of a moral, 
decent people themselves; 
Whereas without the people bracing themselves to wisdom 
and the holdfasts of character our institutions have no 
power to preserve us; 
Whereas if the people ever lose their love of truth, justice, 
goodness, and the efflorescence of beauty that flourishes 
in them—there can be no hope in the parchment barriers 
of a Constitution or the institutions created by it. No 
matter how noble that hope is. In effect everything rises 
and falls in our Republic as consequence of the character 
of the people; 
Whereas as a Nation we live or die by the standards of our 
own moral character; 
Whereas the Founders knew this—but many of us know we 
are forgetting it; 
Whereas John Adams wrote to the militia of Massachusetts, 
‘‘We have no government armed with power capable of 
contending with human passions unbridled by morality 
and religion. Avarice, ambition and revenge would break 
the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
22:24 Jan 19, 2022
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00004
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR874.IH
HR874
pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 874 IH 
through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a 
moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the 
government of any other.’’; 
Whereas John Adams is saying that the power of the state 
is not secured by the power of arms, but is anchored in 
the honesty and decency of the people; 
Whereas today this may seem a quaint notion, but the 
Founders who experimented in government to create a 
just and free society understood explicitly that freedom 
and justice are not the product of institutions but rather 
institutions that defend freedom and justice are the prod-
uct of a moral people; 
Whereas freedom cannot exist without morality. George 
Washington understood this. John Adams understood 
this. Abraham Lincoln understood this. Dr. Martin Lu-
ther King, Jr., understood this; 
Whereas when we drift from the Creator we drift from the 
source of our own liberty; 
Whereas when we forget our duties to God we forget our du-
ties to each other; 
Whereas when we become prideful and lazy and forget the 
Father of all rights we become the orphans of oppression, 
and we are lost without the guiding hand of the Al-
mighty; 
Whereas it may seem that Congress is not the place to intro-
duce an appeal to God, but our rights and all our institu-
tions are based upon the presumption of a just and Al-
mighty God; 
Whereas Congress itself rests upon the foundation that our 
Creator gave us the right to govern themselves; 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
22:24 Jan 19, 2022
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00005
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR874.IH
HR874
pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 874 IH 
Whereas Abraham Lincoln said, ‘‘It is altogether fitting and 
proper that we do this’’; 
Whereas we the people of the United States continue our 
search for a more perfect union; 
Whereas we are a people conceived in liberty and dedicated 
to the proposition that all are created equal, yet like in 
the days of President Abraham Lincoln, when he ob-
served that ‘‘we have forgotten the gracious hand which 
preserved us in peace and multiplied, enriched, and 
strengthened us’’; 
Whereas ‘‘we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of 
our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by 
some superior wisdom and virtue of our own’’; 
Whereas we confess we are a self-consumed, prideful, and 
unloving people, quick to point out the speck in another 
person’s eye while missing the log in our own; 
Whereas we are trusting in our wealth and skill and leaning 
on our own understanding; 
Whereas we have become ungrateful, lovers of pleasure, stub-
born, hardhearted, divisive, and unforgiving; 
Whereas we confess that instead of speaking of forgiveness, 
we cry out for vengeance, and we have allowed the poi-
sonous root of bitterness to grow up to trouble us; 
Whereas the global pandemic of COVID–19 has intensified 
fear, unknowns, chaos, and confusion; 
Whereas the impact of lockdowns and isolations has been se-
vere further exacerbating the breakdown of mental 
health, families, communities, and our Nation; 
Whereas we are divided, perhaps like we haven’t seen since 
the Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln by faith 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
22:24 Jan 19, 2022
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00006
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR874.IH
HR874
pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 874 IH 
prayed saying, ‘‘May we again devote ourselves to prayer 
and acknowledge as a people and as a nation our depend-
ence upon the overruling power of God. Let us confess 
our sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with 
the assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to 
mercy and pardon’’; 
Whereas, by faith, at the 1787 Constitutional Convention 
when the outcome looked grim, Benjamin Franklin ap-
pealed to the delegates and urged prayer asking, ‘‘I have 
lived, a long time, and the longer I live, the more con-
vincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in 
the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the 
ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire 
can rise without his aid?’’; 
Whereas, during World War I and at the signing of the Ar-
mistice, President Wilson proclaimed, ‘‘Complete victory 
. . . God has indeed been gracious, let us thank Him.’’; 
Whereas this year marked the 80th anniversary of the initial 
National Bible Week declaration made by President 
Franklin D. Roosevelt just weeks before the start of 
World War II; 
Whereas George Washington Carver, born a slave during the 
Civil War, testified in 1921 in front of the House Ways 
and Means Committee expounding on a myriad of inge-
nious uses for the peanut transforming the economy and 
which had been revealed to him by faith as he regularly 
walked through the woods at 4 a.m.; 
Whereas President John F. Kennedy said, ‘‘The guiding prin-
ciple of this nation has been, is now, and ever shall be 
‘In God We Trust’ ’’; 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
22:24 Jan 19, 2022
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00007
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HR874.IH
HR874
pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 874 IH 
Whereas Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., encouraged 
us to ‘‘Pray daily to be used by God in order that all men 
might be free’’; 
Whereas it is time for us to offer a resolution to humble our-
selves and entreat wisdom from God—the Father of all 
blessings and mercy: a resolution of national contrition, 
prayer and fasting. A resolution in the great tradition of 
our free people. We have as His guidance many times be-
fore. A resolution to return to the wellspring of liberty 
and our rights; a resolution to depart from iniquity and 
entreat His guidance. A prayer that we remember Him 
as the Father of every good thing that we have, and ev-
erything as a Nation and people we aspire to be; and 
Whereas we must ask ourselves, what might God do in the 
next 365 days if we commit to reading His Word daily 
and praying together weekly for our Nation? In our fami-
lies? For this generation in misery and despair? We are 
expectant that He will do immeasurably more than all we 
could ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20), and that He will 
hear from Heaven, forgive our sins, and heal our land (2 
Chronicles 7:14): Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) expresses support for proclaiming a year of 
National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer; 
(2) prays that in this hour of our great need, 
our Sovereign God will come and do again as He has 
done in days gone by; 
(3) prays for a time of healing from our 
brokenness—broken lives, broken families, broken 
communities, and broken system; 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
22:24 Jan 19, 2022
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00008
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6201
E:\BILLS\HR874.IH
HR874
pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS
•HRES 874 IH 
(4) humbles ourselves, prays, seeks God’s face, 
turns from our wicked ways, and thanks and praises 
the God of our ancestors who has given us wisdom 
and strength and who controls the course of events; 
and 
(5) calls upon the people of our Nation to hum-
ble ourselves before our Creator and acknowledge 
our complete dependence upon Him, to repent of our 
pride and selfishness, and ask the Lord to break our 
hearts for the things that break His heart; that we 
may we not miss hearing His voice, and that He will 
pour out His spirit, once again, on our Nation and 
leaders. 
Æ 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
22:24 Jan 19, 2022
Jkt 029200
PO 00000
Frm 00009
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6301
E:\BILLS\HR874.IH
HR874
pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS