Jeff Struss, Charisma Media’s director of content development, spent time in Washington, D.C., a few weeks ago, and the report he brought back is at once encouraging and discouraging. The turmoil in our nation is reflected in our capital city, of course, but Struss also sees reason for hope, even during a challenging season.
Struss says while there, he had the privilege of co-hosting a dinner for members of Congress and their spouses on Capitol Hill, which, he says, has a different feel right now with all the barricades and the presence of the National Guard.
“Seeing National Guard troops marching up and down the streets of Washington, D.C., with their automatic rifles, seeing the barbed wire—almost everywhere, there are barricades where you have to have checkpoints, and guard posts all through … it felt like a war zone,” he says. “And I heard some people in the area calling it ‘Washtanamo Bay,’ because it feels like something you would expect in a Guantanamo Bay scenario with guard posts and snipers, the guard dogs. It is not a warm or welcoming environment, to say the very least.”
Struss attributes the situation there to the “intense pressure right now with the cancel culture cult, if you will, the extreme dedication of ideological purity among the radical Left in America right now. We know there’s psychological warfare going on, where there are just facts that are just being changed rapidly.
“And then what feels like in D.C. … is just a show of force of who’s in charge, the power that they have and the consequences for those who fall out of line,” Struss says. “So that was by no means encouraging, but I do think it was accurate. And it was a realistic portrayal of what it’s like to be in Washington, D.C. right now.”
Despite all the negatives, Struss says there’s reason for hope. He reconnected with Alabaster House, which has had a powerful, prayerful ministry to members of the House and Senate for the past 20 years. And he also learned that a surprising number of members of Congress are believers.
“One of the highlights of that meeting was that we were listening to congressmen who were quoting Scripture in normal dinner conversation, like they were preachers; they weren’t just giving me talking points,” he says. “It was flowing out of who they were. One of the other attendees at the meeting said, ‘How many Christians are there in Congress like you?’
“I was shocked,” says Struss. “This congressman said, ‘Like me? On fire?’ He said, ‘I bet about 30%.'”
Struss wants readers and listeners to know “there are many godly leaders in Congress right now. Please don’t give up hope in praying for those leaders, praying that God would give them the positions, the influence, the voice that they need to make the difference that we’re all believing God for, because God has His men and women in place, and all is not lost.”