‘Historic’: America Reads the Bible kicks off in nation’s capital with Patricia Heaton, Candace Cameron Bure

A host of well-known voices within the Christian community kicked off a week-long reading of the Bible Saturday night in the nation’s capital as part of what organizers described as a historic observance taking place in the same year the nation celebrates its 250th birthday.

“America Reads the Bible” continues through Saturday, April 25, at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., where participants are publicly reading Scripture from Genesis to Revelation each day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern. The observance is being streamed live on Great American Pure Flix.

Patricia Heaton helped launch the event Sunday with a public reading of Genesis 1-2. The week-long schedule includes some 500 readers, with each hour also featuring roughly 10 minutes of musical worship.

Candace Cameron Bure, along with Cameron and BJ Arnett, are the national spokespersons.

Bure labeled the event “historic.”

“Use this moment – don’t just let it be an event that happens in Washington, D.C.,” Bure said during the opening service. “Let it be something that happens in your life and in your home.”

Other participants throughout the week include filmmakers such as Stephen Kendrick (War Room) and Dallas Jenkins (The Chosen), political figures including President Trump via a pre-recorded reading, and singers such as Colton Dixon and John Cooper (Skillet). 

“I’m so thankful for God’s Word – because it’s crazy times right now,” Heaton said. “But we know how it ends, so we stand on that.”

Mike Johnson, who read from Genesis 24, said during Saturday’s opening service that America’s strength rests on God’s favor.

“Psalm 11:3 says that if the foundations be destroyed, what will the righteous do? We are here to defend and restore the foundations,” Johnson said Saturday to applause.

“We live and we are so blessed to live – we do not take it for granted – in the most free, most successful, most powerful, most benevolent nation that has ever been, because we are built upon those firm foundations,” Johnson said.

Bure said she grew up a Christian but developed a hunger for God’s Word when she became a mom.

“I held my daughter in my arms, and I looked at her and I thought, ‘What am I going to teach her about God?’”

Bure said she started praying, “God, help me desire Your Bible. Give me a hunger for Your Word.”

“And God has certainly given me that desire.”

The Bible, she added, “has absolutely changed my life.” She read Genesis 6-8 during her portion Sunday.

“The Bible is the greatest love story you will ever read and know in your entire life,” she said. “The Bible is not a relic. It is not archaic, it is not ancient. It is living and active.”