Policy and Prayer Summit Held in Harrisburg

Over 60 people gathered in Harrisburg last week to pray and learn about policy updates during the state’s first Prayer & Policy Summit, put on by Intercessors for America (IFA).

Leaders from both branches of the legislature spoke, as did others in positions within the government and outside it. Because of the size of the room where the summit took place, attendance was officially capped at 60, but the event had a long waiting list of others who wished to attend.

Attendees were briefed by current Pennsylvania legislators, including Rep. Dave Zimmerman (Lancaster/Berks), Rep. Stephanie Borowicz (Clinton/Union) and Sen. Doug Mastriano (Adams/Franklin).

Zimmerman quoted Daniel 2:21-22 and exhorted the listeners that prayer is the means to change government because God is sovereign over the political affairs of society and He alone gives revelation. Zimmerman also referenced John Hancock’s 22 occasions of calling the people of his state to prayer and fasting while he was the governor of Massachusetts.

Judge Cheryl Allen, the first black woman to be elected to the Pennsylvania Superior Court and whose term ran from 2008 to 2015, spoke about the atrocity of abortion and its devastating effects on a society. She raised the point that those in favor of removing any restrictions on abortion are now attempting to give abortion a semblance of credibility by tying race to so-called reproductive rights. However, the eugenic nature of abortion has not changed. She noted that black women account for more than 40% of the abortions in Pennsylvania, although they make up only 12% of the population. She too stressed the need for people to pray, saying, “When it’s all said and done, we fight these battles on our knees: prayer is the answer.”

Helen Shore shared some of the research that Intercessors for America has published on the history of abortion in Pennsylvania as well as abortion’s association with vaccines, such as how most of the common vaccines of our time are derived from the lung tissue of a baby girl and a baby boy who were each aborted at three months gestation. One of these fetal cell lines was developed by Leonard Hayflick at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. Ever since the 1960s, fetal cell lines have served as components in a majority of vaccines, including those for measles, mumps, rubella, adenovirus, rabies, polio, hepatitis A and chickenpox. Even when fetal cells are not a vaccine component, they are often used somewhere in the production process for most, if not all, vaccines.

IFA, a Virginia-based nonprofit, has held two policy and prayer summits before this one. Both took place in Washington, D.C., the first in October 2022 and the other at the end of March of this year. Plans are in the works to hold summits at more state capitols, but Pennsylvania was selected to hold the very first state summit. The group has been growing over the past 12 months and aims to keep expanding its ministry and forging more bonds between state leaders and the praying public.