It looked like a chilling scene from a Last Days, anti-Christ-takes-over-the-world disaster movie. Hundreds of Muslims take over America’s most notable church, prostrate on their prayer rugs as their unified chant echoes out in full volume: “There is only one god, he begets not and I bear witness that Muhammad is His only servant and Apostle."
Only this was not a movie. This was the scene, last Friday, for the first time in history, at the iconic National Cathedral in Washington, where orthodox Muslim clerics were invited to lead an Islamic prayer service. A congregation of hundreds were lead by an Imam in declaring that “god has no son, that Jesus Christ cannot be his son, and that there is no god like Allah.”
Only a single middle-age woman jumped up in the middle of the service and shouted, “America was founded on Christian principles. . . . Leave our church alone!” She was escorted quickly out of the church by security guards.
The National Cathedral in Washington, DC has been an extremely important symbol of the Christian roots of the United States. The cathedral was designated by Congress as America's "National House of Prayer." The church has hosted a number of inaugural presidential prayer services, including Franklin Roosevelt and both presidents Bush.
The Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, took to Facebook in reaction to the Muslim prayer service: