King Abdullah II of Jordan to Speak at Luncheon for Evangelicals during the National Prayer Breakfast Event on February 2nd

Dan Wooding : Feb 1, 2006
ASSIST News Service

This news comes in a story about the event written by Julia Duin in the Washington Times.

She said that although he would not be the first Muslim to speak at the annual event at the Washington Hilton, he will have a bigger role than his predecessors.

Duin quoted Joseph Lumbard, special adviser to the king for interfaith affairs, as saying, "It will be the king's first major address in the United States after the [Nov. 9] Amman attacks."

He was referring to the triple suicide bombings that killed about 60 people.

Lumbard went on to say, "His position is not that there is a clash of civilizations, but, as the attacks in Amman illustrate, there's an attack on civilization as such."

Julie Duin then wrote, "Sources familiar with the breakfast say the king's aides have been quietly looking for months for ways Abdullah can make contact with the leaders of America's 50 million evangelical Christians, a group that claims President Bush as an adherent.

"During a 10-day swing through the United States in September as a spokesman for a tolerant Islam, Abdullah met with several dozen rabbis in the District, visited Riverside Church in New York and spoke at Catholic University."

Duin then quoted Lumbard as saying, "We have made a lot of contact with evangelicals. But none of that has been in the public eye. We've been exploring our common ground so when we speak to one another in a public forum, no one steps on each other's toes."

She said that Richard Cizik, the vice president for government policy for the National Association of Evangelicals, who has been involved in dialogue with Moroccan Muslim leaders, applauded the choice of Abdullah as a speaker.

"Evangelicals need to hear from the king," he was quoted as saying. "The king of Jordan has been a supporter of this administration's war in Iraq, which has not won him many points in the Muslim world, as I understand it."

This year's National Prayer Breakfast is scheduled to draw 3,600 people, including heads of state, members of Congress and foreign legislatures, Cabinet secretaries and ambassadors.