I sat in the front row of a U.S. Senate hearing this week and watched something unfold that I believe deserves far more attention than it is receiving.

Pray for your fellow intercessor.

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The hearing was titled Hidden in Plain Sight: Confronting the Muslim Brotherhood Network in America. It was convened by Sen. Ted Cruz before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights.

I went there as an intercessor. I’ve been covering the growing Islamic issue for over 10 years and urging prayer and action by Americans of faith.

Sitting just feet from the witnesses, I listened, watched, and prayed as testimony was entered into the congressional record about the Muslim Brotherhood and organizations witnesses alleged are connected to its ideological and organizational network in the United States.

But almost immediately, something else became impossible to ignore.

Half the committee was missing. Not simply one senator. Every Democratic member of the subcommittee declined to participate.

Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Richard Blumenthal, Mazie Hirono, Alex Padilla, and Peter Welch were absent. Senator Cruz was the only senator sitting on the dais — not just the only senator on his side of the aisle, but the only senator in the room, period.

The empty chairs told a story of their own.

This was not a last-minute absence. The five Democratic senators announced their boycott in writing before the hearing even began, calling it a “political creepshow” and accusing Cruz of “scapegoating Muslims” to energize Republican voters ahead of Texas primaries. They stated plainly that they had no intention of engaging with the substance of the hearing at all.

Cruz noted the empty dais himself in his opening remarks, calling the absence an embarrassment and asking why not a single member of the minority thought a hearing on terrorism financing was worth attending.

Three witnesses testified. Their backgrounds were serious, and so was their evidence.

Retired FBI Special Agent Lara Burns, now a senior research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, had worked on the Holy Land Foundation investigation — one of the most consequential terrorism-financing prosecutions in American history. That case resulted in the Holy Land Foundation and five of its leaders being convicted in 2008 of providing material support to Hamas. Burns testified about the evidence uncovered in that investigation and what she described as a long-term Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure that continues to operate inside the United States.

Attorney Arielle Klepach of the National Jewish Advocacy Center addressed a different problem: what happens when an organization tied to terrorism financing shuts down, only for the same individuals and networks to reorganize under a new name.

Kyle Shideler of the Center for Security Policy laid out, in detailed written testimony, what he described as the Brotherhood’s long-term strategy inside America. He told the subcommittee that the Holy Land Foundation trial produced an “extraordinary body of evidence” — wiretaps, internal memos, organizational charts, meeting transcripts — that laid bare a sprawling domestic infrastructure. Prosecutors in that case identified a broader network of organizations they alleged were part of it, including the Islamic Society of North America, the North American Islamic Trust, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Shideler testified that Muslim Brotherhood members — including individuals later convicted on terrorism charges — worked for decades to influence leaders in both American political parties, that affiliated organizations recruited and trained chaplains for American prisons and the military, and that Brotherhood-linked organizations operated on college campuses across the country. He described CAIR specifically as growing out of what the government identified as a “Palestine Committee” network — created, he testified, to build political and media support for Hamas inside the United States.

Cruz connected this directly to recent history, telling the subcommittee that the unrest that erupted on American college campuses after October 7 “did not emerge from nowhere,” but was, in his words, the product of decades of organized institutional influence-building.

The most sobering thread of the hearing, for me, was not historical. I have known the facts and details of the history of the Muslim Brotherhood’s actions, funding, and influence in our nation.  It was the fact that just the day before the hearing, Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, defeating Rep. Haley Stevens and Mallory McMorrow — a significant win for the progressive wing of the party.

During the hearing, Cruz asked Shideler directly whether he believed a Muslim Brotherhood branch is operating in the United States. Shideler answered yes. Cruz then asked whether El-Sayed’s candidacy concerned him.

Shideler testified that it did not because of anything alleged against El-Sayed personally, but because of the network around him. He told the subcommittee that El-Sayed’s father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb, has ties to two Brotherhood-linked organizations: he formerly served as president of CAIR-Michigan, and he has sat on the Islamic Society of North America’s Founders Committee — a body Shideler described as reserved for the organization’s most committed backers and largest funders, alongside other individuals he identified as known Brotherhood members. Shideler also raised El-Sayed’s association with Emgage, a Muslim political mobilization and candidate-recruitment organization that he testified maintains close ties to CAIR.

While El-Sayed deserves focus and scrutiny, so also does the larger pattern we are seeing. Organizations with documented, testified-to Brotherhood lineage are no longer operating only on the margins of American civic life. They are embedded in donor networks, founders’ committees, and get-out-the-vote infrastructure that touches campaigns for the United States Senate. Candidates aligned with those networks are not protesting outside the political system anymore. They are winning primaries inside it. That is not a fringe development. That is a shift in who holds power in American government — and it is happening with remarkably little scrutiny, in no small part because half the committee charged with providing that scrutiny chose not to show up.

As I sat in that hearing room, I had clarity of three of the biggest threats facing our nation, with the shifting embrace of radical ideologies. One, Islamic candidates who espouse a radically differing worldview and values that are antithetical to our founding principles and Constitution. Joining forces with them sometimes is also the second group—the rising influence of the Democratic Socialist agenda and candidates who are increasing their position and voice in the Democratic Party. And the third threat that may be uncomfortable for many of us to hear is the inactivity of people of faith in the conservative movement.

It is easy for Christians to identify the movements we believe threaten our nation. It is much harder to ask whether we have contributed to the vacuum they are filling.

I believe there are powerful ideological forces working to reshape America. From a biblical worldview, I believe the ideas behind Islam — like the ideas behind Marxism and communism — stand fundamentally opposed to biblical understandings of human freedom, the dignity of the individual made in God’s image, and the proper relationship between God and government.

As I listened in that hearing, I wondered how we got here, where we have an active radical terror group operating freely under the guise of religious freedom in our nation. And a hearing that only garnered the interest and concern of one Senator of the committee. Who can stop these radicals? Who is doing something about this threat?

While the answer is multifaceted, one answer hits close to home. Millions of Christians do not vote. Others vote but never become involved in a civic action again. We watch school boards make decisions affecting our children, but never attend a meeting. We complain about the government while never meeting or engaging the people who govern us. We lament cultural change but remain silent while we let others shape the culture.

We pray — and don’t misunderstand me–prayer is absolutely essential and powerful— but sometimes we use prayer as our last action instead of looking at ourselves to take action as the answer to that prayer.

Intercessors for America has always believed that informed intercession matters. We’re about news, prayer, and action. We don’t want Christians to know what is happening in our government and nation, so we can become angry or fearful about it. We want to know what is happening so we can pray accurately and act faithfully.

Our prayer should lead us to ask a personal question: Lord, what are You asking me to do?

Here is where I believe He is leading us, and I want to be specific rather than vague:

• Read the testimony yourself. The written testimony from this hearing is public record. Don’t rely on headlines or secondhand summaries — go to the source. This is information you are not hearing from mainstream media sources. It is important to know the full picture of the move of the Muslim Brotherhood in our nation. We must be aware of what is happening in our nation so that our prayers and actions are most effective.
• Know who represents you at every level, and communicate with them often (and politely!).
• Pay attention to down-ballot races, not just presidential politics. The networks discussed in this hearing are building influence through school boards, city councils, state legislatures, and, increasingly, statewide and federal campaigns. Christians who only engage every four years cede that ground by default. Your action opportunities are abundant when you consider that town council meetings, school board hearings, and more are ways you can go and represent your biblical and conservative values. Plenty of progressives do!
• Pray specifically and by name — for the brave witnesses and experts who speak out on these issues, for the senators on the committee, and for the officials at every level who are making decisions to allow these ideologies to grow within our nation—or to challenge them where they are counter to our Constitution.
• Don’t let “nothing” be your answer. Maybe God is asking you to attend a school board meeting. Maybe it’s contacting a member of Congress. Maybe it’s running for office yourself, or supporting someone willing to run. Maybe it’s simply becoming informed enough to recognize what’s happening around you. The answer will not be the same for everyone. But for the Church at large, it cannot be nothing. The nation needs our perspective, our prayer, our voice, and our action.

Sitting in that front row, praying only a few feet away, I was reminded that history is often made in rooms like these that most Americans never see. It doesn’t always arrive with flashing lights announcing that “history-making has begun.” Each of us is given an opportunity to decide whether we will simply observe what is happening — or answer the call to become involved, moved by the responsibility of every citizen to participate in government as our founders designed. History is made every day—not just by Congressional leaders or elected officials, but by the regular and courageous participation of everyday citizens like you and me.

How are you praying about the Muslim Brotherhood and the rise of Islam? Share your prayers and scriptures below.

(Kris Kubal is IFA’s Chief Program Officer)