It was the female Episcopalian Bishop of Washington, a prelate of the liberal, progressive, left wing Episcopal Church, a post which makes her essentially the "pastor" of the Washington National Cathedral. The Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, an Episcopal postulant, deacon, priest, rector and now Bishop of Washington, which is essentially leadership over the diocese where the church's headquarters are located.
There are some implications involved in her speaking truth to power that really shine some light on the hypocrisy, heresy, apostasy and failure of conservative Evangelicalism to be the testimony for Jesus Christ that they claim to be, and that they criticize the Episcopal Church for not being. The world has just turned upside down, right on top of some of the biggest hypocrites in the United States.
She is Everything They Are Not
I've watched video of Bishop Budde's sermon at the National Cathedral several times, and I'll enjoy it every time I watch it.
Conservative Evangelical leaders, for the most part, label the Episcopal Church as "liberal," and consider it in apostasy for the manner in which it interprets Christian faith, claiming that it either deliberately ignores parts of the scripture that doesn't support its progressive social views, or that it misinterprets them to suit its own presuppositions. They are dismissive of its theology and doctrine, but even more so of its liberal social practices that include its acceptance of gays and lesbians into church membership and into orgination as clergy, and what they consider to be a soft position on abortion rights. And on the basis of those interpretations, they claim that the Episcopal church cannot be evangelistic, in that it is not capable of leading people to a Christian conversion experience.
And, of course, conservative Evangelicals are opposed to allowing women to serve in their clergy, specifically with the title "Bishop, Pastor, Overseer or Elder," which they claim are different titles for the same "office" within the church because being the "husband of one wife" is one of the qualifications to serve in this office, found in I Timothy 3.
So, when Bishop Mariann Budde preached the sermon in the inauguration's prayer service in the National Cathedral, a church which falls under her jurisdiction as Bishop of Washington, she "correctly divided the word of truth," a Biblical phrase from Timothy that Evangelicals often use as a prooftext to proclaim their own correctness. Preaching from Matthew 25, Bishop Budde laid out some principles of the Christian gospel that seem to be foreign to most of the Republicans gathered in the Cathedral, and to those in Trump's MAGA movement.
And from the reaction she got from Trump supporters among the conservative Evangelical leadership across the country, including conservative Evangelicals in Congress, like Mike Johnson, and those among the prominent Evangelical leadership that openly supports Trump shamelessly, she hit a live nerve.
The biggest problem most of her critics seem to have with her sermon is that she was right. It spoke truth, and they couldn't find any way to counter that without looking like little anti-Christs. The spirit of God came down, and rested upon a woman, a Bishop of the Episcopal church, a progressive, liberal, Christian, who didn't preach from some scientific journal or psychiatric reference, or academic history, but who quoted the scriptures, in their correct context, and pointed out where the President's practices were wrong, from a Christian perspective.
Amen!
And She's Not Backing Down
They didn't get what they wanted. Not only is she not backing down, she's getting all kinds of media attention and opportunities to emphasize exactly what she did. She's been on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow, and the sermon content has gone viral, excerpts and quotes showing up everywhere, including AP News, the New York Times, NPR, and Time Magazine. What she had to say is being called a core teaching and practice of the Christian faith.
And they can't stand it.
For the first time, the media is actually reporting the contrast between the Christian gospel and Trump lies and disinformation, and is putting conservative Evangelical supporters of Trump on the side of lies and disinformation. The coverage has been amazingly extensive.
We are also seeing the true corrupt character of Trump and of MAGA come out. Their response has been far less than Christian, in fact, it has been as worldly and as evil as expected. They've threatened the Bishop's livlihood, and there have been death threats, or at least, as she characterized them, some detractors wishing for her demise. Their true character is showing, and it is certainly not as focused on the gospel as she has been. In fact, we are seeing a genuine example of exactly why Trump and MAGA are not Christian at all, in any sense of the world.
And the follow up to this was provided by Franklin Graham, who said "Trump stands for truth," and has yet to offer a single piece of evidence to support that statement. I'm going to say something here that needs to be said. I know a lot of liberals who don't place any faith at all in the existence of God or in the spiritual power of the Christian faith. But here's an egregious example of someone who has been blinded to the truth by some kind of spiritual force, something the Bible calls a "powerful delusion." Franklin Graham isn't the only one blind to Trump's evil, anti-Christian agenda. But he is definitely blind to reality and to the truth.
And Yet Another Element of the Christian Gospel, the Bishop Offers Grace
Noting that it is something Episcopalian Christians are encouraged to do, the Bishop made note of the fact that, in spite of how she feels about his politics and policies, she will pray for the President. That's a private act of one's faith that others can't know for certain. Given the rhetoric that many of the conservative Evangelical leaders and pastors convey when they speak of Democrats like Joe Biden or Barack Obama, it's hard to take them seriously when they claim to pray for the President, no matter his partisan affiliation. Well, OK. I won't judge. But I trust Bishop Budde. I know she will do what she says, because her sincerity was visible.
Author's Note, January 25, 2025
As expected, the angry reaction from the fundamentalist, conservative, Evangelical, Pentecostal/Charismatic wing has been predictable, finding ways to pick apart the values that Bishop Budde preached. Here's the bottom line. There wasn't a doctrinal or theological problem with anything the Bishop said, and in fact, they know she "correctly divided the word of truth." What some of them have come up with is a very twisted and manipulated interpretation of various Biblical texts, taking them out of the meaning that comes from understanding their historical context, and applying their own literalist standards to make the Bible's writers say something they didn't mean. They're good at that. In so doing, they've contradicted their own teaching, but they know most of their followers have absolutely no idea how to interpret scripture, and are dependent on these leaders to do it for them.
But there's another interesting response in here that tells us most of these so called "Christian" right wingers have a different gospel in mind, other than the one found in the New Testament, revealed by Jesus and recorded by his apostles. They perceived this as a public attack on their idol, Trump. Would their reaction have been so quick, so vitriolic and so angry if this had merely been a sermon preached from the pulpit of the Washington National Cathedral during a regular Sunday morning service? They would have passed this off as just another example of Episcopalian liberalism, and it's doubtful they would have torn into the contents, or into the character of the Bishop the way they did which, by the way, is a violation of the very scripture they claim to be defending.
The god that these conservative Evangelicals, the fundamentalists of Falwellian ilk and the charismatics of the Robertson ilk, worship is money. And their idol and object of their adoration is Trump.
The Apostle Paul actually addresses this kind of apostasy in the church, in his second epistle to the church at Thessalonica:
"The coming of the lawless one is apparent in the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying, wonders and every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion, leading them to beliefe what is false, so that all who have not believed the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned." 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12, NRSV
For those who aren't Christians, this might not have any specific meaning, but for those who have been caught up in the Trump cult, these are terms they understand, and have falsely applied to anyone who doesn't follow their theology and doctrine. Trump's very public and repeated denials of his need for God's forgiveness is more than just a difference of religious opinion, it is an outright blasphemy of the core doctrine of Christian conversion, and constitutes a public rejection of the Christian faith. In fact, Trump even takes it a step further by claiming to have formed his own god, in whom he believes, not the one revealed by Jesus in the Christian gospel.
This might all just sound like religious fiction and nonsense to those who don't profess the Christian faith, or who are not engaged in religious practice. However, in the political climate in the United States today, in which political power is quickly becoming entwined with a very real agenda and philosophy of government known as "White Christian Nationalism," the non-religious need to understand the roots of what is going on across the whole spectrum of Christian doctrine, thought and practice in order to unite with those Christians who understand the implications of all of this for the purpose of protecting our basic rights to freedom of conscience, our common freedom of, or from, religion, and especially to strengthen the wall of separation that exists between the church and the state, for the benefit of both.
The reaction to the Bishop's words, from several conservative Evangelicals in Congress, most notably Speaker Mike Johnson, from leaders like Franklin Graham, along with some of the more vitriolic elements of Charismatic pseudo-Christianity and fundamentalist televangelism, is telling. They've jumped up to defend Trump being confronted by the truth, in a way that they have never confronted him themselves about his blatant, public licentiousness, claims to worldliness, pathological lying, angry vengeance he spews, and his openly and blatant violations of the law, including the violence he promoted on January 6th, and the hatred and murder he advocates for those who have opposed his lawlessness.
He fits the Apostle Paul's description of "the lawless one."
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