Episcopal Bishop Calls Down Liberal Judgment on Trump

Prayer Meeting at the Washington National Cathedral Turns Political

By Albert Molher

THE BRIEFING

January 22, 2025

Since the 1933 inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as President of the United States, it has been traditional for a service of prayer to be held in connection with a presidential inauguration. It’s basically taken place every inaugural ceremony since 1933, and more often than not it has taken place in what is known as the National Cathedral.

That service took place Tuesday (Jan. 21)  and in attendance was the President of the United States, along with Mrs. Trump and the Vice President of the United States, along with Mrs. Vance, members of Congress, including the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and many others. It was not a public service in terms of being open to the public, but by now, many among the public know that in the service yesterday, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington D.C. directly addressed the new president and did so with words of appeal and judgment.

Many on the Left will simply refer to this, in the language of the ’60s, as “speaking truth to power,” but what we actually witness there is liberal, very liberal, Episcopalianism running into a headlong collision with President Trump and the Trump administration. And as you look at what the bishop had to say, you recognize it was all very calculated.

Bishop Marianne Budde said to the President: “In the name of God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.” She spoke of migrants, she said, particularly children, “Who fear that their parents will be taken away.” She also asked the President to consider: “The gay, lesbian, transgender children in Democratic Republican and Independent families, some who fear for their lives.”

It was theatrical language, but it was intended to be theater.

Now, let’s just look at the background of what in the world is going on here. First of all, we have the phenomenon of what is known as an “interfaith service.” Now, I’ll just be blunt about this. I would not participate, as a Christian minister, in an interfaith service. This was a very pressing issue, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

All over the United States communities and others, very famously at the national level in Washington D.C., were organizing interfaith services, but I could not participate because given my Christian convictions I cannot participate in a service in which the spiritual direction is towards some generic god in general, the deity referenced, if referenced at all, is ambiguous or for that matter, by a Christian estimation, an absolutely idolatrous religion. That is to say we can have good relationships with people of other faith, we cannot have a worship service with them. The moment you say interfaith service from a Christian perspective, the participants are going to be the kinds of Christians who can participate in interfaith services, so that is something that takes place overwhelmingly on the theological Left.

Now, remember, the location is also significant. We talked just a matter of days ago on the briefing about the National Cathedral as it is usually known. I mentioned then that even back in the original design of Washington D.C., Pierre L’Enfant had suggested there needed to be a great national church.  That was not built when Washington was first occupied and first became the nation’s capital. And as a matter of fact, what is known now as the National Cathedral was really begun only in the early years of the 20th century. It was completed only in the closing years of the 20th century. It is a grand building. It is one of the largest Gothic structures you will ever see. It is majestic sitting there on a very prominent spot in the area of Washington D.C.

But it’s also important to recognize that even as it is the cathedral seat of the Episcopal diocese in Washington D.C., it was also intended from the beginning to be something of a national church. And the moment you say that you recognize in the United States that becomes a problem, because there is no national church that is under any direct sponsorship of the United States government. It is a quirk in all of this that the United States Congress, back about 1903 or so, did give a charter to what became the National Cathedral. But one of the problems with this is that the National Cathedral is going to have to represent just about every faith tradition in the nation. On the one hand, it is an Episcopal cathedral, on the other hand it is the National Cathedral, and that’s why these kinds of services are held there.

The reason we talked about it recently is because the National Cathedral hosted the state funeral of former President Jimmy Carter, but it also hosted this service. And as I said, in most inaugurations since 1933 there has been some service as a part of the formalities held in the National Cathedral.

In this case, it wasn’t scheduled for Monday, the schedule was too busy already, it was scheduled for Tuesday. And so it was the President of the United States inaugurated the day before, the Vice President of the United States, inaugurated the day before who were basically set upon by the Episcopal Bishop of Washington D.C.

Now here’s what’s really interesting. When you look at this, you recognize that, as I said earlier, the kind of Christian minister who would participate in an interfaith service is well, the kind of Christian minister who would participate in an interfaith service. That’s a very designated group. The same thing is true when it comes to denominations.

A denomination that would be able to have, say, a diocesan cathedral that would be the diocesan seat of the bishop, and at the same time a national cathedral holding interface services. Well, you would look at a very interesting pattern here that would simply come down to a mathematical formula of one, and that would be in particular the Episcopal Church.

And that’s because the Episcopal Church, which after all is the American branch of Anglicanism, which hearkens back to the Church of England, which is of course a state church. When you consider the Episcopal Church in the United States, it was never at the national level a state church.

But it was in some ways the established denomination, and that’s because so many members of Congress, so many Justices of the Supreme Court, so many presidents of the United States, had deep Anglican or Episcopal roots. The Episcopal Church has been, from the very beginning in the United States, an elitist church, which is to say it caters to and tends to attract people from a certain socioeconomic background. I want to be clear that’s not universally true, it is just sociologically manifested.

And, for one thing, the Episcopal Church has been very proud of its out sized political clout, its out sized cultural and social clout. The Episcopal bishop, in most communities throughout the United States, is someone who would have a good deal of influence and a good deal of voice. But the other thing you need to note about the Episcopal Church is that along with the other major denominations of liberal Protestantism, it has basically been in severe decline, particularly in terms of membership for the course of the last several decades, and that has been tied to a theological collapse.

The Episcopal denomination, the Episcopal Church in the United States is now one of the most liberal religious bodies imaginable. Now, note carefully, I’m not saying that there are no persons of evangelical or conservative orthodox belief within the Episcopal Church. I’m just saying that if they are in the Episcopal Church, they’re the kind of, well, the kind of person who can hold those beliefs and still be in the Episcopal church, which is overwhelmingly liberal. It has been for decades now avidly pro-LGBTQ, for same-sex marriage, but even before then, the great liberal turn, which took place in liberal Protestant world back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it basically was set loose in the second half of the 20th century with absolutely no braking system whatsoever.

Let me just also point to an obvious factor when it comes to the Episcopal Church, it has never been Evangelical in terms of its general witness. It holds to infant baptism, and it was basically quite happy to be restricted to an elite component of society. But even as there has been a demographic revolution in the United States matched to a theological revolution in the Episcopal Church, decades ago the Wall Street Journal ran a very memorable editorial entitled “The Episcopal Church Goes The Way of the Dodo.” Just in case you had to look that up. It means to extinction. Back when she was installed as the bishop, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington D.C., the Washington Post described her as “unapologetically liberal.” And of course she is, and what she addressed to the president was basically the voice of liberal culture, and unsurprisingly, she went right to the LGBTQ issues.

Remember that in his inaugural address, President Trump had said that he would establish an executive order. It was actually a part of a larger complex of many executive orders that would say that for the purposes of the federal government there would be only two genders and that would be male and female. And furthermore, he stipulated, or at least his executive order stipulated that the distinction here is between sperm and eggs, or described as the larger reproductive cell and the smaller reproductive cell. Yes, it gets that technical, but it’s a sign of the times that if you’re going to be clear on these issues these days, when there is such widespread confusion, you have to be just that technical.

One point we just have to make here is that when you have liberal theology it leads to a liberal understanding of everything, including gender and sexuality. But you also have to work the logic the other way. When you are confronted by the view on, say, sexuality and gender held by this Episcopal bishop, you have to know that that is based upon a prior revolution towards theological liberalism. All of this, of course, goes back to doctrines as fundamental as the doctrine of God and the doctrine of Scripture. Everything else after that simply follows. Liberal at the start, you’ll be liberal at the end and at every point liberal in the middle.

The other point I want to make is simply the political point that in that context, the bishop knew exactly what she was doing and the President knew exactly what she was doing. After the ceremony, he was asked what he thought, and he spoke about it pretty clearly. He told news crews, “Not too exciting, was it? They could do much better.”

Historically, it is important to note just how revolutionized the Episcopal Church has become, and it’s not just what this Episcopal bishop had to say, it is the very fact that it was a SHE who said it that represents in its own way the revolution within the Episcopal Church. Largely the same revolution throughout most of all liberal Protestantism.

END