COMMENTARY
By David W. Virtue, DD
January 25, 2025
We should respond to Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde's desperate rantings at Donald Trump with one big collective yawn, wrote one blogger.
He has a point. Her rant at the newly elected president was predictable. Those of us who have been writing about The Episcopal Church over recent decades knew this would happen in the name of “speaking truth to power.”
Marianne Edgar Budde was consistent as she stood in the pulpit of the Washington National Cathedral, the nation’s pulpit mike in hand.
This was her moment and she was not going to waste it with nice congratulatory words for the 47th president of the U.S.
Her sanctimonious outrage rang with all the inflection of a woke bishop who has imbibed post-modernity, hectoring the president who has been in office less than 24 hours.
There are multiple themes she could have inveighed about. The need for unity in a nation deeply divided; or righteousness that exalts a nation. In a nation of nearly 346 million people there is always someone whose ox is being gored.
Listening to her speech, it wasn’t a sermon, I was made aware of how light it was on the Bible and how heavy on righteous condemnation. Bishop Budde went peak episcopalian.
The gospel hasn’t been heard in her diocese in generations. One is more likely to hear a whiny sermon from Gene Robinson about conservative homophobia or Islamophobia from an outraged Iman.
As one observer noted; “The Episcopal Church is probably the most liberal, not to say progressive, denomination in the USA. It is fully committed to promoting LGBTQ+ rights and treats DEI initiatives as though they had come down from the mountain top written in stone.”
Bishop Budde certainly fulfills that mandate.
She painted a picture of a dystopian America where people live in dread of the coming administration.
Well not everybody feels that way. In fact, Trump garnered considerable Hispanic and Black votes from people who don’t want to see our borders crossed by illegals. The situation is not as black and white as she painted it. Yes, some injustices will occur, they always do. Some people with green cards will be deported. The citizenship of children born in the US to those here illegally is already being challenged in the courts.
On Truth Social, Trump called Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde a “Radical Left hardline Trump-hater” who is “not very good at her job.” He said she “brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way.” Well tell me something I don’t know. Trump demanded an apology. I can tell you he will wait a very long time before that happens. She has already signaled she won’t be apologizing to the Don. She made it clear she loathes Donald Trump and was certainly very ungracious.
It is hardly a truism when Trump said she is “not very good at her job.” Most of us have known that for a long time. Nothing new here. With some of America and the world’s leading influencers listening in she had a golden moment to preach that Christ stands over the nations of the world, including the U.S. in judgment; that He is watching and calling people to repentance and faith. She could have brought God’s word to bear on the people. She didn’t. It is doubtful she really believes in any of that. What mattered was preaching her personal political views in the hope of changing the president’s mind and humiliating him in public. Judging by the responses on social media she singularly failed.
Michael Curry the former Presiding Bishop would probably have delivered himself of a love bomb, which might have brought a few smiles to some faces, but it is doubtful he would have gone after the president as she did; neither I think would Sean Rowe the new PB who is singularly silent on Budde’s rant. If he is cringing at 815 2nd Avenue, in New York, the church’s headquarters, someone might want to take him out for a drink to help him recover. It’s the very least they could do.
END