Friends: Paraphrasing, and with apologies to, 2 Corinthians 3:17: “Where the Spirit of the Lord isn’t, liberal, woke arrogance can reign.” How about that presidential prayer service? Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #950

January 28, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Ghosting the Spirit

By Bob Walters

“Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel …” – Paul, Ephesians 6:19

The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., is an Episcopal church which, in a continuing demonstration of doctrinal benightment, fearlessly makes known its politics.

Mariann Budde, the Cathedral’s bishop, is suddenly the poster girl for the flailing anti-Trump “woke” left wing of American politics. Last week she used the Cathedral’s traditional day-after-the-inaugural prayer service attended by the newly-sworn-in President and his family not to proclaim from the pulpit the truth of Jesus Christ, but liberal ideology.

“Wait,” you may be thinking. “All she did was call on Trump to 'have mercy.'''

That bears closer examination.  What Budde wielded was a barely-cloaked verbal stiletto stabbing at Trump’s common-sense inaugural proclamations regarding “only two genders, male and female,” and deporting criminal illegal aliens. It was the Episcopal church doing what it does, backing “social justice” devoid of common sense.

And, may I add, preaching without making known the mystery of the gospel.

Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, the black minister who gave that buoyant prayer at Monday’s inauguration ceremony, called it “theological and spiritual malpractice.” For her part, Budde was instantly off on a TV talk show tour, a hero of mainstream media.

Budde’s prayer service plea cited “kids who were scared” because of Trump’s gender proclamation.  Migrants doing hourly labor feared deportation. “Show them mercy,” she said to the President, in a tone dripping with arrogant condescension.  To my ear it sounded ironic, coming as it did from a church that for decades has backed abortion rights. Where is the church’s mercy for the unborn?

This is the embedded hypocrisy – writ large – of modern social justice pleas.

Pastor Sewell, in an interview (LINK) Wednesday evening, said, “[Budde] had the opportunity to preach the gospel, to talk about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. She had the opportunity to bring people into the faith.  It was a salvific moment.  Instead of using the authority of the word of God to preach the message of Christ and to draw our President closer to Jesus, she used it for … malpractice.”

I was reminded of Vice President-elect Mike Pence, in 2016 in the audience for a performance of the musical Hamilton in New York, being chided by one of the cast members – from the stage during a curtain call – about Trump’s policies.

Perhaps Budde’s “mercy” plea lends an appropriate and humane perspective to the politics of the moment. But while I’d like to see Trump in church more, this kind of “gotcha” social gospel “preaching” is what keeps people away from the Holy Spirit.

Here, the just-inaugurated President and his entire family were listening to a Christian bishop who could not find it within herself to preach the gospel in the National Cathedral.  It may as well have been a Democratic party caucus featuring AOC.

I know folks here in town who through Mike Pence, a devout and deep-thinking Christian, have a prayerful handle on President Trump’s need for Christian growth.  I wish he could have found the Spirit at the National Cathedral.

Too bad he was ghosted.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) grew up Episcopalian in the 1960s. Jesus came later.