Rev. Marcus Manley
For most of her 15-minute address at the National Prayer Service, Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, spoke of the need to pray for unity in our nation. In her white rochet, red chimere, and black tippet, Budde displayed her Episcopalian bishopric. Budde’s voice was clear and calm perched from a pulpit flanked with flowers—red carnations popping out of a medley of white carnations, roses, and lemon leaf among other greenery. At first glance you might have thought she was preaching from the middle of a garden.
Her speech was the focal point of a two-hour service in a monumental national cathedral, a landmark for any Christian or pious ponderer to see when visiting our nation’s capital. The gigantic hall echoed saxophones, choirs, small orchestras, drums, readings, blessings, and prayers from several interfaith leaders. It held true to a pluralist service—praying for common civil compromise, non-partisan peace, to an every, any, and all of the above god(s) so long as he/she/it/them gives us peace on earth, with little to no mention of what’s after. To hell with heaven.
Everybody but a baby was wearing a robe or a stole and praying for the peace of our nation in a common spirit of Kumbaya for all (so long as they’ve been born). The ecumenists united to pray for unity through tolerance. Allahu Akbar was sang by the hatted Muslim after a chanting Israelite woman sang a blessing for something that the designated sign language person couldn’t translate. The service grew far more familiar with the Ave Maria, but that’s probably the foremost catholic song that all Protestants know they’re united against.
After the barrage of diverse prayers and songs, Budde mounted the flowery prow and appealed for unity and her consideration of unity’s three foundations: (1) the dignity of all people, (2) honesty, and (3) humility. The message preached perfect pluralism: scarcely any Scripture, with just enough Jesus, to meet the quota, so long as he’s just “of Nazareth.” His messiahship was missing to make the Jews “Mazel Tov.” Enough imams and Muslim mosques were mentioned to make Muhammad merry. Throughout the homily a comfortable amount of unoffensive references of “our God” were sprinkled to appease anyone who came for relig-ish niceties.
Almost all of that is completely forgotten and deluged by the coverage of Budde’s final remark to President Trump to “have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now… gay, lesbian, and transgender… and the people who pick our crops and wash the dishes … who may not be citizens.”1 Here are three reasons why the president and his fellow Americans should continue disregarding her request as his stoic face did when he first heard it.
- Confusion of the 2 Kingdoms
If the meshing of completely inconsistent soteriologies isn’t confusing enough, Budde made things far worse with her disregard of the differences of church and state. Christians hold to two separate kingdoms: one is temporal of this world, that which is old. The other one is everlasting, beginning here and continuing in the resurrection, that which is new. Jesus teaches this to the Pharisees (Mt. 22:21) reminding them the difference between what is Caesar’s and what is God’s, and He teaches Pilate reminding us all that He never claimed this world as his kingdom, but He did call dibs on the next (Jn. 18:36). This distinction is imperative to prevent a theocratic government or caesaropapism. The U.S.A. is not God’s eternal kingdom. No one’s soul should be determined by an election or presidential inauguration. The distinction between the two kingdoms must be upheld so that the government doesn’t come rushing in to shut down sacred gatherings in times of pandemic panic, and so that the church doesn’t come rushing in shoving platitudes down policemen’s sidearms. Stay in your lane applies to both religion and ruler.
Christians can acknowledge that there are many Old Testament examples where a leader mercies an immigrant. Pharoah pardoning Abram for saying that Sarai was only his sister is just one example (Gen. 12:10-20). But none of those can supersede God’s explicit appointment for government today. In Romans 13, God says He is above both government and people, appointing every leader to be a terror to bad conduct, not to be resisted (Rom. 13:2-3).
Faith prays “Thy will be done” in the midst of temporal affairs we don’t agree with or control. We allow the authorities to do their job, even erroneously, so long as we aren’t coopted to join them in idolatry. Our faith informs our civic duties and the manner by which they are carried out, but our faith is not a get out of jail free card for ourselves or others. Faith doesn’t overrule Title 8 U.S. Code § 1325 – Improper entry by alien.
Budde’s failure then is the way she appeals for mercy that confounds her audience. A preacher is to know the difference between Jesus who said, “my kingdom is not of this world” and Donald who said, “Make American Great Again.” Hopefully everyone can agree, Trump isn’t Christ. Budde posits Jesus as a mercy worker to strangers, and then with an immediate whiplash, turns a 1-to-1 correspondence of Christ’s mercy to the Commander in Chief. Kind of a WWJD polemic to the president, “Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger.”2 Again, Jesus said His kingdom is not of this world. When He went against social standards, He did so as the Christ, not as the President of the United States (Mt. 5:17).
Budde’s misstep here is a failure to understand the call of the Christ is different than of the POTUS when it comes to their responsibility to the transsexual and transmigrant. For the president, to let a person act illegally is a failure to uphold our nation’s law and to let a person act against his sex is a failure to uphold natural law. If her idea of mercy is to allow people in our nation to continue to break either, then she’s not asking for mercy but malfeasance. “Please let strangers break the law” isn’t a fair petition, especially to the man who was just sworn in as chief executive of the law to preserve, protect, and defend it.
- Picking and Choosing from Jesus’ words
Now let’s give some latitude to the speech. Aspiring to address the whole nation, in the name of all god(s), as ambassador for all faiths (although not all agreed to that), on the morrow of a freshly inaugurated president, who has already begun MAGA phase 2, is a tall order. Unity and mercy, in that setting, are quite appropriate themes for the occasion. Where her message began to sink was when she sought to apply Jesus’ teaching of the house built on the rock to our country.
Just so we’re clear, Jesus didn’t say to keep a nation steady it must be built on unity. Instead, Matthew 7:24-29 in context follows Jesus’ teaching, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 7:21-23). Jesus clearly says He’s talking about the kingdom of heaven, not the kingdom of this world (i.e. the U.S.A). The verse that immediately precedes Jesus’ House on the Rock Teaching is His words to the lawless unfaithful that He deports from the kingdom of heaven.3 Probably not the best pluralist preaching pericope.
Granted, Jesus was an ambassador of mercy and especially mercy on the poor in every sense of the word. The teaching of the house built on the rock is Jesus’ dismount to His Sermon on the Mount that begins with the Beatitudes including: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Mt. 5:7). The Holy Spirit absolutely inspired these words:
- “I will be merciful to whom I will be merciful” (Ex. 33:19).
- “show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor” (Zech. 7:9).
- “Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13).
Mercy is a profound divine attribute that God demands of His people. It simple terms it can be defined as not giving someone a punishment he deserves. Yet, mercy is neither all God calls us to do nor always who He calls us to be. He tells authorities to bear the sword (Rom. 13:4-5), fathers to not spare the rod (Prov. 13:24), and of Himself He disciplines all His children (Heb. 12:1-13). Mercy is not all that God has to say, and so it cannot be a truism to Trump.
Christians should understand that a National Prayer Service doesn’t hold that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, sole rule, norm, and authority of all doctrine. There was a Muslim reading from Qur’an 57:4-7! At best, it tolerates the statements of Jesus next to statements of all religions. That’s one thing.
Another is when Budde invoking divine mercy in order to require the same of man explicitly denies justification by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Budde preaches, “nor does God spare us from the consequences of our deeds which always in the end matter more than the words we pray.”4 Even though she pleads for the president to mercy immigrants, she doesn’t believe in the eternal mercy of God, because she doesn’t know who Christ is. The National Prayer Service Sermon was completely void of the Gospel. Instead it proffered that man’s mercy is expected over God’s. Had Budde said almost the exact opposite she would have nailed the Gospel: God does spare us from the consequences of our deeds and that matters in the end, which is exactly what we pray when we ask God to be merciful to us sinners through Christ. Apparently, it was the Pharisee all along who went down to his house justified, not the Tax Collector (Lk. 18:9-14).
There is obviously going to be picking and choosing from the Bible when you have a pluralist ecumenical National Prayer Service. Christians are here to say, if you don’t want all of Jesus then you can’t have any of Him; He even said so.5 If you invoke Jesus’ words while failing to include His cross, resurrection, and the mercy God has on us because of them, then you’re preaching heresy, and you need to stop. That’s why it would be far better for Budde and future speakers at these types of services to leave Jesus and the Holy Bible out altogether. Even if you don’t mention Christ, at least you don’t blaspheme Him. Finally, you won’t falsely charge presidents to abandon their office in the pursuit of a cross-less mercy. That’s the second reason the president should disregard her.
- Homiletical Faux Pas
Preaching prudence knows that you don’t single people out in a sermon to chide them. Sermons must be specific, but can’t take the law and apply it to just one person in the pew, and state that this isn’t for any of the rest of you. Sermons are public pronouncements, not the place to publish personal beefs or requests.
This faux pas is an abuse of the privilege to host the National Prayer Service. It’s not a prime opportunity for a personal lobby just because the president happens to be obligated to come to one’s church. The National Prayer Service is meant to petition God, not the president. It isn’t meant to keep the president hostage so the preacher can tell him personal remarks behind the protection of a pulpit. The pulpit is supposed to be above that, lest it be regarded as the words of a woman, when it should be the Gospel of God. If you wish to address the president with a request, then get in line like all the rest.
Conclusion
Whether you were privy to it or not, Budde’s peroration isn’t just to the president but to the nation; “Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger for we were all once strangers in this land.”6 A quick rebuttal to that is though all of us were strangers, not all were illegal.
How about we draw Budde’s request to its conclusion. Let’s play a hypothetical game and flesh this out. What if the Nation’s Prayer Service really did beg the president for mercy for all immigrants? What would happen if POTUS perpetually did so? What is a country if it is so committed to welcoming the world that it abandons its own citizens for it? What is the difference from that nation and a global government? Now if the United States is to be a symbol or synecdoche of the world, then why have a National Prayer Service at all? Why not just hold to the globalist’s own foundation of unity, be honest, and call it what it is: A Global Prayer Service?
That’s the pluralist goal. Its gospel is the farce of world peace. You’re naturalized when you confess there is no true God. You’re converted when your worship is centered on unity of man, not God. It claims to have no laws or borders but, that is itself quite a law to keep and border not to be crossed.
The National Prayer Service Sermon was given by a woman who isn’t a pastor, praying for something that is not a country, to a generic deity who is not God. The sermon and its final plea should be disregarded, because it’s neither something the president can or should do nor is it something that we should attempt. As citizens of the U.S.A., there’s plenty of ways we can have mercy on anyone. Praying for them to the only true God is a good start. And loving our neighbors as ourselves while keeping the law is a good follow-up. President and people need not regard a request to join hands with the world in a lawless, globalist state. The sort of unity that is built on a man-made mercy is the wrong sort. It will not end with us united, standing on a rock in a flowery garden, but buried in sand.
Reverend Marcus Manley serves as LCMS pastor at Bethlehem and Zion Lutheran Churches Altamont, IL. He and his wife, Amy, are blessed with five children.
1 Washington National Cathedral. “A Service of Prayer for the Nation – 1.21.25.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhHE8fvf92M&t=11s
2 Ibid.
3 “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Mt. 7:23).
4 Washington National Cathedral. “A Service of Prayer for the Nation – 1.21.25.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhHE8fvf92M&t=11s
5 Luke 11:23
6 Washington National Cathedral. “A Service of Prayer for the Nation – 1.21.25.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhHE8fvf92M&t=11s
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