Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
One of the biggest applause lines in Donald Trump’s second Inaugural Address was when he pledged, “We will not forget our country. We will not forget our Constitution. And we will not forget our God.” The shout-out to God (whom Trump credited with saving his life from assassination “to make America great again,” which is not recorded in scripture as one of the Almighty’s areas of interest) got a hearty round of applause, particularly, one guesses, from the conservatives who think separation of church and state is a communist idea.
But by the next morning, when the National Cathedral held a “Service of Prayer for the Nation,” as it has every four years since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933, Trump wasn’t so jazzed with God’s representatives in Washington. Asked by a reporter how he liked the service, the 47th president responded, “Not too exciting, was it? I didn’t think it was a good service, no.”
It could be that the staid, Episcopal-designed ecumenical service in a Gothic cathedral wasn’t the president’s cup of tea, since the religious leaders he has preferred lately have largely been conservative pentecostals who love to lay hands on Trump and hail him as God’s anointed smiter of abortionists, sodomites, and other demons. The service was also very much a plea for “unity,” an idea that Trump favors only when people unite behind his own less than universally beloved agenda.
But what must have really got him fidgeting in his pew was the messaging from the lectern and pulpit. The first reading, from the Hebrew Scriptures (and read by a female rabbi, which might make some of Trump’s orthodox Jewish fans frown), sounded rather squishy about welfare and immigration:
For the Holy One your God is eternal and supreme, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the orphan and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing those who need with food and clothing. You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
The second reading was from the Quran, delivered by an imam. That couldn’t have been welcome to a president who is reportedly working his way up to a renewal of his infamous Muslim travel ban.
The parade of unwelcome thoughts continued with the Prayers of the People, which included more Democratic Party propaganda:
Lord, you have taught us that we are members of one another: Hear our prayer for all who do the tedious, dirty, and dangerous work which is necessary to sustain our life; bless those who work the fields and grant that all who depend upon their service may remember them with thankful hearts …
Almighty and most merciful God, we remember before you the poor and neglected, the unemployed and underemployed, the homeless and the destitute, the sick and suffering, the rejected and disempowered; give them the blessing of your presence, that all in need may be relieved and protected.
And so on and so forth. But it was undoubtedly the sermon from Episcopal bishop Marian Edgar Budde (another girl doing men’s work, to the probable annoyance of many of Trump’s conservative evangelical and Catholic backers) that Trump found especially offensive, as NBC News reported:
“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” said Budde, who was looking directly at the president. “There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families. Some who fear for their lives.”
She added: “They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues.”
Trump doesn’t typically handle being lectured all that well, particularly in a religious venue, which he normally encounters only when on the campaign trail while harvesting evangelical votes or in the Oval Office while being regaled by his rigorously conservative and adoring “spiritual advisors.” Soon enough, he’ll be back in their company, far from the unpleasantness of being confronted with a socialist God and his woke Son. Meanwhile, some of his followers, apparently under the impression that the National Cathedral is a government building, want Bishop Budde fired:
This woman should never step foot in the National Cathedral again — in any capacity.
The audacity to pull something like this… pic.twitter.com/yaDgI52Jng
— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) January 21, 2025
