|
Soapbox Philosophy: Neither Trump, Budde showed an understanding of Bible 101
by Gregory Norfleet · Op-Ed · February 05, 2025
A Jan. 21 message of unity sadly and ironically turned divisive when an Episcopalian bishop got political and President Trump misunderstood her message and responded ungraciously.
This kind of mutual misunderstanding ran rampant throughout the presidential campaign process. West Branch residents are pretty good about thinking ahead, listening, and responding thoughtfully — it’s a good lesson for everyone, including in this case.
The Right Rev. Mariann Budde spoke gently and graciously throughout her 15-minute message at the National Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral. She kindly advocated for LGBT children and immigrants and was, at least generally, right that the Bible teaches unity.
Budde said unity comes from humility, honesty, and respect for one another. I would go further than “respect” and use the word “love” — not love for behavior that abuses free will (Romans 5:8), but love for people. God calls on us to love one another because doing so fulfills God’s law (Romans 13:8).
However, Budde made a fundamental mistake when trying to illustrate morality with a quote from Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, saying “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts.”
Yet the Bible is clear: The way to know good and evil and right and wrong is simple: Are you obeying God or not? (John 14:15; 1 John 5:3)
This is Bible 101. For a member of the full-time clergy to get this wrong is a serious mistake.
Then she adds, “The more we realize this, the more room we have within ourselves for humility and openness to one another across our differences because we are, in fact, more like one another than we realize and we need each other.”
Our hearts — our emotions — are not good judges of morality. Our hearts shift day to day, and sometimes moment to moment (ask any sports fan when their team loses at the buzzer), which is why no one is perfectly moral. If we only need emotions, then we do not need the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, or most of the Bible. In other words, she implies that God must do what our emotions command, not the other way around.
Budde is correct that there are LGBT children who “fear for their lives” and immigrants who are afraid that they will be deported. Plenty of videos and news reports show people expressing these fears, whether or not those fears are justified.
The bishop also made the political statement that there are “transgender children.” But this is also wrong as we have no examples of anyone, children or adults, successfully changing their sex (a biological marker embedded in our DNA), no matter how much one spends on surgery or makeup. It is also impossible to become “trans” based on how one feels: without stereotyping, no single person can know how half the world’s population feels at any given time.
Though it is hard to know if this was intentional, Budde also made a mistake referring simply to “immigrants” without acknowledging some are here legally and others are here illegally. It is clear from the context she meant illegal or undocumented immigrants.
The bishop also made the political statement that “a vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.” Again, from the context, she is referring to illegal immigrants and, thus, they all have broken the law by entering the country without permission.
This is an important distinction because, based on Trump’s statements, legal immigrants have no reason to fear deportation.
On Budde’s larger message of unity, she ignored Jesus castigating religious leaders, which happened throughout the Gospels. In Matthew 23, Jesus lays out seven problems he has with the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, calling them “hypocrites” and “blind guides” who make converts “twice as much a child of hell as you are.”
These religious leaders then conspired to trap and kill Jesus rather than practice unity.
There are other criticisms about Budde’s message, but I will stick with these points here.
So how did Trump react to Budde’s message? Quite badly.
First, everybody knows that politicians, especially presidents, frequently talk about God in their speeches. “Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America” gets tacked on to most State of the Union and inauguration speeches. It’s popular with the American public, and expected.
Yet how many of those presidents actually placed their faith in Christ? Hard to say. After a near-death experience last summer, Trump has, at least for now, softened his tone.
If Trump did become a Christian, he’s still a rookie and has not yet matured in his new faith. That would explain the tone of his social media post calling Budde a member of the “Radical Left” and a “hard-line Trump hater.”
And, of course, he was flat-out wrong that the bishop displayed a “nasty” tone. She didn’t. Not at all.
While he was correct that Budde did not mention the illegal immigrants who committed violent crimes, that was not Budde’s intent. She was drawing attention specifically to those LGBT citizens and illegal immigrants who feel fear and are not, as Trump put it, part of “a giant crime wave.”
Soon after the service, a reporter asked Trump for his reaction, to which he said he did not “think it was a great service, no.”
That was rather muted compared to what he later posted on social media, because it was clear he either did not listen closely to Budde’s sermon or some staffer misconstrued Budde’s comments and encouraged this off-the-mark response.
It is frustrating to see two people intentionally or carelessly fail when trying to communicate. It suggests they are trying to score political points, disgrace one another, or both.
Either way, the message regarding unity was lost.
And neither Budde nor Trump displayed an understanding of some of the fundamental concepts of the Bible.
Gregory R. Norfleet is the editor of the West Branch Times. You may reach him at gregory.norfleet@westbranchtimes.com or 319-643-2131.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
