Between Good and Evil

A challenge for Christians in the days ahead

You’ve probably heard by now about the Right Rev. Mariann Budde’s sermon on Tuesday. If so, you’re probably familiar with her closing remarks where she addressed President Trump directly, asking him “to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now”—LGBTQ children, undocumented immigrants, and refugees fleeing war zones and persecution.

But the rest of her 15-minute sermon provides crucial context for her closing plea. You can find the full transcript here, and watch it below, but I want to highlight a few passages that deserve careful reflection.

As a country, we have gathered this morning to pray for unity as a people and a nation—not for agreement, political or otherwise, but for the kind of unity that fosters community across diversity and division, a unity that serves the common good. Unity in this sense is a threshold requirement for people to live in freedom and together in a free society. It is the solid rock, as Jesus said, upon which to build a nation.

It is not conformity; it is not victory; it is not polite weariness or passive passivity born of exhaustion. Unity is not partisan. Rather, unity is a way of being with one another that encompasses and respects our differences, that teaches us to hold multiple perspectives and life experiences as valid and worthy of respect, that enables us in our communities and in the halls of power to genuinely care for one another even when we disagree….

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus of Nazareth exhorts us to love not only our neighbors but to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us, to be merciful as our God is merciful, to forgive others as God forgives us. And Jesus went out of his way to welcome those whom his society deemed as outcasts.

Now, I grant you that unity in this broad, expansive sense is aspirational, and it's a lot to pray for. It's a big ask of our God, worthy of the best of who we are and who we can be. But there isn't much to be gained by our prayers if we act in ways that further deepen the divisions among us. Our scriptures are quite clear about this—that God is never impressed with prayers when actions are not informed by them. Nor does God spare us from the consequences of our deeds, which always, in the end, matter more than the words we pray.

Those of us gathered here in the cathedral, we are not naive about the realities of politics when power and wealth and competing interests are at stake, when views of what America should be are in conflict, when there are strong opinions across a spectrum of possibilities and starkly different understandings of what the right course of action is. There will be winners and losers when votes are cast, decisions made that set the course of public policy and the prioritization of resources.

It goes without saying that in a democracy, not everyone's particular hopes and dreams can be realized in a given legislative session or a presidential term—not even in a generation—which is to say, not everyone's specific prayers (for those of us who are people of prayer) will be answered in the way we would like. But for some, the loss of their hopes and dreams will be far more than political defeat, but instead a loss of equality and dignity and their livelihoods.

Given this, then, is true unity among us even possible? And why should we care about it? Well, I hope we care. I hope we care because the culture of contempt that has become normalized in this country threatens to destroy us. We are all bombarded daily with messages from what sociologists now call the "outrage industrial complex," some of that driven by external forces whose interests are furthered by a polarized America. Contempt fuels political campaigns and social media, and many profit from that. But it's worrisome; it's a dangerous way to lead a country.

I am a person of faith, surrounded by people of faith, and with God's help, I believe that unity in this country is possible—not perfectly, for we are imperfect people and an imperfect union, but sufficient enough to keep us all believing in and working to realize the ideals of the United States of America, ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence with its assertion of innate human equality and dignity.

And we are right to pray for God's help as we seek unity, for we need God's help, but only if we ourselves are willing to tend to the foundations upon which unity depends. Like Jesus's analogy of building a house of faith on the rock of his teachings as opposed to building a house on sand, the foundations we need for unity must be sturdy enough to withstand the many storms that threaten it.

And so, what are they—the foundations of unity? Drawing from our sacred traditions and texts, let me suggest that there are at least three. The first foundation for unity is honoring the inherent dignity of every human being, which is, as all the faiths represented here affirm, the birthright of all people as children of our one God. In public discourse, honoring each other's dignity means refusing to mock or discount or demonize those with whom we differ, choosing instead to respectfully debate our differences and whenever possible to seek common ground.

We can share our convictions without contempt for those who hold convictions of their own. The second foundation for unity is honesty in both private conversation and public discourse. If we're not willing to be honest, there's no use in praying for unity because our actions work against the prayers themselves. We might for a time experience a false sense of unity among some, but not the sturdier, broader unity that we need to address the challenges that we face.

Now, to be fair, we don't always know where the truth lies, and there's a lot working against the truth. But when we do know, when we know what is true, it's incumbent upon us to speak the truth, even when, especially when, it costs us.

And the third and last foundation I'll mention today is humility, which we all need because we are all fallible human beings. We make mistakes; we say and do things that we later regret; we have our blind spots and our biases. And perhaps we are most dangerous to ourselves and others when we are persuaded without a doubt that we are absolutely right and someone else is absolutely wrong. Because then we are just a few steps from labeling ourselves as the good people versus the bad people. And the truth is that we're all people—we're both capable of good and bad.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn once astutely observed that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties, but right through every human heart—through all human hearts. And the more we realize this, the more room we have within ourselves for humility and openness to one another across our differences, because in fact, we are more like one another than we realize. And we need each other.

Immediately after the sermon, the president’s response was rather understated: “Not too exciting, was it? I didn’t think it was a good service, no….They can do, they can do much better.”

The response from MAGA loyalists, however, was scathing, in an utterly predictable way.

Republican Representative Mike Collins shared a clip of the sermon on X and wrote: “The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.”

Denny Burk, president of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, called Budde “a false teacher who has no authority or right to speak in the name of Jesus,” and added: “We don’t need [the president] to be led away from Christ by an apostate priestess usurping the pastoral office.”

According to Tony Perkins, Budde represented “the cause of America’s decline”: “What we heard today was not a prophetic voice from the church, but rather pathetic.”

Speaker Mike Johnson alleged that Bishop Budde had “hijacked the National Prayer Service to promote her radical ideology,” using the service “to sow division.” All of it was “Shameful.”

Charlie Kirk said Budde had wasted the honor she’d been given and the chance to unify the nation; “Instead, she disgraced herself with a lecture you’d hear on CNN or an episode of The View. What an embarrassment.”

Joe Rigney of Doug Wilson’s Christ Church and New Saint Andrews College got to the heart of the problem: “Women’s ordination is a cancer that unleases untethered empathy in the church (and spills over into society).”

Perhaps influenced by some of these responses, Trump upped his game, criticizing the “so-called Bishop,” calling her a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater,” and demanding an apology. “She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.” Also, the service was “boring and uninspiring.”

If Budde’s comments were “shameful,” “ungracious,” and sowing division by bringing her church into the world of politics, what sort of Christianity is acceptable to her critics?

We had a couple of clear examples this week. The first was Franklin Graham’s prayer at the inauguration.

He began by noting the dark times of the previous four years before turning to a celebratory note: “But look what God has done!” he said as he flashed a grin. What followed was a prayer linking Trump’s agenda with God’s, a prayer utterly lacking in humility: “Father, when Donald Trump’s enemies thought he was down and out, you and you alone saved his life, and raised him up with strength, and power, by your mighty hand. We pray for President Trump…that you shall watch over, protect, guide, direct him.” Graham thanked God, too, for Melania’s “beauty…warmth, and grace.” He prayed that God would bless Vance and help him to “hold up his arms like Aaron held up the arms of Moses in the midst of battle.” And he compared the nation under Trump to the people of Israel being led out of the land of Egypt: “We know that America can never be great again if we turn our backs on you.”

Or consider the prayer offered at Trump’s pre-inauguration “victory rally” by the Girls Gone Bible gals, Angela Halili and Arielle Reitsma. As David Corn at Mother Jones notes, the two actresses are known for their podcast where they talk about the Bible and “preach sobriety and modesty” while also “posting sexy snaps of themselves.”

In her opening, Halili riffed on the Lord’s Prayer in a Trump-specific way:

“Your kingdom come, Lord. Your will be done on Earth, as it is in heaven. In America, as it is in Heaven. In the life of President Donald Trump, as it is in heaven.”

Reitsma then thanked God for “choosing President Donald Trump as a vessel for your nation” and she prayed for divine protection of him:

“I pray that you will protect his mind and guard his heart. I pray that you will place a shield around our president, his family, and upon this nation….That when opposition comes his way, may you provide angelic protection.”

Halili closed by returning to the theme of God standing against Trump’s enemies:

“So President Trump, we set the name of the Lord upon you, and we declare that no weapon formed against you will prosper. That every tongue that rises up against you in judgement will be condemned. And if God be for you, who can be against you?”

The contrast between Budde and the MAGA Christians is stark. In an interview with the New York Times, Budde made clear that she does not believe that she speaks directly for God: “I’m saying, this is the best that I can do to understand and interpret what I believe our teachings and our scriptures and what the Holy Spirit might be wanting us to hear.”

In all of the disagreements over issues, I worry that this fundamental distinction is too often lost. We live in a polarized time, but that does not mean that there are always two sides that are essentially the same, facing off from across the divide.

Budde holds progressive social views. That should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the Episcopal Church or anyone who has read her work. But how does she hold those views, and how does she see her faith connected to her political convictions?

In her own words (and in her actions), she makes this clear. She does not confuse her attempts to obey God with guaranteed victory. She is careful not to confuse her judgment with God’s will. She attempts to honor the dignity of others, tell the truth, and remain humble, reminding all of us, herself included, that the line that runs between good and evil runs through every human heart—not between nations, political parties, or Christians and non-Christians.

These core values—respecting others’ dignity, telling the truth, and acting with humility—are neither inherently conservative nor liberal. Yet today, some of the loudest Christian voices are advancing a religious and political agenda that undermines each of these, one that distorts core Christian teachings beyond recognition and weaponizes the faith.

We are entering an unsettled time. As I mention frequently in interviews when the subject comes up, the ideology of Christian nationalism thrives on an us-vs.-them mentality. The greatest threat to the Christian nationalist agenda is in fact Christians themselves. Christians who hold to these core principles, who refuse to endorse hate, mockery, lies, and division.

If you share the Christian faith, I hope that wherever you land on any array of political issues, you can remain centered around these core values, even as the political winds will make it increasingly difficult to do so.

And remember, there are more of us than there are of them. But we need to stand together in this, grounded in our convictions, courageous under fire, and showing solidarity with others who carry this burden on our behalf.

**We’ll no doubt be discussing this in our live Convocation Unscripted this afternoon at 5pm ET. If you’d like to join us, register here: