Bishop Budde's sermon and TEC's progressive partisanship

As Bishop Budde reached the conclusion of her sermon at the Inauguration service of prayer in the National Cathedral she said:

Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you and, as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy. The unborn children of our land should have their dignity recognised as those created in the image of God. Our God teaches us that we are to cherish life in the womb, for we were all once carried in our mothers' wombs. The unborn child should find welcome and compassion. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen.

Of course, this was not what Bishop Budde said in her sermon. If she had said this, the adulation heaped upon her by progressives - religious and secular - in recent days would have been replaced by outrage from the very same people. There would have been no "Trump Seethes as Bishop Calls Him Out in Heartfelt Plea" headline in The New Republic. Progressives would not have been eagerly sharing the sermon on social media. And there would have been no fawning posts from Church of England clergy asking Bishop Budde to consider becoming Archbishop of Canterbury (as if it is highly unusual for Church of England bishops to attack Conservative governments on immigration policy).

What, however, is the difference between Bishop Budde's call in the National Cathedral and a sermon at such a civic service for a presidential inauguration calling for mercy for the unborn? The Scriptures and the Christian moral tradition do indeed call for mercy towards the alien and stranger. And the Scriptures and the Christian moral tradition also teach the sanctity of life in the womb: there we are known to God, loved by God, and called by God. The difference between the two stances, of course, is progressive support for the former and progressive indignation at the latter. One stance is permitted in sermons by progressive opinion: the other is rejected as a divisive reactionary view, entirely inappropriate for a sermon by an Episcopal bishop at a civic service.

The illustrates how the sermon was clearly partisan. It did not challenge Right and Left. It did not rebuke the Left for failing to heed the moral vision of the Scriptures; its only interest was in rebuking the Right. It did not call progressives as well as conservatives to examine their values and policies in light of God's exhortation to exercise mercy: it addressed this call only to conservatives and only to a policy area that conservatives are seeking to address. 

When the bishop in question is clearly identified with progressive causes, and belongs to a denomination which is clearly identified with progressive causes, is it any wonder that the sermon is regarded as blatantly partisan?

Let us now consider Bishop Budde's words regarding the immigration debate:

The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they – 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.

This is a clear statement of policy, a call for the continuation of the status quo in immigration. It is saying that immigration law should not apply to such people. It is saying that the US economy is too dependent on such people for immigration law to be upheld.  As it happens, I think a very good and persuasive political and economic case can be made for this view. But it is not the job of a preacher at a civic service to provide policy recommendations.  That is the vocation of those who govern and legislate: a bishop has no standing, specialist insight, or expertise on matters of public policy. Exercising prudence in assessing the various and conflicting political, legal, and economic assessments of illegal immigration is not for a bishop in the pulpit: it is nothing less than straightforward clericalism to think otherwise. 

What, then, of Bishop Budde's concluding call for mercy?

I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.

It is indeed right, from a Christian perspective, that those who govern and uphold the law do so with mercy. In the Coronation Rite in the United Kingdom, the Archbishop of Canterbury addresses the sovereign:

Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgements?

Mercy does not replace law, for that would be unjust. Law is to be upheld with mercy. Bishop Budde's sermon lacked any notion whatsoever of the vocation and duty of the civil magistrate to uphold the law and thus secure the commonwealth. The civil magistrate upholding the law with mercy does not mean abandoning the rule of law. The civil magistrate upholding the law with mercy does not mean undermining the peace and security of the commonwealth.

The difficult moral decisions involved in the duty of government are why Christian liturgies pray for those who govern - and why bishops do not make public policy pronouncements from the pulpit. Governing a nation involves weighing political options, security threats, economic assessments, and legal opinions far beyond the knowledge and competency of a bishop.

How is immigration law to be upheld without having painful consequences for some families? Can those "fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands" always be guaranteed "to find compassion and welcome here" when there are grave security concerns involved? Again, such matters are far beyond a bishop's knowledge or competency. Rather, these weighty and difficult decisions are the responsibility of those who govern.

Finally, Bishop Budde's sermon took no cognizance whatsoever of the legitimate concerns within the United States regarding immigration and its management. The failure to do so only emphasises the deeply partisan nature of the sermon. For all of TEC's much vaunted commitment to inclusivity, the sermon indicated a haughty rejection of some of the poorest communities in the United States and their concerns. As Bishop Philip North has previously spoken of the same haughty progressivism in the Church of England:

The Church’s agenda is being set not by the poor, but by academia, the moneyed elites, and certain sections of the secular media. It is their preoccupations that dictate the terms of the Church’s debate, and that pose the questions that it expends its energy on answering. We then listen to the poor on condition that what they say backs up our own pre-conceived argu­ments. They have become for us an illustration, or a theological idea — anything other than people.

We should not forget that Bishop Budde's sermon was delivered in the National Cathedral, which proudly refers to itself as 'A House of Prayer for All People' - unless, it seems, one happens to be a working-class Republican voter with concerns about immigration. 

The Bishop's sermon was yet another sign that TEC institutionally desires to be a sectarian sect for progressive opinion, despite 1/3rd of Episcopalians voting GOP. It would not be surprising if the National Cathedral ceases to be the location for future civic services at the inauguration of a Republican president: why would Republicans accept it as a future location when the ideological, partisan hostility towards conservatives is explicit? Indeed, it appears to be the case that a section of opinion in TEC would welcome such an outcome: after all, it means TEC would not have to pretend to be interested in hosting evil deplorables. The same prejudices would, we might assume, accept this leading to TEC's presence in conservative regions of the United States reducing even further.

Perhaps the most tragic aspect of this affair is that the Trump administration and its supporters do need to hear a theologically meaningful challenge to some of their rhetoric around immigration policy. The presidential campaign demonstrated this. Likewise, those responsible for immigration policy in the Trump administration need to hear a coherent, convincing Christian view that immigration law - as with any law - is to be applied with mercy; that the provisions of the law and its enforcement are to be fair and equitable, not intending to demean those who must face sanction under the law. Instead of this, Bishop Budde's sermon was a partisan progressive statement and this ensured it did not gain a hearing from the very people who needed to hear it. Progressives enthusiastically sharing the sermon on social media is evidence of this abject failure.

To prepare a sermon for a civic service knowing that it will receive enthusiastic endorsement from those who share your ideological perspective, while only angering the other side of the political divide, is a sure sign that you should not be preaching at that civic service. But when those of the other party and their supporters are only evil deplorables, why worry?

UPDATE 25.1.25

According to an Episcopal News Service report of 21.1.2017, Bishop Budde, referring to the National Cathedral prayer service at the first Trump inauguration, said that the service was "not the occasion that we will use to address particular issues of policy or concerns we might have about the direction he’s taking the country".