Showing posts with label Mariann Budde. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mariann Budde. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Washington bishop, interfaith leaders oppose Trump militarization of DC: ‘Fear is not a strategy’; Episcopal News Network (EPN), August 13, 2025

ENS Staff, Episcopal News Network (EPN); Washington bishop, interfaith leaders oppose Trump militarization of DC: ‘Fear is not a strategy’

 "Washington Bishop Mariann Budde and Washington National Cathedral Dean Randy Hollerith on Aug. 13 joined a group of Christian and Jewish leaders from the nation’s capitol to issue a statement opposing the Trump administration’s temporary federal takeover of the city’s law enforcement, saying, “fear is not a strategy.”

President Donald Trump has said he is deploying National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., because he is unsatisfied with the local police force’s protection of a city he says is “overrun by violent gangs, bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people.” That move, however, comes at a time when the most recent statistics show crime rates are down in Washington, and local officials there have not asked for military assistance.

The president’s administration is able temporarily to take over law enforcement in the city of 700,000 people because of its special status under the U.S. Constitution and the Home Rule Act of 1973, a law originally intended by Congress to give the city more independence from the federal government.

“From the White House, the president sees a lawless wasteland. We beg to differ. We see fellow human beings – neighbors, workers, friends and family – each made in the image of God,” the faith leaders said in their joint statement, which is posted on the National Cathedral’s website. In addition to Budde and Hollerith, it is signed by six Washington rabbis, the region’s United Methodist bishop, and local leaders of the Presbyterian Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

“Even one violent crime is one too many, and all Washingtonians deserve to live in safety,” they said. “But safety cannot be achieved through political theater and military force. It requires honesty and sustained collaboration between government, civic and private partners – work now being sidelined. Inflammatory rhetoric distracts from that work, even as the administration has cut more than $1 billion from programs proven to reduce crime, including law enforcement support, addiction and mental health treatment, youth programs, and affordable housing.”

They also noted that Trump has threatened to attempt similar military interventions in other U.S. cities.

“As religious leaders, we remain firm in our commitment to serve those in need and to work collaboratively toward solutions to our city’s most pressing problems. We call on our political and civic leaders to reject fear-based governance and work together in a spirit of dignity and respect – so that safety, justice, and compassion prevail in our city.”"

Monday, February 3, 2025

What happens after you ask Trump to ‘have mercy’? Threats, praise and hope.; The Washington Post, February 2, 2025

 , The Washington Post; What happens after you ask Trump to ‘have mercy’? Threats, praise and hope.

"Last month, Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Oklahoma) introduced a resolution calling for the House to recognize Budde’s sermon as a “display of political activism and condemning its distorted message.”

Budde, according to the resolution, promoted “political bias instead of advocating the full counsel of biblical teaching.”

On Sunday, after the service, she pondered the lawmaker’s action.

“It isn’t political activism for a pastor to ask for mercy,” she said. “It is an expression of Christian faith and the teachings of Jesus.”"

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

The Mercy Pulpit & The Sermon Heard Around the World; Religion News Service (RNS), Complexified, January 27, 2025

Jonathan WoodwardReligion News Service (RNS), Complexified Podcast; The Mercy Pulpit & The Sermon Heard Around the World

"God and Trump collide

In a week of political and religious tension, sparks flare at the National Cathedral. Host Amanda Henderson and RNS Executive Editor Roxanne Stone delve into how this sermon—calling for mercy and justice—reshaped the national discourse and exposed the fractures between competing Christianities. From Trump’s invocation of divine authority to the shifting influence of evangelical power, they explore how faith and politics are shaping America’s identity and future."

Some Protestants Felt Invisible. Then Came Bishop Budde.; The New York Times, January 26, 2025

Ruth Graham and , The New York Times; Some Protestants Felt Invisible. Then Came Bishop Budde.

"It was the first Sunday since a fellow Episcopalian, Bishop Mariann E. Budde, delivered a sermon that many observers heard as an echo of passages like the one from Luke. Speaking at a prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington the day after President Trump’s inauguration, she faced the president and made a direct plea: “Have mercy.”

After the service, Mr. Trump called Bishop Budde a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater” in a social media post. His foes immediately hailed her as an icon of the resistance. But for many progressive Christians and their leaders, the confrontation was more than a moment of political catharsis. It was about more than Mr. Trump. It was an eloquent expression of basic Christian theology, expressed in an extraordinarily public forum...

“A plea for mercy, a recognition of the stranger in our midst, is core to the faith,” Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, the Episcopal Church’s top clerical leader, said in an interview. “It is radical, given the order of the world around us — it is countercultural — but it’s not bound to political ideology.”...

The clergy members addressed it directly in their sermons, too. At Church of the Transfiguration, the associate rector, the Rev. Ted Clarkson, acknowledged to the congregation that aspects of the bishop’s sermon might have been “hard to hear.” But “mercy is truth,” he said, “and I expect a bishop to preach the truth.” (Bishop Budde preached on Sunday at a church in Maryland.)...

Bishop Budde’s message seemed to be resonating beyond the usual audience for Sunday sermons.

Her most recent book, “How We Learn to Be Brave,” was listed as temporarily out of stock on Amazon Friday afternoon. At that time, the book was No. 4 on the site’s list of best-sellers, 11 spots above Vice President JD Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.” 

The publisher of Bishop Budde’s book, Avery, an imprint of Penguin Books, was scrambling to reprint “a significant number of books,” said Tracy Behar, Avery’s president and publisher."