The schoolmarmy, divisive lecture of President Trump by Christian apostate Mariann Edgar Budde at the National Cathedral on Inauguration Day has deservedly gone viral. Much virtual ink has been spilled over comments she made about illegal aliens, homosexuals, and cross-sex masqueraders. I forced myself to watch the entire sermon, insufferably delivered with maximum facial theatrics by the cunning Budde. This was the least genuine speech I’ve seen since anything delivered by Kamala Harris.
The muddled thesis of Budde’s barely disguised philippic was that unity is the necessary foundation of America. But there’s muddled text, and then there’s subtext.
In her muddled text, Budde defined the prayer goals of attendees:
[W]e have gathered this morning to pray 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.
Is Budde referring to a shared commitment to the idea that there exist self-evident truths, including that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
As a Democrat donor, dyed-in-the-wool lefty and longtime Trump critic, it’s likely she has something else in mind that she’s intentionally trying to obscure.
Furthermore, given her ardent support for the legalized slaughter of the unborn—created in the image and likeness of God by God—and her heretical belief in the sinlessness of homosexual acts, sexually undifferentiated faux-marriage, and crossdressing, it seems likely that her view of the “common good” is radically different from that of many Americans.
Following a murky introduction about what exactly she was praying for, Budde then wandered theologically awry, claiming that the unity for which she prays “is the solid rock, as Jesus said, in this case upon which to build a nation.” Say what?
Jesus never said unity is the solid rock on which to build anything. Jesus–not unity—is the solid rock upon which the church is built. Jesus said this too:
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
The only unity Jesus urges is unity in repentance and submission to his lordship.
Budde then lets the scraggly cat out of the bag, defining the kind of unity she believes the country should pray for—a unity antithetical to the Scriptures she implies order her life:
Unity is a way of being with one another, that it encompasses and respects our differences, that teaches us to hold multiple perspectives and life experiences as valid and worthy of respect.
Jesus does not want his people—those who choose to repent and turn their lives over to him—to view all perspectives as valid or to respect all differences.
On the contrary, God of the Old Testament and New calls his followers to “Judge with righteous judgment,” to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,” and to “abhor what is evil.” There are beliefs, ideas, perspectives, and acts that Christians should judge and hate.
Moreover, Budde doesn’t follow her own purported commitment to unity as she defines it. She doesn’t view all perspectives as valid. She doesn’t respect, which means to hold in esteem, all differences.
Budde continued in her dishonest explication of Scripture saying that “Jesus went out of his way to welcome those whom his society deemed as outcasts.”
Budde omitted the most significant aspect of Jesus’ “welcome.” In love, Jesus welcomed all—Jews, Gentiles, men, women, children, and outcasts to repent. Jesus said, “unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”
Budde claimed that “there isn’t much to be gained by our prayers if we act in ways that further deepen the divisions among us.” While “unity” in the body politic seems to be Budde’s highest value—at least, as we would see, to the extent that unity is based on capitulation to leftist beliefs, it is not God’s.
Jesus commissioned his followers to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” That is what Christians must do, and teaching all that Christ commands will divide.
While acknowledging that in democracy, not everyone’s prayers will be answered in the way they want, Budde implies some people’s prayers are more deserving, more important, than others:
Not everyone’s prayers 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.
She soon made clear the subtext swimming in this murky text.
The more deserving prayers are those of illegal immigrants and those who place the sins of homosexuality and crossdressing at the center of their identities:
Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. … In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in both Republican, Democrat, and independent families, some who fear for their lives.
And the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in our poultry farms and meat-packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shift in hospitals—they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.
Budde is correct. The hopes and dreams of those who broke laws to enter America may be lost, but as lawmakers of all parties say, America is a nation of laws.
People who are in America “without proper documentation” are breaking our immigration laws and, therefore, are criminals. Sympathy for their lost dreams does not require Americans to allow lawbreaking.
And commitments to equality do not require Americans to cease acknowledging and honoring the reality and meaning of biological sex. Commitments to equality demand that we treat like things alike. Men and women are not identical things, and in some situations, differences between boys and girls, men and women matter.
Acknowledging those differences doesn’t put any child in danger. If “transgender” children fear for their lives, it’s a darn good thing we’re a nation of laws that protect all children who have reason to fear for their lives.
Maybe leftists should stop terrorizing children who experience gender dysphoria by telling them that conservatives hate them. Maybe leftists should stop telling the world that theologically orthodox biblical beliefs on sexuality constitute hatred of persons.
In a post-rebuke interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Budde described her sermonizing as a “one-on-one conversation with the president.” She then said, “I speak what I believe I’ve been given to say. … One of the things I was trying to get across is that we can have these conversations in a respectful way.”
I’m not sure who exactly gave her those things to say in her sermon, but I have a guess.
I am sure, however, that her sermon was not a conversation; it wasn’t one-on-one; it wasn’t respectful; and it wasn’t kind.
Budde’s malformed theology, which informs her politics, is well-known and widely available online. It is inexcusable that she was invited to deliver the sermon on this special occasion. Someone’s head should roll for this boneheaded decision.