Apologies for another Trump-related post, but this is a perfect example of speaking truth to power:
I admire the minister's courage.
Her message was appropriate.
Trump's reaction was predictable, but it tells us what we knew: he is here to stalk the vulnerable, bully the oppressed and spread misery among the many.
This man is no Christian, and nor are those who support him.
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I call many of his ‘Christian’ supporters ‘CINOs’. Christians in Name Only.
Very good
@ Ian Stevenson: Or, in the words of the founder of the religion, ‘false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inward they are ravening wolves’.
Good point.
I think Tim, they didn’t bother too much with the clothing this time.
I could see the Mammon lego quite clearly.
Matthew 6 v24 “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
That’s most Christians is America.
What a bloody ignoramus – him not the minister. Someone like the minister should be President. The world would be much improved.
Sorry, I should have paid closer attention. The lady is a Bishop not a minister.
Sadly falling on deaf ears
Our small political group that meets each Sunday had a vote on “what will Trump be like”. Two favoured full-on-adolf-hitler” the other two that he would be not so bad. All the indications are that Trump will follow the Nazi playbook. Enabling laws have already been announced.
Where things differ this time around is that some Christian churches may not play ball in the way that, for example, the nazi pope of the 1940s did wrt AH. That said, there is no doubt that a large section of US religious sects regard Trump as the next messia & these are the ones with the numbers.
The juxtaposition of the religious context with the manifest corruption on display is somewhat overwhelming.
We know that the Right, the Rich and Reich’s tend claim God for themselves.
Trump’s petulance – he’s so pathetic, he can’t help it because at the bottom of him, there is class.
If I was in charge of this country, I’d give that minister a knighthood – just to piss Trump off. That was a truly brave moment that was, truly brave and dignified. Religion perhaps at its best.
Agreed
That was your 9,000th comment
@Pilgrim Slight Return
“That was your 9,000th comment”
Please post 9,000 more comments!
You keep posting and I will keep reading!
Congratulations!
Will be henceforth be known as “Pilgrim, fully returned?’
9,000!! Sorry………………it’s just that your blog is interesting.
8,999 too many perhaps – and a typo too – ‘should have said ‘no class’ – that is the challenge of using a mobile phone on a train when posting.
American evangelicals have been on this dangerous road for a LONG time. The capture of the Southern Baptist Convention by the political right happened at least 25 years ago, with Richard Land, one of the things that resulted in the late President Jimmy Carter parting company with them. So now they have Trump, and the Proud Boys and Trumps “Christian” MAGA supporters can identify as “Christian” without much actual loyalty to a particular church or moral code, and a genuine hostility to the US constitution’s separation of church and state.
When Christians flirt with power, they cease to follow their founder. But again and again, we do it.
Shame on us.
Meanwhile, here in the UK, shamefully IMHO, evangelical Christianity continues to sit on the fence, as fascism grows in influence, and felons in high office flout the rule of law. It’s the DeutscheKristen in 1930’s Germany all over again, and we know what that led to.
This worries me.
Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, who gacve that sermon, was playing the role of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Unfortunately she will not be listened to by many evangelicals both sides of the Atlantic because “orthodoxy” on matters of sexual issues trumps being true to the Bible’s teaching on injustice, oppression, poverty and mercy.
(Strangely enough the President and his political friends aren’t expected to bother about sexual morality or any other sort of morality, after all, King Cyrus could be “God’s anointed” even though he was a pagan king, so Trump, who is regarded by many as another Cyrus, can be a convicted felon and a sex pest, and still have pastors praying over him and thereby endorsing his cruelty.)
Yes, I’m worried too. He will have his revenge on her, and we should dust off our books on Bonhoeffer.
Much to agree with
Trump has lined her up in someone’s gunsights: “the so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater … she and her church owe the public an apology!”
She’s my sort of bishop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfygwFwUsIc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCqk-vG31wI
Two films about Bonhoeffer
Thanks
I have seen them both
As well as dusting off Bonhoeffer, perhaps also have a look at this story.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Schneider_(pastor)
Pastor Schneider was martyred in the summer of 1939 BEFORE the outbreak of war after many years of resisting the Nazis.
One of my most precious books is a little biography of him published a v long time ago by SCM Press. It’s falling apart now, I have never managed to read it without weeping and I am incapable of reading it aloud.
I must confess I am not shocked by Trump. I agree with others that he is a WYSIWYG version of what has been going on for decades, and it is happening here too.
Perhaps because I spent my early adult life reading about characters like Richard Wurmbrand (Romania), Archbishop Lewum (Uganda), Oscar Romero (San Salvador), “The Heavenly Man” (China), those martyred on a Libyan beach by Daesh, I have no illusions about the toxic power of the state or any all powerful institution, even the church itself. The state is not fated to be corrupt or evil, but it very often is, whatever flag or ideology it drapes its power in, left, right, secular or religious.
But it isn’t MEANT to be like that. And it needn’t be.
KUTGW!
Much to agree with, and thank you
She spoke truth. She stood up for the persecuted. Brave woman. If only we could all really love our neighbour.
Well said, Richard. The minister is a person of moral strength standing up to authoritarian power.
A good book on this topic was written by Chris Hedges called Christian Fascists and he has a similar world view as Richard (and mine) which is quite negative
I am not negative
But I see the threats
Here is the full text of the Bishop’s sermon that the President has demanded an apology for.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/24/bishop-mariann-edgar-budde-sermon-that-enraged-donald-trump
My question for Trump and any “Christian” who supports him is, which bits do you disagree with?
Declaration of interest.
I am a follower of Jesus.
I profoundly, rationally, spiritually and viscerally disagree with Trump.
I am only Christocentric (a Quaker term) but I also profoundly disagree with Trump.