Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Open Letter to Rev. Budde (Sent)

The Right Reverend Marian Edgar Budde

Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC

Dear Rev. Budde:

     While my opinion means little in the grand scheme of things, I feel I'd be remiss in my responsibilities as a patriotic American in a nation whose Democratic Republic is now on life support if I didn't personally applaud you for your words to "President" Donald J. Trump at the National Cathedral.
     This is the first time I've ever written to a religious leader because, frankly, I've been an atheist my entire life. Nonetheless, I have managed for the most part to lead what some would call a Christian life. I believe it was Dr. Richard Dawkins who'd once famously said (and I'm paraphrasing him) that adopting Christian tenets in one's life does not require a Christian belief system or religion. Myself, I'm of the opinion that leading a moral and supposedly Christian life and appending religion to the mix is like driving a car with a fifth wheel.
     I try to adopt the Christian virtues of charity, humility and compassion (which are often called upon, resulting in my middling efforts to help the homeless here in Phoenix, Arizona, of which there are many) when dealing with others who are even less fortunate than me without attaching to it a belief in a Supreme Being whose existence is easily confounded if not outright disproven by critical thinking and a layman's grasp of logical deduction.
     Having said that, your sermon from the pulpit at the National Cathedral days ago received worldwide attention both positive and negative. Let it be known that even those of us who do not share your religious values, in some cases, fellow atheists, loudly applaud you for speaking truth to power. If I were to suddenly abandon my atheistic values and place my spiritual salvation in the hands of any person of the cloth, it would be to either one of the Universalist Unitarians, a heavily secular denomination, or yours.
     What you'd said to Trump from behind the pulpit was something that needed to be said from a person of immense moral authority such as yourself, as no one else in your profession seems willing to walk into the Lion's Den. Your pleas to the new administration pleading for compassion and charity toward the poor and the migrants who have been immediately kept from crossing the border for immigration hearings fell on deaf ears.
     Donald Trump's face during your sermon showed he was bored and that he was only there at the National Cathedral for a photo op to show religious bona fides that simply do not exist. When you called for charity for the poor, "Vice President" JD Vance, who ought to have his hobo-bearded face next to the DSM-V entry for "sociopathy", turned to Trump and laughed. Compare Donald Trump's reaction to your sermon to that of the former House Speaker John Boehner, who was moved to tears while His Holiness Pope Francis spoke before the United States Congress (the Speaker resigned the very next day).
     Because to people of their ilk and political stripe, calls for "malice toward none, with charity for all", to quote our 16th president in his second inaugural address, is a punchline that's out of step with the realities of the world. And perhaps they have a point. Because, in the worldview of men like Donald Trump and JD Vance and those who blindly follow them, there are the Haves and Have Nots, with a vanishingly small middle class they also loathe between them. To quote Adam Serwer in a now famous article for the Atlantic, "the cruelty is the point".
     And Trump's midnight jeremiad against you showed you and the world what his brand of "Christianity" consists of: venality and retribution toward any who even mildly criticize him or even appear to. He lobbed attacks against you, called you boring, a Socialist, dishonest and unfit for the pulpit. He automatically defaulted to personal attacks against you because he knew he had nothing with which to counter your gentle counseling. In short, regardless of your intention not to do so, you embarrassed him. And, to a thin-skinned sociopath like Donald Trump, that is the unholiest of transgressions.
     The immense power of your pulpit and the amplification it gives your voice put him on notice that his jaundiced version of Christianity has not a single thing in common with the teachings of the Bible or any holy book. Don't forget, this is the same man who on June 1, 2020 used the police to violently displace nonviolent BLM protesters so he could safely walk across the street so he could have himself photographed awkwardly holding an upside down Bible he did not own in front of St. John's, a place at which he's never once worshiped. This is the same man who'd, when taking the oath of office last Monday, pointedly refused to place his hand upon the Bibles held up by his wife, even though one of them was a Bible used by the aforementioned President Lincoln for his Inaugural in 1861.
     There is nothing even remotely Christian about Donald Trump and even a blind man could see that. He cynically courts the evangelical vote because he's just smart enough to realize they make up a full quarter of the electorate and that it is impossible to win the presidency without it. Still, many believers gloss over and ignore his countless failures.
     You did not.
     And, like the back bencher junior high cheerleaders they are, several in Trump's orbit, like his spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt and aspiring man of God Franklin Graham, have lined up behind the head cheerleader, Trump, to add to the chorus of venal and puerile sneers.
     But these moral maladroits are not the ones to whom you should be listening. It is not succumbing to an echo chamber to listen only to the ones who support and commend you with full-throated praise. When your sermon went viral moments after you'd delivered it, those of us who are well-versed in the wiles and methods of the Evil One knew what to expect. And, sure enough, it came to pass. MAGA is outraged, as they are in the face of anything that does not equate to unconditional capitulation. Yet this was special because of your high position in the Beltway's religious hierarchy. It was akin to the Archbishop of Canterbury taking the Prime Minister to task during a high service. And, outraging the MAGA movement is not necessarily a bad thing.
     Reverend, I don't think you need me to tell you to literally and figuratively keep the faith. You are a woman of very uncommon integrity and common sense. Hopefully, your sermon will prove to be the first in a cascade of criticism aimed at Donald Trump, who is simply a one man crime wave and the most evil and shameless sociopath in human history without analog.

Respectfully yours,
Robert Crawford

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