Imagine this: The Episcopal Bishop of Washington, D.C. spoke directly to Trump and his family at the National Prayer Service and called on him to be more like Jesus. Trump found this admonition very insulting and called on her to apologize. Maybe he will sign an executive order commanding her apology.
He will have to find a different church, one where hatred, vengeance, and cruelty are celebrated.
This is a corker of a post. It was written by Evan Hurst at Wonkette.
Donald Trump had a bad, failed day yesterday, which is too bad for him because you never get back the second day of your second term in office. Poof, gone. Only 1459 to go! Will they be failures too? Probably.
There was a prayer service at the National Cathedral on Tuesday, and Trump and Melania attended (this time not dressed as the Babadook), along with JD and Usha Vance and members of the Trump crime family and all kinds of others. And one of America’s greatest heroes, Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopalian bishop for Washington DC, decided to speak truth to power, softly and carrying a big stick, and that stick was J-E-S-U-S.
(That’s right, go with it, Jesus was a stick. “Go find the Lord!” you could say if you threw it for your dog. “Where did he go? Go get him!”)
Silliness aside, what Budde did was use her homily to ask this man, this vile, foul man, this Stupid Hitler of a man, this 34-times-convicted felon of a man, this pathetic grievance monkey child of a man, this amoral clown, to have mercy on the vulnerable.
You know, like Jesus would.
Here is some video:

Mediaite provides this long block quote:
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 upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives. And the people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking 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. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogue, wadara and temples. 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. 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, good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen.
Oh man, she really stepped in it, didn’t she? She showed Jesus to those Nazis and asked them to have mercy on people who are scared.
Nazis hate it when you show them Jesus.
Trump is DEMANDING an apology. Can you believe the nerve of that insolent woke bitch bishop exhorting him to love his neighbor?

“Nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.” “A very boring and uninspiring” service! Yeah, we bet there were some tiny-handed little tyrants in first-century Nazareth who sounded like that too. Wonder what they were convicted of 34 times….
In response, Sean Hannity had this little tantrum about it last night:
“Despite a landslide victory in the fall for Donald Trump, the left is still vowing to resist the president with the same level of drama, hysteria that we’ve all come to expect. This morning, a so-called bishop politicizing an inaugural prayer service. Instead of offering a benediction for our country, for our president, she goes on the far-left, woke tirade in front of Donald Trump and JD Vance, their families, their young children. She made the service about her very own deranged political beliefs with a disgraceful prayer full of fearmongering and division.”
Oh no, won’t somebody think of JD Vance’s children, hearing stories about Jesus, and probably being like “Wow, that sure doesn’t sound like my dad!”
Also bless Hannity’s heart, jerking himself and his president off by calling it a “landslide.” We all know the truth. (Almost nobody watched the inauguration by the way, 27 percent fewer than Joe Biden’s.)
You can hear the sermon here.

The first hero quietly standing up to the tRump hate fest!
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Ask a corkscrew dictator to be nice to children, and what do you get?
Trumpdump, and he probably wasn’t even in the bathroom.
Also, what’s this about rapists crossing the border? That was probably Trump or his recent cabinet selection trying to get out.
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The Orange Turd will one day meet his maker and will have to answer for his actions. The Episcopal Bishop provided an important lesson for all of us. Stand up and be heard in the face of pure evil. Reminds me of a wonderful hymn
Be not afraid
I go before you always
Come, follow me and I will give you rest
And blessed are your poor
For the kingdom shall be theirs
Blest are you that weep and mourn
For one day you shall laugh
And if wicked men insult and hate you
All because of me
Blessed, blessed are you
Be not afraid
I go before you always
Come, follow me and I will give you rest
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She should apologize to all of us for not ripping the podium out of the floor and throwing it directly into the audience. . . . oh, well, . . . I exaggerate, but you know what I mean.
But really, folks, the across-the-board impaired president refers to a credentialed bishop as “so-called.” HA HA HA HA!
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Are his own credentials in doubt?
How many votes did he steal?
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I didn’t say Trump’s credentials are in doubt–but I think they are. I just didn’t want to go into a (deserved) list and lengthy explanation.
I know this: I would NOT feel very good about myself if I “won” anything, and especially the highest office in the land of the United States of America, only because I had lied to, intimidated, or bribed most of my constituents, and kept close company with the rest, some of who are rich while all of them are shorted-out power-loving sycophants.
But “across the board impaired” covers it, in my view. There is no good argumentation to be had any more–it’s all just more BS from the master BS-er and then the pooper-scoopers running behind the horses in the sicko parade.
Everybody saw what happened on J6, and yet Trump says he loves cops more than any president that ever was. Who are these people who believe that shit? If “we” are awake (woke), which I am proud of, then the other half of the country is either brain dead, insane, or a bunch of sticky cult follower, or a trifecta of all three. There’s no other choice to be had. Certainly: “reasonable” is out of the picture altogether. CBK
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We learned after 2016 that lying is what Trump does.
MAGA did not. Trump will take care of the billionaires and give MAGA empty gestures like renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
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Diane: Every time I hear “MAGA” or “Trumpism” I think of the movie Fahrenheit 451 . . . Julie Christie sitting with her airhead friends in front of a TV wall screen staring at a man talking to the camera, while her husband jumps on a firewagon rushing to burn down a house (with a woman in it) where they have the guts to keep a library. CBK
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Another question:
How many Never Trump votes did FELON47 [his MAGA loyalists election workers did the work], deliberately make disappear with a focus on all seven battle ground states?
Election workers are being bombarded with death threats, the U.S. government says | PBS News
How many election workers quit their jobs due to those threats and ended up being replaced with fascist MAGA loyalist?
Another strategy FELON47 learned from his long dead Nazi mentors.
When Trump claims Hillary or Biden cheated, we know Trump is the one who cheated.
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Lloyd: I think that’s KEY to recognize and say–they already know it. CBK
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Lloyd,
You are so right. Trump accuses others falsely of what he does.
That’s one reason I’m convinced that he rigged the election.
The best rig is one that leaves no traces.
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The ‘so called bishop’ annoyed him because she is out of his reach..he can’t fire her..I suspect that he also resents being upbraided by a mere woman..
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And called upon to take heed of the words of Jesus. He claims to be a favorite of God. Which one?
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Why do they keep claiming a landslide? He did not even receive 50% of the vote?? Again, his true colors shown through – discredit and name call anyone who does not share his views! What a selfish, cruel family!
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Why? Because Trump lies as other people breathe. And everyone around him echoes whatever he says.
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The Bishop’s prayer was inspiring and hit the target. The comments by Evan Hurst were hateful and mean. Quite the conquest.
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This blog supports religious figures intervening in political discussions and lecturing Presidents – but only when those figures are promoting left-wing causes. What would you all say about a Catholic priest telling President Harris to her face that she should respect the sanctity of all human life, including the unborn?
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Kamala Harris is not Catholic.
Joe Biden is and he was frequently denied communion. He justified his support for women’s rights by accepting that he could live by his convictions but shoukd not impose them on others.
Why should a Catholic tell a non-Catholic how to live their life?
Why shouldn’t an Episcopal Bishop lecture about the lessons of Jesus? His teachings are not in question.
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Donald Trump is at best a surface Christian, as genuinely Christian as Harris is Catholic – i.e. not at all. The point remains that you frequently criticize religious leaders who disagree with your far Left opinions. You have written that the legal opinions of the SCOTUS justices who are Catholic are often not valid because those opinions are tainted by their religious beliefs. You support religion being used to advance political beliefs – but only so long as those beliefs are left-wing. In any case, I prefer that no clergy speak at inauguration events.
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When did simple human decency and compassion–the gravamen of Christian ethics, I submit–become a “left-wing cause”?
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Samantha Johnson: I would say (and Kamala perhaps would say) that I respect the sanctity of all human life, including the unborn; but I also respect a woman’s agency as well as one’s freedom of religious affiliation and their right to choose.
Another oversight in your note is that I would say that a Catholic priest or any religious figure from any religion, if they have the chance as this one did, can and should lecture presidents all they want. They even might influence policy in doing so, but they do not write or enforce the laws . . . so, only through the means provided for anyone, and not through force or bribery or any kind of “making deals.”
Project 25? Welcome to Margaret Atwood’s world. CBK
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If you believe that the United States in 2025 is anywhere close to being Margaret Atwood’s world you are loony even by the standards of this blog. BTW, are any Islamic countries like the Atwood world? Be careful: admitting that fact publicly will be regarded by your tribe as Islamophobic.
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Samantha Johnson: We’ve seen it before. To fail to recognize it as a slippery slope in our time now, is to keep one’s head in the sand of history. Good luck with that. CBK
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Geez, Samantha, I was criticized just a couple of days ago for defending a writer who complained about the tyranny of Iran’s misogynist mullahs. Now you say that no one here dare speak a word that criticizes that same tyranny? I think you should read here more often.
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BTW, Samantha Johnson, I said Project 25, not the year 2025. If I had my druthers, Project 25 would be over at the end of 2025, or before. But not likely. But you don’t need me to translate such references, . . . you already knew what I meant. If so, then why the waffling? CBK
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Samantha Johnson,
This Bishop did NOT tell President Trump to “RESPECT” anything at all.
She asked the president to SHOW MERCY. Shame on you for saying that “showing mercy” to innocents is a “radical left agenda” but showing mercy to Trump supporters who murder and maim police officers in the name of Trump is the kind of mainstream Christian values Jesus promoted that you respect.
If you are now calling the teachings of Jesus a “radical left agenda”, it sounds like you have joined Satanists because you hate what Jesus said.
But the country is run by people who agree with you that showing mercy is “radical left” and retribution and killing in the name of Trump (not Jesus) is the ONLY religion that is acceptable.
That’s the religion Putin believes in too – killing in the name of Putin is acceptable, showing mercy means one must be punished.
Shame on you, Samantha Johnson, for trying to smear Jesus – do you hate Christians that much?
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Great comment, NYCPSP.
Jesus was woke.
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So funny that anyone thinks this blog is far left. Try lukewarm liberal at best.
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I agree with you, Dienne. To MAGA people, anyone who disagrees with Trump is a far-left radical.
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There is tremendous dignity in the words of this Bishop. I hope we all thank her for what she said. This is exactly what effective RESISTANCE looks like. NOT circulating photos of Nazi salutes by Musk or cartoons of sheep with red hats and gold embossed, Converse tennis shoes or middle fingers extended up into the air We have GOT to do better than that from this day forward and the Bishop is showing us how
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Kathy, not many of us have the opportunity to speak directly to Trump and family as a captive audience. She did. Bless her.
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Of course he would ask for an apology. He could see from the outset that she was a fake bishop, being, you know, a woman, but asking him to be more Jesus . . . outrageous. Were he to do that he might be recognized as being a Real Christian™.
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The Episcopal Church in this country is at the vanguard of the movement to protect vulnerable people. Its actions and beliefs wouldn’t jibe with fascism.
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The Episcopal Church is one of the most socially conscious and liberal leaning of the protestant churches. They accept gay marriage and have many gay priests among their ranks.
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I sent the Bishop an email thanking her for what she said. Oh, how the new president and his horde squirmed in their seats. The man anointed by God to return the county back to God and the first chance he gets…
He states her words could have been better. Oh, yeah Mr. Scripture, like what? Jesus went to the well. What have you done since you have been back but make people afraid. And now you want an apology from a servant of the Lord? You might want to actually open the Bible rather than treating it like a “Diet Coke button.” Or something you can grift.
Instead of lifting people up “…I will be your protector…” you are relishing in your power to tear people down and take away whatever they have. Oh, except for your rich friends. So sad. Blessings to all.
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Rich,
I read your anger and share it.
Only a bully and sadist would take pleasure in inflicting pain on others.
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What the Bishop had to sad and said very clearly was right now. More religious leaders, Catholic and Protestant, should speak up and tell the truth about Trump and minions. Trump is an evil black heart person who needs to be held accountable for his total lack of ethics and moral values. He claims to be Christian but his method of operation on any given day is to follow the Severn Deadly Sins. He has broken, on a daily basis, all the Ten Commandments expect one and I am not so sure we may find that somewhere sometime he had something to do with that one.
My only concern for the Bishop that Trump will go after who every out ranks her and demand she be defrocked. That could very well happen.
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After four years and a second coming of this man, we now know what “the art of the deal” is.
It’s threatening, intimidating, bullying, terrorizing the other person. He or she will give you what you want for free just to stop.
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Brava to Mariann Edgar Budde for having guts and courage and for bringing truth to power. She really gave it to Trump with both barrels, full bore. She will need protection from the deranged and nasty Trumpsters and the Nazis that tRump just pardoned. Poor little Trump couldn’t take the heat, tsk, tsk, too bad for him. Apologies? He should apologize to the American public for all his many sins and destructive actions.
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Trump does not know the meaning of “apologies” and probably cannot speak the word correctly two times in a row without a spell checker. It is beneath his dignity to apologize to anyone about anything. I doubt that he has ever apologized to his wives and family members for all the times he sleeping around and had to pay hush money.
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I’ve always wondered how many abortions he paid for.
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None. He doesn’t pay his bills.
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Since we are wondering…If a president takes the Oath of Office and violates his oath (I know teachers have to sign an oath, can’t teach if they don’t) what happens? So then why swear an oath? Curious.
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Trump violated the oath he took in 2017. Why expect him to honor the same oath?
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Diane and all: If I may, here is an excerpt from a book review from the New York Review of Books. (The review is by Christopher Browning and includes three books, one of which is Ryback’s quoted here earlier, and all about Hitler’s history and playbook for the takeover of Germany. This reviewer’s quote concerns Hett’s “The Death of Democracy” (pg. 54 Nov 7/2024). (All copied below/my emphases)
“Like Ryback and Fritzsche, Hett places ultimate responsibility for Hitler’s ascent on German conservatives, who disdained democracy: ‘The crisis and the deadlock of 1932 and early 1933, to which Hitler appeared as the only solution, was manufactured by a political right wing that wanted to exclude more than half of population from political representation . . . To this end, a succession of conservative politicians . . . courted the Nazis as the only way to retain power on terms congenial to them. Hitler’s regime was the result.’
“Confident that they had managed to both use Hitler and contain him, they were totally unprepared to withstand the whirlwind ‘legal revolution’ (which in reality involved an enormous wave of government-sanctioned violence and terror) that created the Nazi dictatorship within a few short months.
“Fritsche examines the process by which many Germans were won over to National Socialism only after the seizure of power. Hett focuses on the mass of Germans who were already Nazis before January 1933. They formed a ‘large protest movement’ that constituted a ‘cult of irrationality’ engaged in a ‘revolution against reason.’ This ‘rejection of rationality’ and ‘contempt for truth and reason’ was central to the rejection of the Enlightenment tradition, democracy, and the ‘liberal, capitalist West’ by National Socialism as well as other interwar fascist movements. Hett concedes that such Germans would not have foreseen how their rejection of truth, reason, and rationality would lead to Babi Yar and Auschwitz, because those evils were as yet ‘unthinkable.’ He ends with a presentist warning for the future: such an alibi will not hold today, since ‘we have their example before us.” END QUOTE
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You’re making a fool of yourself to all rational people outside this blog. The United States is not even close to being where Weimar Germany was in 1932-33. Godwin’s Law applies to you here.
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Robert Scorpio: Sooooo, all these historians (three, in this case, and the review writer, who is no historical slouch) with their background knowledge and quotes from diaries, letters, and newspapers at the time and BEFORE WWII–are making fools of themselves, because of course all that is about the (half-truth, at best and sometimes not true at all) of Godwin’s Law from the 1990’s. Hmmmmm . . . . CBK
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Diane and all: “Rational” at the very least, starts by being awake.
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After Jan 6, Robert O Paxton suggested in an essay that it was fair to use the term fascist on Trump. I think I will trust his judgement, since he literally wrote books on European fascism. You are entitled to your opinion, but you cannot command the respect of a great historian.
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CBK,
Please add the link to the article you quoted.
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Hi Diane: I subscribe to the Review as a hard copy I get in the mail. But I’ll see if I can find it. I think the number on the front of the paper will get me in. I’ve read it three times–each time, new insights.
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Diane: Here is the link to that article in the NY Review of Books. I don’t know if it will hit a paywall or not.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/11/07/hitlers-enablers-the-death-of-democracy-benjamin-carter-hett/
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Thanks, I subscribe so I don’t have a paywall. I hope others can read it.
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Yay Rachel Maddow! about the release of the J6 criminals.
And the Churches have done something so clearly right—(for a change). They as a group have also shown that Maga does not own Christianity–
Those forces have been there all along, but finally “woke” up their leadership to carry the central message of Jesus himself to the powers that be–regardless of anyone thinks of “religion” these days, that message is the love and care of the poor and homeless.
Regardless of what else happens, what a jump the world spirit has made.
Catherine
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Robert Scorpio: Have you listened to any red-hat MAGA people recently? Not to mention Trump’s lies (as Hitler did), and so many in the GOP kissing rings. FYI, here is more from the review:
Besides the quotes above, the writer observes that the right never planned to participate rightly in a fair election; and that: “By the late 1920’s, even before the stock market crash, numerous groups—Hindenburg and his close circle of advisers, big business, the army, the Nationalists–were increasingly turning their backs on Weimar democracy” and ended up ruling “through emergency decrees.”
My thought is that it takes real Dumbo to miss the watershed of material for correctly drawn analogies, if not for exact duplications. I would not shut down to it if I were you just because someone made a doctrine out of “Godwin’s Law” so to equate it with a conspiracy theory to compare with one’s own. Or are you among the many MAGA folks who have given up on vetted scholarship and replaced your ideas of reasonable evidence for accepting unsupported claims (aka: lies). I prefer remaining awake, thank you. Join us. We can have a real discussion. CBK
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“Godwin’s Law” is used as a rhetorical device to close down discussions.
I think it’s entirely legitimate to use analogies to other fascists when warning about the threat of fascists.
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Hello Diane: It should be clear that I agree and gave the argument for it.
However, most of what I wrote in those notes was copied from a well-known source and from historians of not a little status. Also, I wondered about the quickness of Scorpio’s response. If he shows back up, maybe we can ask him. (Don’t you love C. E. Moore’s response above.) CBK
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note that this priest asked for mercy for certain people. Asking for mercy is not the same as condemning someone. Trust Trump to not know different.
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trump’s mere presence in the building was a blasphemy.
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I am a lapsed Episcopal but she makes me want to go back!!!! I lost faith but kept going to my home church until the trumpers made it so unpleasant. Now I want to go back and stand up like she did!!!
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Good for you!
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If you want to thank the Episcopal Bishop of DC, this is her email:
mebudde@edow.org
It’s on the webpage of her church.
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Like I said, I wrote to her immediately. Maybe this “God fearing” president should read his Bible and be warned (I believe Titus 1:15 They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good. Uh, and that’s God’s word man anointed by God.
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It’s sickening to see the evangelical groups who worship Trump
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And this is a good article about, well, the “Good Samaritan.” Maybe the new president should study more and pay heed to the message. https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/archaeology-today/archaeologists-biblical-scholars-works/understanding-the-good-samaritan-parable/#:~:text=The%20story%20is%20told%20in,Samaritan%20pays%20for%20his%20care.
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Trump is a pretend Christian. He once said the Bible was his favorite book. I doubt he ever read any of it. Or the Constitution.
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Hurray for “one of America’s greatest heroes, Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopalian bishop for Washington DC” who spoke truth and spoke it directly to the man who continues to spew evil in this country. I hope it haunts him over the next four years. Voters-you chose this man. Now we all have to deal with his mean ways. You get what you wanted.
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Frankly Jesus should be the one to apologize. Enough of this holier than thou stuff.
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FLERP,
To whom does Jesus owe an apology?
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He could have apologized to the money changers and vendors whose tables he overturned in the temple. And I always thought he was a little snotty to Thomas. Would it have been so hard to just say “I’m sorry for humiliating you in front of everyone. It was reasonable for you to be skeptical that I had risen from the dead.“ Also he kind of lorded the whole “son of God” thing over everyone.
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That’s true. But I like that he was woke.
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Tragic hero’s heel smacked again!
We need glimmers of hope. This minister spoke truth to power. It must be truth because power reacted!
Please, please, please – – some Republicans have the gumption to call him out for pardoning people who violated the symbol of our democracy and the people inside. You’ll be able to sleep at night and your grandkids won’t hate you.
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Trump’s pardon of the insurrectionists was disgusting. They are his Brownshirts.
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He released the leaders of his army. It’s more than symbolic. It’s a reality: they’re back and will be standing at the ready for his next order.
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Here’s what Diane Ravitch posted today on this topic.
M.
Sent from my iPhone
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I was brought up as an Episcopalian. Baptized and Confirmed. Sunday school. Sang in the choir and was an acolyte. The Bishop’s words reflect what I was taught from the beginning.
A significant theme that got Donald Trump elected was the vilification of immigrants and the LGBTQ community. To the point where he accused Haitians in Springfield, OH of eating the pets of “real” US citizens. A claim that was and continues to be refuted and debunked.
So he’s going to double and triple down on his lies. The bishop is asking for mercy on those who are vulnerable and, now, fearful. She portrays them as good people. This collides with the lies that helped get him elected. No way he’s backing down.
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