After a liberal pastor delivered a politically tinged sermon during a church service attended by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, she is facing fierce backlash from social media critics and other pastors. Many have savaged her for “weaponizing” the pulpit instead of promoting unity. Trump, Vance, and their families participated in the National Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral the day after the inauguration.
However, the service took an unexpected turn when the bishop of the protestant church warned that gay and transgender children supposedly “fear for their lives” and that Trump should “have mercy.” She also historically ranted about illegal immigrants living in the U.S. “The people who pick our crops, clean our office buildings, labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, wash the dishes after we eat at restaurants, and work the night shifts at hospitals, they may not be citizens, or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals,” she said.
Bishop Budde was unapologetic. She confirmed that she was speaking directly to the president during her rant. “I was speaking directly to him. I was also, frankly, as you do in every sermon, speaking to everyone who was listening through that one-on-one conversation with the president” she said,” Reminding us all that in the people that are frightened in our country, the two groups of people that I mentioned are our fellow human beings, and that they have been portrayed in, all throughout the political campaign, in the harshest of lights.”
She added “I wanted to counter as gently as I could with a reminder of their humanity and their and their place in our wider community,” she said.” Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk slammed the woke bishop: “She was given a great honor today, a chance to unify America around a Christian message at the dawn of a new administration. Instead, she disgraced herself with a lecture you’d hear on CNN or an episode of The View. What an embarrassment.”
“Liberal Protestant Pastor Mariann Edgar Budde blindsides Trump and Vance, weaponizing her sermon to attack them in front of their families by saying they should ‘have mercy’ on gay, lesbian, and transgender children. Unbelievable” said Catholic Vote, a conservative nonprofit on X. Rev. Jack Brewer former safety for the Minnesota Vikings, said that the sermon is “just the beginning of Democrats’ desperate attempts to race bait America back into the pernicious grips of DEI.”
He added “The fact that President Trump demanded that God remain as the foundation of America should have received non-partisan praise from all of our nation’s clergy. We are addressing DEI and wokeness in our government and businesses and it’s time to address wokeness in churches as well.” In a post to Truth social, Trump demanded an apology from the pastor and describing her tone as “nasty.”
Pastor Rob Pacienza, who founded the Institute for Faith and Culture, had this to say: “Ironically, the bishop used the pulpit and the service to not only lecture the president but to promote a secular worldview and her woke ideology.” He added “Unity can only be achieved through a commitment to biblical truth, not cultural assimilation. Her sermon was indicative of the heresy being taught by mainline denominations. Our nation was founded upon the truth that there is God, and he alone defines good and evil.”
Watch her Rant Here:
Woke pastor attacks Trump and Vance to their faces for scaring “LGBTQ kids” and illegals.
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 21, 2025
Added that he “[I] would like to know … why she didn’t ask for the previous administration to have mercy on these trans kids and immigrants” says Chicago Pastor Corey Brooks. The pastor of Kings Church in New York City, David Englehardt, added “When compassion divorces itself from truth, it becomes a counterfeit virtue—easily manipulated, shallow, and destructive.”
Featured image: Screen shot from embedded video.