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In the Midst of a Theological Crisis

In the Midst of a Theological Crisis

Last updated on: February 3, 2025 at 12:32 pm by Ansley Quiros

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In the Midst of a Theological Crisis 2025-02-03T12:32:51-04:00 Ansley Quiros

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Years ago, I wrote a book that examined the civil rights struggle not only as a period of intense political and cultural division, but theological division as well. One of the response questions I was asked frequently –one that, to be honest, I never had a simple answer for–was: “was the conflict over civil rights *really* theological, or was it just political?

It’s a fair question–and not uncomplicated. Often– confoundingly–people taking different positions on Black freedom were not only co-religionists, but shared creedal, confessional, and even denominational allegiances. Martin Luther King, Jr., Jimmy Carter, Clarence Jordan, Jerry Falwell and Carey Daniel were all Baptists. (Baptist polity and congregational autonomy plays a role in this, but the point remains.) At the time, I made the case that while theological arguments were certainly used unevenly to justify overtly political actions, most were also sincerely held. That was in part what lent them such power–the appeal to orthodoxy, the certainty of the righteous, the wholehearted commitment. This was as true for those kneeling in prayer to integrate churches and those barring them from entering segregated spaces. Both sides appealed to God’s character, to specific passages in the Bible (sometimes, as in the case of Acts 17, the same passage!), to the church’s role in society.

I returned to some of these thoughts and questions last week as I followed the theological conflict on display during the inauguration events. Franklin Graham prayed exultantly: “Today as President Donald J. Trump takes the oath of office once again, we come to say thank you, oh Lord our God. Father, when Donald Trump’s enemies thought he was down and out, you and you alone saved his life and raised him up with strength and power by your mighty hand.” For Graham, Trump’s return to power was an occasion for praise, a sign of blessing, if one with a warning. “We know that America can never be great again if we turn our backs on you.” Lorenzo Sewell joined him, proclaiming Trump’s election a “millimeter miracle.” Others prayed more circumspectly– for wisdom, for protection, for peace. But it was the homily of Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, that drew the sharpest contrast and has garnered the most attention.

US President Donald Trump with the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde at Washington’s National Cathedral during his second inauguration. Photo: Reuters

Rev. Budde began with an extended call for unity, a unity that “enables us, in our communities and in the halls of power, to genuinely care for one another even when we disagree.” She reminded her hearers of Jesus’ exhortation that we love not only our neighbors but our enemies, as He did, acknowledging that “it’s a lot to pray for – a big ask of our God, worthy of the best of who we are and can be.” “Those of us gathered here in this Cathedral are not naive about the realities of politics,” she allowed, gesturing to the “competing interests,” and “prioritization of resources,” the “outrage industrial complex” and the monetization of contempt. Still, she insisted, we must seek unity, based not on agreement but on three main foundations: 1. “ honoring the inherent dignity of every human being”; 2. “honesty in both private conversation and public discourse”; and 3. “Humility.” Then Rev. Budde added another: mercy. “Mr. President,” she addressed Trump directly, “I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now”– children and immigrants in particular.

The sermon drew both immediate praise and condemnation. President Trump posted that the “so-called Bishop” was “a Radical Left hard line Trump hater” …“nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.” Most interestingly for someone who had just heard from several other ministers or rabbis, has staged prayer photo-ops, and even sells Trump Bibles, he fumed that Rev. Budde “brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way.”

After that, despite the fact that there is really no Christian case to be made against mercy as a concept–Jesus pretty clearly says “Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy” (Matthew 5:7)– fellow Christians began criticizing Budde, calling her a witch, even threatening to kill her. Why? Why did this calm, measured sermon from the Gospels provoke such ire? Robert P. Jones claimed: “It is a testimony to Trump’s depravity that this carefully calibrated, thoughtful sermon…has rightly been heard as a resounding indictment of our president.”

But it was more than just criticism of Trump’s policies, which happen regularly. Budde wrested back publicly, just a bit, the mantle of the Church, the language of the Bible, from the white nationalist project. She made visible and credible the ongoing existence of the mainline. Of a Christian middle, if not a left. She’s not the only one, of course. There were the Evangelicals for Harris, and Tim Walz is Lutheran and Joe Biden attends mass weekly. But the very public expression of a merciful faith offered a powerful counter.

So much has been said over the past several years about those who identify as white Christians’ support for Trump. And it’s true. According to an October 2024 PRRI survey, a majority of white Christians (58%), including 72% of white evangelical Protestants, 53% of white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants, and 51% of white Catholics, have a favorable opinion of Trump, with even a noticeable uptick. I am grateful to scholars and journalists like Julie Ingersoll and Matthew Taylor and Erica Ramirez who highlight the theological aspects crucial to this support.

But, of course, that means that many Christians don’t have a favorable view. PRRI found that almost half of white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (46%) and white Catholics (48%) have an unfavorable opinion. More than six in ten Christians of color (62%) have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, with 84% of Black Protestants and 58% of Hispanic Catholics having an unfavorable opinion, as well as 64% of Jewish Americans. The emphasis on the white evangelical (and Hispanic Protestant) support for Trump’s right-wing agenda has obscured the endurance of a real Christian left, people who, because of their historical faith commitments, oppose what they consider immoral and anti-Christian positions taken by the Trump Administration.

Second, Budde gave voice to the reality that our current political schism is also a theological one–not just about the ethical application of Christian teachings, but about what it means to identify as a follower of Christ. As Shane Claiborne put it in a great piece for RNS: “What we are seeing is a tale of two Christianities. It’s why we now have T-shirts that say, “I’m a love your neighbor Christian not a storm the Capitol kind.” There are competing narratives of what the Christian faith is fundamentally about and what our priorities should be as followers of Jesus.” While Claiborne correctly notes the racial and gendered aspects of this distinction, he centers faith. “It’s not about choosing Team Budde or Team Trump. It is about two competing versions of the Christian faith. It’s not about left and right, but what it really means to be faithful to Jesus.”

Indeed. Claiborne quotes the incomparable Frederick Douglass. “Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference …I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.” Douglass and many other abolitionists used their faith commitments to insist on an America without slavery. Did it work? Eh. Pro-slavery arguments increased in fervor and slavers in judicial and political and economic power in the years before the war. But the theological argument, the theological conflict, was decidedly present. And in the hypocrisy, in the contest, there is some important clarity.

Same for the civil rights movement, my favorite example. In one of the most moving parts of King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he says, “I have traveled the breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South’s beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: “What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?” As Daniel K. Williams has pointed out, a vast majority of white Christians disapproved of King’s nonviolent movement, not just in the American South, but nationwide– including Christianity Today, which condemned him the year after the March on Washington, a year after he wrote the letter above.

So we return to that old question: How much is really theological and how much is using religion to justify politics or create a moral cover? Of course, I still don’t know. Interpretation and prioritization of religious principles and theological truths are often political, even partisan. But I think theological belief matters. I think that theological conflicts, like the one hinted at last week, have long been historically and morally significant. As we stand at another inflection moment in our national story, I’m curious (alarmed! but still curious) about the surprising role that theology might play–on both sides– in how the crisis unfolds.

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