We Kneel to No Pope, and We Kneel to No King

Bishop Budde's sermon and the Episcopalian legacy in the United States

[Editor’s note: This piece by Cornell political scientist Tom Pepinksy ran on his personal website on January 22nd. I found it very thoughtful, but was surprised to learn that it could not be posted on Facebook or several other social media services. It has been unclear about the exact reason for this prohibition. With the author’s permission, I am reposting it here. -SM]

Recently, during a service at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, the Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde delivered a solemn message to President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. As she concluded her sermon, she addressed the president directly:

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 who pick our crops, and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. 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, synagogues, gurudwaras 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.

This is a pointed and meaningful statement. And it comes at a moment in which a Christian nationalist political movement is on the rise in the United States. It comes a day after the wealthiest men in the world paid the American president millions of dollars to watch him take the oath of office, a day after the wealthiest and most powerful man in the world gave a Nazi salute and invoked the fourteen words. On inauguration day, President Trump and Vice President Vance celebrated their victory. The following day, they sat in silence as part of a decades-old tradition, as the presiding bishop of Episcopalian diocese of Washington led the post-inauguration service.

The coverage of Bishop Budde’s sermon has focused on her—who is she? and implictly or explicitly, how dare she?–and on its symbolism—as statement of principles, of resistance, or as a plea for mercy. Such perspectives gravely misunderstand the full political meaning of that moment. Bishop Budde was not asking for mercy, she was fulfilling her solemn responsibility as the embodiment of America’s political and religious establishment, to inform the administration of that the values upon which the United States was founded and its responsibility to uphold them. This was not an act of resistance. It was an act of leadership, on behalf of the closest thing that the United States has to a national church.

Separation of Church and State

Like all American seculars, I consider the separation of church and state to be the bedrock of our nation. It is foundational: a principle articulated by the Founders, embodied through American history, and one that is still with us today. Most religious Americans agree. It is only through the separation of church and state that the United States can fulfill its promise to its own people, to legal and institutional neutrality with respect to religious identity, expression, and membership. It is what allows Americans to live their lives in complete ignorance of the religious views and practices of their fellow citizens. It is, quite simply, no one’s business what you believe, and only in exceptional circumstances does it matter how you practice.

Many Christian nationalists find the separation of church and state to be a burden, or an obstacle. They correctly note that the separation of church and state does not imply an affirmative policy of secularism, and that it must not preclude people of faith from entering politics and advocating for their values. They note, again correctly, that the Founders were nearly all men of faith. Christian nationalists bristle against the damning conclusions of The Godless Constitution, which establishes that the U.S. Constitution excludes religion intentionally, explicitly, and deliberately. But they appeal to a different model of Christianity at the founding. According to the Christian nationalists of today, the Founders’ faith and the religious traditions guided them so fundamentally that they could not even articulate it. Christianity (or, as they say today, “Judeo-Christianity”¹) was so thoroughly part of their lives that we cannot understand the Constitution without understanding what the Founders didn’t think to write down. This is a mystical, esoteric reading of the Constitution, but it is also the belief structure that guides today’s Christian nationalists to ignore the words in front of them, and conjure meanings behind those words.

Although you by no means have to hand it to the Christian nationalists, there is a part of that argument in which they get something right. The Founders were men of faith, mostly. But their faith was not Christian nationalism. Their faith was intimately related to the conditions of the American founding. The Christian nationalism of today is entirely inconsistent with the religion of the Founders. Our founding fathers kneeled to no pope, and they kneeled to no king. That is because they were mostly Episcopalians.

The Episcopal Church of the United States of America

The Episcopal Church of the United States of America is the closest thing that the United States has to a national church. This is a historical fact, and a living contemporary practice. Observe the following:

• There is an institution in Washington, DC called the National Cathedral. Read all about it: it is truly a national cathedral, established by an Act of Congress, aligned with the vision of the Founders for our national capital.

• The denomination of the National Cathedral is Episcopalian. It is not some other denomination.

• Presidents Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, and Trump have each held a post-inaugural service at the National Cathedral. Of these, only Bush was an Episcopalian.

• The Founders were mostly Episcopalians, and Episcopalians have long been associated with the oldest families in the United States.²

These are basic facts about the United States of America and its political and religious history. If you doubt the power and the significance of the National Cathedral for contemporary politics, just observe that yesterday, President Trump sat in silence as a powerful woman dressed him down in public.

The role of the Episcopal Church in American religious and political life is more profound than just the history of the Founders’ religious beliefs and the sociology of American establishment elites. The establishment of the United States of America coincides with the establishment of the Episcopal Church, because the Episcopal Church is the Church of England in the United States.

Anglicanism is the belief system and liturgical practices based on the Church of England. As everyone who has learned European history knows, the modern Church of England emerged through a schism between King Henry VIII of England and the Pope Clement VII which produced the English Reformation. Driven by various spiritual and worldly matters, Henry refused to recognize papal authority over religious affairs in England. Anglicanism recognizes apostolic succession, but it does not recognize papal supremacy. The King of England is the supreme governor of the Church of England. As head of the church, the Archbishop of Canterbury kneels to no pope.

This much is known to many Americans. Less known is what this implied for a newly independent United States of America which had rejected the King’s authority over the thirteen colonies and won a war of independence. What would happen to the Church of England in the United States now that the United States was no longer a province of the United Kingdom? This was an urgent question: most of the Founders, remember, were Anglicans.

The answer is that the Anglican community in the United States needed to separate itself from the Church of England, and specifically from the monarch. The Wikipedia page on this part of Episcopalian history is wonderful: the Anglican community in late colonial/early republican era was divided over independence, and these were bitter divisions.³ It was impossible for an early republican Anglican clergyman to take the Oath of Supremacy, because that was an oath to the monarchy. The politics of this time is complicated but the outcome is known. The Church of England was disestablished in the United States, and the Episcopal Church was founded through a complicated mechanism that preserved apostolic succession without the Oath of Supremacy (fascinating how Scotland was involved). Henceforth, the Episcopal Church in the United States would be independent of the Church of England. It subsequently joined the Anglican Communion.

This part of the story of the American founding is not so well known among most Americans. But it establishes very clearly the second essential feature of Episcopalianism in the early republic. The English Reformation established that the Church of England would kneel to no pope. The American Revolution meant that the Episcopal Church in the United States would kneel to no king.

The National Church of the United States

With this history in mind, fast forward to a few centuries later. I have no doubt whatsoever that Bishop Budde knew exactly what she was doing yesterday when she presided over the inaugural service for President Trump. She was articulating the values of the closest thing that the United States has to a national church. It is not the vacuous Christian nationalism of the current moment. It is not Vice President Vance’s convert-Catholicism. It is the faith of our Founders, quite literally. That is what Christian nationalists do not understand, or choose to ignore. The Founders were mostly men of faith, but they were men of faith who would kneel to nobody. Not a pope, not a king.

It is that understanding of the responsibility of the faithful towards the American people—a nation just borne then, and being remade still now—that Bishop Budde instructed President Trump and Vice President Vance to uphold. This is the faith tradition that welcomes Catholics, Baptists, Jews, Muslims, atheists, and all others into the nation. It gives special meaning to the General Intercession, what Episcopalians call the Prayers of the People, which is widely known far beyond just the Anglican communion. My favorite version is Form VI from the Book of Common Prayer; a selection:

– For all people in their daily life and work;
For our families, friends, and neighbors, and for those who are alone.

– For this community, the nation, and the world;
For all who work for justice, freedom, and peace.

– For the just and proper use of your creation;
For the victims of hunger, fear, injustice, and oppression.

– For all who are in danger, sorrow, or any kind of trouble;
For those who minister to the sick, the friendless, and the needy.

– For the peace and unity of the Church of God;
For all who proclaim the Gospel, and all who seek the Truth.

Read that today, and consider the values, traditions, and politics that comprise the faith of our Founders. Bishop Budde was leading, and she knows that hundreds of millions of Americans, of all faiths, will follow.

1. Said no Founder ever.

2. “This much I know: God is an Episcopalian. From Boston.”

3. These are not unlike the divisions in late colonial America over independence itself. For a very interesting overview, see Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773–1776.