Shortly after Bishop Mariann Budde started receiving backlash for her inaugural sermon, I saw a tweet urging readers to ‘not commit the sin of empathy,’ a notion I found to be hypocritical.
In her sermon on Jan. 20, Budde said, “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.”
She continued to seek compassion for the LGBTQ+ children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families who fear for their lives, the people without documentation that will be separated from their families and persons fleeing war zones in their homelands to find sanctuary in the U.S.
The tweet I saw was posted by Ben Garrett, a deacon at Refuge Church in Utah. He posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, a day after Budde’s sermon with a picture of the bishop saying “Do not commit the sin of empathy. This snake is God’s enemy and yours too. She hates God and His people. You need to properly hate in response. She is not merely deceived but is a deceiver. Your eye shall not pity.”
Refuge Church’s website says the congregation exists to “enjoy and magnify the glory of the grace of God in Jesus Christ to all peoples,” though the church’s socials accuse supporters of Kamala Harris of voting for a demonic death cult and post about their Sunday school series ‘Things That Will Get You Canceled,’a periodical podcast type sermon that criticizes modern culture.
I found Garrett’s post to be hypocritical for two reasons. First, Trump does not follow a specific religion. While his religious affiliation has been murky throughout his time in office, the president did not rest his hand on the Bible while being sworn in, despite crediting God for many of his accomplishments and saving his life. He merely considers himself to be a nondenominational Christian.
A Pew Research Center study from September of 2024 found White members of religious groups support Trump, but voters of color affiliated with religious groups preferred Harris. Why are most of the religious people who support the president not people of color? Why do his White religious supporters pick and choose which parts of the Bible to follow, or which people deserve condemnation?
This leads to my second point, which is that empathy is deemed an essential and beneficial quality in the Bible, despite Garrett’s attempt to make Budde out as a sinner. A mini-series posted by Resurrection Power Multipliers Ministries highlights how God and His followers reward humble and empathetic leaders. I’ve chosen three of strongest Bible passages pointed out in the series:
- Jesus saves his disapproval for non-caring, unempathetic shepherds who talk truth but “tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them” (Matthew 23:4).
- “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol’ (1 Corinthians 13:1).
- “But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it so that there should be no division in the body, but that it parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it” (1 Corinthians 12:24-26).
I was greatly disheartened when I saw Garrett’s post. Not only does it go against the religion he claims to support, but it points out the double standards many religious people follow today. Making Trump out to be a savior is a sort of false worship, a sin in accordance with the Bible.God sees wrath as misguided justice that is punishable by eternity in Hell.
Budde was not speaking against this new messiah the Christians have created to excuse their fear for the things they don’t understand. She was simply asking this supposedly gracious and attentive leader to care for his disciples and provide for them the way he does for all, to not exclude based on features God himself bestowed upon them.
“Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land,” she said in her inaugural sermon. “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.”