Tag: presidential churchgoing

President and Mrs. Trump Attend Christmas Eve Service at Washington National Cathedral

On By David R. BainsIn Civil Religion, Liturgy, Washington, D.C.1 Comment

President Trump altered his Christmas plans and remained in D.C. to deal with the government shutdown. Mrs. Trump flew back to D.C. from Florida on Christmas Eve afternoon. At 10 p.m. they attended service of Holy Eucharist at Washington National Cathedral. It was Trump’s third visit as president to the cathedral and his first for a regularly scheduled public service. They were seated by Dean Randy Hollerith immediately before the dean welcomed the congregation to the service.

In Florida, the Trumps have commonly attended Bethesada-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church at Christmas and Easter.

In her sermon, the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, challenged worshipers to take their place in God’s redemptive story and to listen for the word that God was saying to them in this service tonight. She quoted contemporary Christian author Rachel Held Evans and the German Jesuit Alfred Delp. Her most extensive quotations, however, were from the African American theologian and mystic, Howard Thurman.

She began the heart of her sermon quoting Thurman, “Celebrating Christmas affirms our solidarity with the whole human race in its long struggle to become more humane and to reveal the divinity in which all humanity shares.” Citing Rachel Held Evans, she insisted that our lives would find their meaning in the biggest story we can imagine and place ourselves in. This could be “nationalism, follow your bliss, or he who dies with the most toys wins,” but it should be God’s story of redemption.

The story of Christmas has “social implications,” she insisted and mentioned that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were forced to flee and take refuge in a foreign country. But as for what those social implications were for those listening to her, she left that to them to discover. Whatever God was calling them to do, she challenged them to “be instruments of God’s love for love’s sake.”

The cathedral’s video stream did not focus on the Trumps or other members of the congregation, but it did show them both the President and the First Lady receiving communion and singing “Silent Night.”

The video of the service and the service leaflet are available on YouTube

[UPDATES: Late Christmas afternoon The Washington Post published a story on the sermon (click here). NPR also broadcast an interview with Bishop Budde that afternoon on All Things Considered (click here).]

Trump Churchgoing and Christmas

On By David R. BainsIn Civil Religion, Washington, D.C.1 Comment

There are millions of things more important than the church going customs of the president of the United States, especially at present. But since everything the president does is charted by someone, it is worth noting that President Trump’s announcement that, due to the government shutdown, he will stay in Washington for Christmas will alter his custom of going to church on Christmas Eve.

The past two years, Mr. Trump and his wife have attended a Christmas Eve service at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida. This 1925 Gothic revival church is the same church in which they were married. They have also attended this church at Easter.

In Washington, to my knowledge, the Trumps have attended regularly-scheduled services only once. Following Hurricane Harvey in 2017, the president attended a Sunday service on September 3 at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square to mark the national day of prayer he had declared.

St. John’s is the unofficial church of the presidents and the closest to the White House. It has been visited by every president since it opened in 1816. Recently, it was the Washington church that both President Bush and President Obama attended most frequently. None of these three recent presidents was an Episcopalian when they were elected, but all found Episcopal churches most convenient and appropriate to their churchgoing in office.

Mr. Trump was raised a Presbyterian and Mrs. Trump a Roman Catholic. One may hypothesize that like many other Protestant-Catholic couples, they find the Episcopal Church to be an appropriate common church home. Attending churches well known to the Secret Service, also is surely a convenience to the government.

This year, Mrs. Trump and her son are already in Florida. She will return to Washington to spend Christmas with the president. Given that Washington church attendance would require last-minute adjustments for security, I won’t be surprised if the Trumps skip church this Christmas eve.