The most surprising thing to learn about Bishop Budde is that she is married to a man. That is not very on brand for Episcopalian bishops these days. I had a few people tell me there used to be a girlfriend in the mix too, perhaps that is just idle gossip, but a throuple would be very on brand for what is now a post-Christian denomination that is in as rapidly declining as it is running away from Christ. Funny how Christians are leaving behind all the denominations that left Christ behind.
Bishop Budde got a few minutes of fame — praise from all the media outlets that usually condemn Christians for supposedly wanting to impose their values on the nation. When Barack Obama asked Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at his second inaugural, the left complained because Warren was perceived as a Christian conservative. Princeton University revoked giving Tim Keller an award because of Keller’s stance on marriage.
But Budde checks all the boxes for the media. She is a progressive champion of all progressive causes, and therefore, she can be lionized by worldly voices who hate the things of God.
As to what Budde said, she was not necessarily wrong.
Scripture tells us we will be judged based on how we care for the widows, orphans, poor, and refugees. Calling for compassion for immigrants and gays is something Christ might say. He did, after all, tell us to love our neighbors. We are, straight and gay, legal and illegal, all of us are sinners. Showing compassion and mercy is something we should do. But Christ would also call us to repent.
Even Satan quoted scripture. Like Satan, Bishop Budde could quote scripture, but Budde does not actually make it about Christ and redemption any more than Satan does. It is fascinating to me how many secular people, including a few celebrities, insisted to me that Budde did make it about Christ, redemption, and salvation. But she did not. It’s not a stylistic point or my preference on rhetoric versus her own. She did not preach on redemption through Christ. Instead, she just used him as a prop proclaiming, “Jesus went out of his way to welcome those whom his society deemed as outcasts,” which ignores his calls for repentance.
There are a host of self-labeled “Red Letter Christians” who adhere to the red words in the New Testament, which later compilers of the Bible considered quotes of Jesus. But Jesus said his followers would honor what the Apostles said and these same people reject the writings of Paul, Peter, John, James, Jude, etc.
God will deal with them as he will deal with all of us.
Bishop Budde did not use Christ’s words to offer hope or redemption to Trump. She used the words to chide Trump. She used the words of Christ to offer what amounted to a secularized Christian morality that picks religious sentiments the worldly can embrace while ignoring those things that might prick a worldly conscience. Put more bluntly, she cited Christ for convenience, not conviction, and that is the problem.
Bishop Budde is on record denying the physical resurrection of Christ is an essential Christian belief, which puts her in direct conflict with the New Testament writers and outside real Christianity.
When St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, confronted the sins of Emperor Theodosius, he barred the Emperor from the church until the Emperor repented. That bishop’s actions were to draw worldly power to Christ. “I have written this, not in order to confound you, but that the examples of these kings may stir you up to put away this sin from your kingdom, for you will do it away by humbling your soul before God. You are a man, and it has come upon you, conquer it. Sin is not done away but by tears and penitence. Neither angel can do it, nor archangel. The Lord Himself, Who alone can say, “I am with you,” Matthew 28:20 if we have sinned, does not forgive any but those who repent.” Ambrose wrote Theodosius.
When Bishop Budde confronted Donald Trump, she was not trying to draw Trump to Christ or to repentance. She used scripture to reflect the world, so the press corps fawned over her.
One need only a limited imagination to wonder what the press reaction would be if a bishop called on politicians to repent for embracing gay marriage and abortion — we have examples of the press attacking and criticizing Catholic bishops for daring to challenge a secular state with theology.
In other words, Bishop Budde can be lionized by the press corps that claimed Joe Biden was deeply Catholic because she used scripture to reflect the values of the secular elite. Had she preached Christ with Christ’s words, she’d be vilified in the same way Joe Biden would if he embraced orthodox Christianity’s teachings on marriage and abortion.
That is the problem here. Pastors, priests, and bishops should use their pulpits to call the world to Christ through repentance and an understanding that only Christ can forgive our sins and lead us to eternity.
Seeking justice and showing mercy are Christian values. However, they are values used to point people to repentance and the embrace of Christ. Bishop Budde cannot do that because she rejects the resurrection for the world, so she will have the world and not have the resurrection. She did not speak truth to power. She just used Christ to speak progressivism to those who are not, crafting it to sound like Christian charity while she herself practices only worldliness.
And that’s good enough for the press and left but not good enough for Heaven.
Again, it is worth pointing out that we have numerous examples of the press and the left losing their minds when a Christian pastor uses his position to speak Christ into the world. That they are praising Budde and putting her on TV is the best evidence Budde did not use her position to speak Christ into the world, but just reflected the world back to itself as it sees itself — better than you and me.
