Episcopal Church leaders responded to news of a bullet grazing former President Donald Trump’s ear at a Pennsylvania campaign rally July 13 with calls to prayer and calming words for a troubled nation.
“The way of love — not the way of violence — is the way we bind up our nation’s wounds,” Presiding Bishop Michael Curry said. “We decry political violence in any form, and our call as followers of Jesus of Nazareth is always to love. We pray for the families of those who were killed. We pray for former President Trump and his family and for all who were harmed or impacted by this incident. I pray that we as a nation and a world may see each other as the beloved children of God.”
Curry’s call to active love was echoed by Bishop Matt Gunter of the Diocese of Wisconsin, who wrote: “Jesus calls us to another way — a way of love and peace that respects the dignity of all others, including those with whom we most disagree. That way is not just about our actions but also our words and how we carry each other in our hearts. It is not an easy way and maybe harder in an age as fraught as ours. But it is the only good way forward.”
Bishop Audrey Scanlan of Central Pennsylvania cast a vision of “God’s dream” for our national life:
“God’s dream for us is that we will live in harmony, reconciled to God and each other. As Christians, we follow Jesus, who showed us God’s Way of Love. There is no room in God’s dream for political violence nor the scourge of gun violence that plagues our country. I pray that we may do better at loving each other.”
Bishop Kevin Brown of Delaware set his reflections on the event in the context of American history, remarking that he and his wife had visited Buffalo, New York, the site of President William McKinley’s 1901 assassination, earlier in the week. It reminded him, he said, that such violent events are “sadly, not new in the life of our nation.”
“Other assassins have shot presidents and former presidents also believing completely in the righteousness of their cause. They justified the murder of a leader as the only way to bring about the change they desired,” Brown added.
“Part of the struggle in American politics has been the temptation in every generation to describe elections in the darkest and most hopelessly apocalyptic terms. In our current election, many Democrats ominously prophesy that American democracy will be ripped to shreds if the ‘fascist’ Trump is elected. Many Republicans ominously prophesy that American prosperity will be ripped to shreds if a ‘communist’ Biden is reelected.
“Both predictions are cynical, self-serving, and ultimately destructive because they soon reduce one’s political opponent to a caricature of evil. It is one thing to point out the danger you think you see in the policies of an opponent; it is altogether another to claim your opponent is evil. It becomes an easy mental move to go from seeing another person as evil to seeing them as inhuman, and next to justifying their removal by any means possible.”
Bishop Brian Burgess of Springfield said the current moment called for prayer and witness, and commended the use of the Book of Common Prayer’s Litany for Sound Government (BCP 821-22).
“I call this diocese to a time of intentional intercessory prayer in the interest of witnessing to the world how it is we commend the faith that is in us. Sunday is when our voices are to be heard collectively in response to being citizens of the greatest country on earth,” Burgess wrote.
“It is time to temper the heat of political debate with common prayer, sacraments, and living into a scriptural, rather than a social ethic. We don’t have a gun problem in this country, we have a sin problem. There is nothing wrong with the Church that a return to lives of faithfulness won’t cure. Our children and grandchildren are watching.”
