Following Up: Clerics Who are Still Losing It

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D.C. riots, District of Columbia, Episcopalians, Followin g Up, George Floyd, Gregory T. Monahan, Lafayette Park, Lafayette Square, Marian Budde, political violence, protests, religion, St. John's Church, Trump, U.S. Park Police, violence, Washington Post

As ticked off as I was yesterday over the truly deranged reactions of the District of Columbia’s Episcopalian leaders to the torching of their own church and to President Trump’s decision to express support for the need to protect the entire nation from arsonists, I’m ever angrier today – and justifiably so.

For Episcopal Rev Bishop Marian Budde and her colleagues, along with many prominent clerics from other religions, not only apparently lack the instinct for self-preservation that’s a hallmark of minimal sanity. They’re intellectually dishonest and unethical as well – unless you think it’s perfectly OK for them or anyone else to jump to the most convenient conclusions possible about those you disagree with politically.

To start off, although the Episcopalians’ responses to the church fire were especially unhinged, they weren’t unique among the nation’s so called faith leaders. It’s easy to find statements from these clerics blasting Mr. Trump’s actions. Just Google the relevant words. But good luck trying to find these figures criticizing the St. John’s attack. (BTW, if you come across any, please let me know. No one would like to be proven wrong on this score more than I.) At least some clerics have done a better job denouncing the violence that erupted nationwide over the last week. (See here and here for examples.)

As for the St. John’s Church positions of many religious leaders, on top of singling out the so-called Trump photo op for their slings and arrows, they have uncritically swallowed the (widespread) claim that federal police used unjustifiable and excessive force when they cleared out supposedly peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square to make way for the President. (See, here for the Episcopalians, and e.g., here and here.)  

Here’s the problem: It’s clear that not all the protesters were peaceful the day of the Trump walk. In fact, not all of them were peaceful half an hour before the Trump walk. At least that’s the claim of United States Park Police (USPP) acting Chief Gregory T. Monahan. Yesterday, Monahan – whose agency was one among several involved in the clearing operation – released a statement contending:

“On Monday, June 1, the USPP worked with the United States Secret Service to have temporary fencing installed inside Lafayette Park.  At approximately 6:33 pm, violent protestors on H Street NW began throwing projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles and caustic liquids. The protestors also climbed onto a historic building at the north end of Lafayette Park that was destroyed by arson days prior. Intelligence had revealed calls for violence against the police, and officers found caches of glass bottles, baseball bats and metal poles hidden along the street.”

P.S. Monahan is hardly your supposedly typical brutish cop. Before his appointment by President Trump, he was accused by the Fraternal Order of Police of being soft on defendants – including defendants who allegedly assaulted officers of the USPP San Francisco field office he then heads.

But maybe it’s likely that Monahan has undergone a Jekyll-Hyde-like transformation? Nothing’s impossible. But it’s certainly noteworthy that the Washington Post, whose news coverage of the clearing operation explicitly tarred it as “a show of aggression,” in literally its next breath proceeded to describe the victims as “ a crowd of largely peaceful protesters. Talk about weasel words. By the way – I’m pretty sure the bad guys (and gals?) weren’t wearing signs announcing, “We’re the crazies!”

The religious leaders who treated this episode as a latter-day Boston Massacre didn’t see Monahan’s statement – which came a day after theirs. But isn’t that the point? Is there any evidence that the clerics tried to confirm their suspicions – and apparently prejudices – before getting on their high horses? Again, let me know if you find some. In its absence, it’s clear they were determined to shoot first and ask questions later.

A book with which I trust all these clerics are familiar quotes someone who I trust they all revere as advising, “He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone….” Time for these religious leaders to resume paying attention. Unless they view themselves as exceptions? 

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Im-Politic: When Clerics Lose It

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African Americans, arson, curfews, DC protests, DC riots, Episcopalians, George Floyd, Im-Politic, Lafayette Park, law and order, law enforcement, liberals, Marriann Budde, Muriel Bowser, police brutality, racism, riots, Rob Fisher, St. John's Church, Trump, violence, White House

However spirited it’s been, new – and, to me, surprising – odds-on favorites have emerged in the competition for the title of “Most Guilt-Saturated Liberal of 2020.” The pace-setters? Leaders of the Episcopalian Church in the District of Columbia (D.C.). How have they forged ahead? By expressing much more outrage at President Trump for allegedly using the St. John’s Church located just across Lafayette Park from the White House as a photo op – and for his supposed insensitivity to D.C. protestors’ legitimate racial justice and police brutality concerns – than at the torching of the church on Saturday night.

Think I’m kidding? Then just check out this news wire service account. Don’t bother expecting a syllable of condemnation from these clerics at the destruction of a spiritual center of their own diocese. There weren’t any. In fact, the Rev. Mariann Budde, the bishop of the diocese, belittled this act of violence: “We can rebuild the church. We can replace the furnishings of a nursery,” she said, referring to the damaged area. “We can’t bring a man’s life back.”

I guess she doesn’t agree with her colleague from Connecticut, the Rev. Miguelina Howell, who told her congregants in November, 2015, “Our buildings are holy ground, spaces where we find a sense of community, where we are fed and nourished. It is not only a space in which to dwell, but also a space to be formed, prepared and sent out into the world to bear witness of God’s faithfulness and greatness.” Except in a Tuesday radio interview, Budde also referred to the St. John’s grounds as “our sacred space.” Because the President had the temerity to stand on them.  

Nor has Budde evidently thought about the horror that might have been had the church – and especially the nursery, suffered the greatest damage – not been empty. Or maybe she thinks that the arsonists took great care to make sure that no lives were threatened? Or were able to set a fire skillfully enough to ensure that no bystanders in the park or on H or 16th Sts. NW would eventually become victims?

And these weren’t simply Budde’s initial reactions. By this morning, presumably, she’s had time to reflect further. And here’s what she said on National Public Radio:

“Look, I wasn’t happy about the fire. The violence on our streets right now is heartbreaking to me. I want to keep our focus on the precipitating causes of the events of this week and to concentrate my outrage at the wrongful death of George Floyd and the string of African Americans who have preceded him and the history of abuse and violence. I want to acknowledge the loss of property but in no way equate it with the loss of life….”

The most charitable reasonable translation of these words into plain English: “Morally speaking, I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Moreover, however valid – indeed, essential – it is to distinguish between property and human life, she – again – shouldn’t be dismissing the grounds of her own church, or any church, as just any property, especially when she’s willing to wave the “sacred space” flag when it suits Never Trumper purposes.

In case you think she’s an atypical voice for her Diocese’s leadership – don’t. Its Facebook page, which it uses actively, contains not a word of condemnation for the church arson, either.

And here’s the reaction of St. John’s rector Rev. Rob Fisher the day after the arson:

“Who knows who set the fire? We have no idea. But I think it’s important to say, we know that one thing for sure is that they weren’t people who were representative of what this is all about..It’s really sad to look in and see the nursery with children’s toys and books and a crib and changing table all just completely torched. But it didn’t get beyond that.”

Not a lot of outrage there, either.

It’s also important to examine critically the references of both Budde and Fisher (and so many others, including DC Mayor Muriel Boswer) to the idea that federal authorities acted “shamefully” when they ordered the St. John’s/Lafayette Park area cleared so that Mr. Trump could walk to the church roughly half an hour before Bowser’s 7 PM widely communicated curfew set in. Their main offense, it seems, was directing federal police to move with dispatch (and, it turns out, in certain instances brusquely) against civilians who were still exercising their pre-curfew legal right to protest peacefully.

What this indictment completely overlooks:

>When you’re protesting peacefully before a curfew begins, if you’re someone with any good will and/or half a brain, you don’t wait until the last minute to leave.

>That goes double when the area is right next door to the official residence of a duly elected head of government.

>That goes triple when the area was the scene of arson and violent attacks on law enforcement just the night before.

>The bomb throwers and the looters and the vandals don’t wear “Trouble-Maker” signs readily readable by the police.

In other words, anyone still hanging around Lafayette Park when the clearing operation began should have known they were asking for trouble.

Finally, I can’t resist noting that before coming to D.C. in 2011, Budde served in…Minneapolis. For eighteen years. Fat lot of good she did there.