Few people have thought as much about faith and politics as John Danforth. A longtime Republican politician from Missouri, he spent more than 18 years in the U.S. Senate in addition to time as Missouri’s attorney general, special counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice (to lead the investigation into the FBI’s role in the 1993 siege on the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas), U.S. special envoy to Sudan to broker a peace deal ending a civil war, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for President George W. Bush.
Danforth is also an Episcopal priest who wrote two books about religion and public life: Faith and Politics: How the “Moral Values” Debate Divides America and How to Move Forward Together and The Relevance of Religion: How Faithful People Can Change Politics. He’s preached multiple times at the Washington National Cathedral, an Episcopal church in the nation’s capital, including offering the eulogy during funerals there for former President Ronald Reagan and famed Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham. When the cathedral was finished in 1990 after more than eight decades of work, Danforth sponsored a Senate resolution recognizing the occasion.
So with an Episcopal sermon at the cathedral sparking headlines and political moves on Capitol Hill, I wondered what Danforth thought. I reached out to the longtime Republican politician and Episcopal priest to ask about the sermon by Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde at an inauguration prayer service when she urged Trump to “have mercy” on LGBTQ children and migrant workers. And I was curious what Danforth thought about Republican responses to the sermon, such as Trump demanding an apology, a member of Congress calling for her to be deported, and other lawmakers proposing a congressional resolution to condemn her sermon as unbiblical.
“What she did was preach biblical truth to power,” Danforth told me. “Now, it fell on deaf ears as far as Trump is concerned. But even falling on deaf ears, I mean, that’s Isaiah 6. So that’s what the prophetic ministry does. It speaks from the standpoint of what the understanding of the speaker is of the word of God to the world at large, and particularly in Washington to politics.”
“The prophetic tradition goes back to Moses confronting Pharaoh. And it is all over the Hebrew Bible, and particularly the great prophets of Israel. That’s what they did. Jeremiah especially so confronted, repeatedly confronted the king that the king stuffed him into a cistern,” Danforth added. “It’s really the combination of speaking against idolatry and speaking for social justice, against oppression of the poor and the weak. Especially the prophet Amos. That is the basic message of Amos, speaking out against injustice and unfairness and oppression.”
Former U.S. Sen. John Danforth speaks at the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis in Missouri on May 5, 2017. (Jeff Roberson/Associated Press)
Danforth compared Budde’s prophetic move to the role he believes the cathedral should play in general as “a counterpoint” to the government.
“It is the presence of religion in the capital, not in a way that entangles religion with government but in a way which speaks truth to power. That’s what it does,” said Danforth, who called the cathedral “an amazing place to preach, almost overwhelming.”
When I asked Danforth his thoughts about the responses by some Republican lawmakers and conservative pundits to the sermon — including calls to deport Budde (a U.S. citizen), condemn her sermon in a congressional resolution, and seize the cathedral from the Episcopal Church — he criticized such suggestions as “ignorant” and “silly stuff.”
“First of all, wouldn’t it be helpful if the people who did that would just maybe consult the Bible and understand where she was coming from,” he said. “Maybe read Exodus about Moses and Pharaoh. Maybe read Amos and Jeremiah and understand the biblical tradition. Before people weigh in on stuff like this, maybe it would be helpful to understand the religious tradition.”
“Secondly, it would be interesting if they would consult the First Amendment,” Danforth added. “Because if they’re in the business of introducing resolutions in Congress condemning religious statements and if they’re in the business or somebody’s in the business of saying she should be deported? Why? Deporting an American citizen? Or that the government should take over the cathedral and install somebody else? How is that consistent with the First Amendment of the Constitution? It isn’t.”
Balancing the Prophetic & the Empathetic
Although Danforth defended Budde and her sermon, he also said there should be limits in utilizing a prophetic critique. He especially sees this given the acrimony in politics and the broader culture. He hopes for more of what he calls “a ministry of reconciliation and of empathy and of trying to understand people.”
“The prophetic style is to get in the face of people. And I think today, when everybody’s in the face of everybody, that we have maybe a different kind of message, which is empathetic and trying to understand where people come from,” he told me.
Danforth said he’s not talking about how a preacher like Budde might respond to Trump. After all, he himself has criticized Trump, saying a few days before the 2024 election that “nobody has done more damage to the country.” But as Danforth wants his Republican Party to abandon Trump and believes the president should receive prophetic critiques, the former senator expresses empathy when dealing with Trump’s followers.
“Joe Blow, who lives in Bolivar Missouri, is not some angry, mean, racist-type person. So I think trying to understand that person, I think that that’s the best style,” Danforth said. “The ministry of reconciliation is, to me, the most fruitful and also something that speaks both to religion and politics. I think that from the standpoint of religion, you know, in Christ all things hold together. And the prayer of Jesus that we all should be one. I think that was my basic message.”
“I think it should be the message of politics too,” he added. “Our work in politics in America and the great project of America has been to hold together a very diverse country with competing interests, and that’s what our Constitution was written to do. That’s how our system is supposed to work. That is what Congress is supposed to be, a place where all kinds of different interests come together and they clash and they compete and they work things out eventually and compromise. So that’s that was my style in politics, and that I think is consistent with what I think my understanding of the church’s mission in America today is, and that is to be the healing force.”
Former U.S. Sen. John Danforth delivers the eulogy for Missouri State Auditor Tom Schweich at The Church of St. Michael and St. George in Clayton, Missouri, on March 3, 2015. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP)
This sentiment about empathy didn’t surprise me as it aligns with what Danforth’s been preaching for years as he has lamented the incivility and dishonesty in politics today. Like in a 2022 sermon at the nation’s largest United Methodist church amid a contentious midterm election season. In that message, he noted that “the center is gone” in Congress as “politicians target the extremes” and “politics consists of manufactured rage.” He told stories from his time in the Senate when people developed friendships across party lines as he encouraged those in the congregation to “be agents of change” and “ambassadors of reconciliation.”
“Then in politics, friends could disagree. Now it’s a holy war between good and evil. Candidates win elections and news channels win viewers and social media wins consumers by stoking feelings of grievance, fear, and rage. They demonize opponents,” Danforth said in the sermon. “We can change politics by changing how we treat one another. … We create our culture, for better or worse. We can be coarse and angry. We can be just and kind.”
Even as Danforth seeks a politics with more civility, he reiterated to me that he does “appreciate” and “support” the prophetic call in politics. But he said he hadn’t seen that as his role since he “was really active in politics.” Yet, in the years since leaving office, he’s often sounded like a voice crying in the political wilderness as he warned against the Religious Right, Trump, and someone he mentored who now occupies his old Senate seat. After helping launch Josh Hawley’s political career, Danforth repeatedly denounced the senator for giving fist-pumping support to election lies and Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. November’s elections showed that Danforth’s criticisms mostly fell on deaf ears.
Even while explaining how Hawley embodies all the things Danforth laments about politics today, the former senator and Episcopal priest has tried to avoid being a mirror image of what he dislikes. Maybe prophets can be civil. Like Bishop Budde.
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor
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