Church leaders call for consolation and defiance in sermons after Trump attack

“That’s a warning shot!” Renkema boomed. “Can we hear it? Will we listen?”

As believers across the country gathered for worship on Sunday, less than 24 hours had passed since the suspected assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania – almost no time for church leaders to consider how best to lead their shocked congregations through this bloody moment in U.S. history.

Trump, who has never flaunted his religiosity, had already appeared as a messiah-like figure to many far-right Christians who form the backbone of his MAGA movement before Saturday’s shooting. Because Trump is positioned as a symbol of faith, an attack on him was interpreted by some supporters as an attack on Christianity. At a moment of deep division in America, this potentially explosive issue prompted many church leaders – with some notable exceptions – to issue urgent calls for calm on Sunday.

“As Americans, we must all be horrified today by what happened last night not far from here in Butler,” said Rev. Kris Stubna on Sunday in an address at St. Paul Cathedral, a Catholic parish in Pittsburgh.

“We are much better than what we have seen,” Stubna added. “We condemn what happened to President Trump and will never, for any reason, accept the use of violence.”

There was no indication from the Trump campaign that the former president attended church on Sunday, but one person who spoke to him said he was almost “spiritual” in light of the near-assassination attempt and felt that his survival was “a gift from God.”

Given the diversity of Christian communities, reactions from the pulpit and in the pews varied widely by location, denomination and demographic. However, many invoked similar teachings from the Bible calling for peace and healing – a scripture that has repeatedly guided believers in recent years in the wake of hate-fueled murders and political unrest.

Some evangelical leaders made pointed references to “enemies” and “trials” of believers without explicitly mentioning Trump or the attack. Others, particularly adherents of the fast-growing Christian supremacist subgroup known as the New Apostolic Reformation, mentioned Trump by name in sermons and declared spiritual war on his opponents.

Joel Osteen, the star preacher with millions of followers, radiated a positive, hopeful energy from his Houston megachurch, which was the site of a deadly shooting earlier this year and is now involved in relief efforts following the hurricane that hit the city.

Osteen’s sermon, which was streamed live on the Internet and on SiriusXM radio, avoided direct mentions of politics and instead urged Christians in need to look forward to “a new vision, a new anointing, a new favor.”

“We believe that the best is yet to come, that 2024 will not be a year of getting by, but a year of grace, of productive, blessed, successful work, of seeing your goodness in new ways,” Osteen told the crowds packed into his cavernous church in Lakewood. “We are victors, never victims.”

Much darker tones prevailed in a church in neighboring Oklahoma, where Jackson Lahmeyer of Tulsa, founder of the nationwide group “Pastors for Trump,” made the topic of the sermon clear in the title of the livestream: “Assassination of Trump.”

Lahmeyer told the congregation at his church in Sheridan that “yesterday we experienced a tragedy and a miracle,” referring to the death of a bystander, Corey Comperatore, and the near-miss for Trump. Lahmeyer showed the viral image of the former president with a bloodied face and his fist raised in defiance. The faithful erupted in cheers.

“I know that many are dealing with an emotional rollercoaster right now – we are angry, we are afraid, we are happy,” said Lahmeyer. “And what I want to tell you is: We are in a war, and it is a spiritual war. If we do not win this spiritual war, it will become a very physical war.”

Lahmeyer stressed that he wanted to avoid a civil war and that there were no differences between Republicans and Democrats. In the same sermon, however, he alluded to “evil” people clinging to power and told the audience that evangelicals were “the largest voting bloc in the United States.”

“We are in a war between good and evil, period,” he said. “There is no neutrality and we have to choose a side.”

White evangelicals have spent decades resigned themselves to the idea that they are victims of a hostile culture. Since 2016, they have voted overwhelmingly for Trump because they see him as a bulwark against liberal values ​​that they say undermine the nation’s “Christian identity.”

A poll conducted this fall by PRRI found that among faith groups, white evangelical Protestants are the most likely to believe the country is “so far off course that true patriots may have to resort to violence to save our country.” More than three in 10 white evangelicals agree.

“We pray that you will shake up this nation and lead it to righteousness. Lord, it is obvious that we are in our final moments,” preached Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel, an evangelical megachurch in Chino Hills, California. “We are gasping for air as a nation.”

The pastor of St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Bethesda, Maryland, the Reverend Patricia Phaneuf Alexander, quoted the Episcopal Church’s prayer written for the days following the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, asking God to “transform our anger and hatred.”

She also invoked President Barack Obama’s words in 2011 following the Arizona shooting that injured then-Representative Gabby Giffords. “In the coming week, I challenge all of us – myself included – to take the tragic events of yesterday and the gospel of today into prayer,” Alexander told congregants. “Bring them to Jesus. And then hear what Jesus has to say. Set your minds on the path of love.”

Trump’s political opponents also prayed for him, as in the sermon that Senator Raphael G. Warnock (Democrat of Georgia) gave on Sunday from the pulpit of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, which is just steps from the grave of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Warnock, the church’s senior pastor, began his speech by strongly condemning the assassination attempt on Trump and the “brutalizing rhetoric of political violence,” which he described as a threat to all Americans.

The man who tried to kill Trump was “not a patriot,” he said. “And that was also true of the people who attacked our Capitol on January 6, attacked police officers and tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.”

“They are cut from the same cloth,” Warnock added. “We must cry foul, we must call out the hypocrisy of every individual who tries to condone one and condemn the other.”

At one point, Warnock said he was grateful that Trump survived the attack with only minor injuries.

“We are praying for him,” he announced to the predominantly black congregation, who responded only cautiously.

“I said, ‘We PRAY for him,'” Warnock repeated more sternly.

The audience burst into enthusiastic applause. “Amen!” someone shouted.