Donald Trump Prayer

Episcopal Parish Won’t Pray for President by Name

on January 9, 2017

Citing “an active danger to health and safety” a California Episcopal parish has ceased to pray for the President of the United States by name.

Episcopalians and other Anglicans regularly pray for their bishops and others in authority during the course of a normal Sunday liturgy, including the President of the United States. It is also common to pray, by name, for the President-elect during the window of time between the election and the inauguration.

Mike Kinman, Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, blogged this week:

“If you come to All Saints this Sunday, you’ll notice that we have removed the proper names from our prayers for those in authority. Whereas before we prayed for “Barack, our president,” we are now praying for “our president, our president-elect, and all others in authority.” This practice will continue for at least the near future.

We are in a unique situation in my lifetime where we have a president elect whose name is literally a trauma trigger to some people – particularly women and people who, because of his words and actions, he represents an active danger to health and safety.”

Kinman goes on to explain that the election of Donald Trump to be President of the United States “presents a challenge”:

“We are rightly charged with praying for our leaders … but we are also charged with keeping the worshipping community, while certainly not challenge-free, a place of safety from harm. As I have said before, for some it could be as if we demanded a battered woman pray for her abuser by name. It’s not that the abuser doesn’t need prayer – certainly the opposite – but prayer should never be a trauma-causing act.

The question is – does saying the president’s name in prayer in this way compromise the safety of the worshipping community? Let me be clear that I believe this is a high bar … much more than “I disagree with the president” or even “the president deeply offends me.” This is the level of compromising the safety of the worshipping community.”

All Saints Pasadena is legendary as a hotbed of radicalism, but this is over-the-top even for them. The parish’s activism has alternated between alarming and silly: In 2012 All Saints’ made news by hosting an Islamist Convention, months later hosting another event promoted with then-Rector Ed Bacon dancing to stop violence. In 2015, an associate priest on staff at the church serving as vice-chair of the Planned Parenthood Clergy Advocacy Board praised employees of the abortion provider for “doing God’s work.”

While the congregation has, over the decades, carved out a reputation as among the most newsworthy of activist churches, the new policy of refusing to name Donald Trump when they pray lest people are triggered is a new achievement.

  1. Comment by DannyBoyJr on January 9, 2017 at 6:57 pm

    Slow news day? Maybe I’ve been reading too much anabaptist literature recently, but I don’t care for praying for secular leaders.

  2. Comment by Palamas on January 9, 2017 at 7:03 pm

    So I guess the New Testament admonitions to pray for secular leaders doesn’t mean much to you, eh?

  3. Comment by rbiermann on January 9, 2017 at 7:53 pm

    I guess that part of the Bible that reminds us to “Pray for those in authority” has been torn out of your edition of God’s Holy and unchanging Word.

  4. Comment by Mark0H on January 10, 2017 at 10:14 am

    The church prayed for Obama, so the issue seems to be that they’re selective about which they pray for.

  5. Comment by Palamas on January 9, 2017 at 7:04 pm

    All Saints’ is a well-known hotbed of crackpottery, but apparently they’ve now decided they are also a college campus where the snowflakes have to be kept safe from anything that might make them melt.

  6. Comment by Gregg on January 9, 2017 at 9:10 pm

    Totally pathetic. The pastor’s church will be shuttered in 3 years.

  7. Comment by Joanna McGinn on January 10, 2017 at 3:15 am

    one can only hope, but then he’s following the PAST presiding bishop’s lead. Thank God we have a better Presiding Bishop now.

  8. Comment by Joanna McGinn on January 10, 2017 at 3:13 am

    Well so much for the myth that Episcopalians are tolerant and open minded. I guess this parish is so open minded that their brains have fallen out…. and certainly most un-Christian in their nearrow mindedness….. very sad.

  9. Comment by Pegasus on January 10, 2017 at 9:23 am

    It’s easy to laugh at such childish behavior, but the sad truth is that this liberal obsession with “safety” is infecting the whole culture, especially the young. Free expression is taking a beating when you’ve got enough people claiming that even the verbalization of a name is threatening to them.

  10. Comment by CDR_N on January 13, 2017 at 11:10 pm

    Liberals love to hate

  11. Comment by Leon M. Green on January 13, 2017 at 11:27 pm

    Per Romans 13:1, we need to pray for our President, whether we like it or not. Take the high road.

  12. Comment by Anneke9 on January 14, 2017 at 12:16 am

    So, the Episcopal snowflakes now have a safe space where they hear no truth and their feelings can’t be hurt. It’s so sad to see what my once-beloved denomination has become.

  13. Comment by FreedomCzar on January 14, 2017 at 6:20 pm

    Episcopal Church became apostate and went off the rails years ago.

  14. Comment by Coastalgirl on January 18, 2017 at 2:13 pm

    As a life long Episcopalian and now Anglican I have prayed every Sunday for our President by name. First Ronald, then George, William, George and Barack. I didn’t agree with some of them and their policies but I joined my voice to others and prayed for them. Now you are going to be un-Christian and NOT pray for the President of the United States???? We need to pray for this one more than any other. He needs a “come to Jesus” meeting and prayers that he somehow manages to lead this country over the next 4 years and can hand it over somewhat intact to the next President. I am ashamed of you.

  15. Comment by Jim Hamilton on February 10, 2017 at 1:34 pm

    I am an Episcopal Priest and find his thinking to be rubbish. Such statements are based on bad theology and a pathetic self centered egotism.

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