The rapid-fire pace of the news certainly has its disadvantages. However, one upside is that it allows me, as Good Faith Media’s senior editor, to see what stories resonate with our pool of writers and, by extension, our audience. The longer we receive submissions about a particular event, the more I can tell whether it has struck a nerve or is just a blip on the screen of our collective psyche.
In the 16 months I have been in this role, Bishop Marianne Budde’s sermon at an inaugural interfaith prayer service attended by President Trump stands out among all other stories in terms of longevity and intensity of interest. The details of that event spoke to something deep within all of us, regardless of whether we found ourselves on “Team Budde” or “Team Trump.”
The story was a microcosm of the many debates around immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, and, most importantly, the relationship between church and state. For ministers of all stripes, the prayer service itself echoed the awkward discomfort they often feel at ceremonies that are part sacred, part secular, and designed in collaboration with others who have vastly different aims for the event.
One such ceremony occurred last week in my hometown of Waco, Texas. The annual Faith Leaders Summit began in 2023 to unite pastors and leaders of religious non-profits, educational institutions, and civic life to share resources and seek ways to collaborate in the coming year. For a small city that is home to multiple megachurches and one of the world’s largest religiously affiliated universities, it is a noble effort by city leaders to create goodwill with one of their most significant constituencies: people of faith.
Setting aside legitimate First Amendment questions about whether such events should even occur, these are typically benign gatherings that come and go, unnoticed by most people and even quickly forgotten by attendees.
But this year’s event received outsized levels of attention when one local pastor took offense at the gall of another local pastor to pray for those in the community who may be frightened about being deported because of the policies of the new Trump Administration.
After the event, Pastor Les Cody of Waco’s Mercy Culture Church posted an Instagram Reel accusing Nick Mumejian, pastor of Lake Shore Baptist Church (LSBC), of using “his opportunity to pray over the meal as a chance to educate us on the dangers of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.”
However, Cody saved his harshest critique for the City of Waco inviting the pastor of a “radical, left-wing, LGBTQ-affirming church” to pray over the meal. He noted that LSBC has “Black Lives Matter and rainbow flags all over the front page of their website,” (which is true, but quite an exaggeration), and “sponsors a Pride event on the Brazos every year” (which is true and not an exaggeration).
Cody hammered home his point by offering the names of other pastors in the room that the city could have invited instead, including Ramiro Peña, pastor of Christ the King Church and a member of President Trump’s inner circle of faith advisors. He suggested that Peña and others, “pastor some of the most consequential and important churches” and better represent the beliefs of Waco and spiritual leaders in the room.
He ended his rant by asking the citizens of Waco if they were “tired of this type of leadership in our city?” He said he is “tired of the good ole’ boys club who see stuff like that happen, who keeps it a secret, who complains about it to one another in back rooms, but who never ever expose the corruption and the spit in the face to traditional Christians in this city.”
Like the reaction MAGA pastors had to Bishop Budde’s sermon, Cody framed his diatribe in terms of progressive faith leaders using their sacred platforms to advance political agendas.
The hypocrisy there is thick. Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress have turned their pulpits into virtual shrines to Trumpism. Sean Feucht, who is associated with the Mercy Culture movement that Cody belongs to, regularly uses worship gatherings to promote (white, conservative) Christian supremacy over all areas of society.
Also thick is the irony that someone who pastors a church called Mercy Culture would object to a prayer for immigrants living in fear.
There is an undercurrent of competition to these remarks. Anyone who has ever been to one of these events knows the monopoly conservative evangelical pastors hold over the praying and speaking spots. They believe those slots are theirs and can’t fathom that they would be given to anyone else.
But I suspect there is more.
When a Marianne Budde urges the most powerful person in the world to show mercy to the most marginalized, or a Nick Mumejian prays in public for fearful immigrants, someone within earshot may encounter a new way of faith—perhaps for the first time. These pastors know that.
They also know that the “someone” may be one of their church members.
Three days before the Waco Faith Leaders Summit, and 150 miles north on I-35, a child in Gainesville, Texas, tragically died by suicide. Jocelynn Rojo Caranza’s mom said her daughter had been bullied about her family’s immigration status. (Caranza was a U.S. citizen.) At her school, which is a majority-Hispanic campus, rumors had been circulating about ICE agents raiding the community and deporting parents of students.
Some religious leaders ignore, dismiss, or actively contribute to the MAGA rhetoric that led to Caranza’s death. Some religious leaders invoke the power and mercy of God to disarm the spirits of fear that many among us live in and to expose the principalities that cause that fear.
It is presumptuous to claim Mumejian’s prayer was designed to “educate.” But even if it was, many among us need to be educated on the dangers inherent in the ways we talk about our neighbors.
And there are others who need to know that there are faithful readings of Christian scripture and practices of discipleship that lead to more inclusive, expansive ways of being in the world.
At Good Faith Media, the window will never close on that story.
Senior Editor at Good Faith Media.
