Bishops, Kings, and Tyrants

On January 21, 2025, Bishop Mariann Budde of the Episcopal diocese of Washington DC turned to the newly inaugurated President Donald Trump at the end of her homily during the traditional inaugural prayer service and said, “I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.” In doing so,, she stood in a long line. In the year 390 St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, excommunicated the Emperor Theodosius I for the massacre of the people of Thessalonica in retaliation for the murder of one of his generals. Theodosius eventually repented of this crime and was reconciled to the church.

The confrontation between church leaders, with their moral and spiritual authority, and the politically powerful has continued throughout Western history. Pope Gregory VII brought Emperor Henry IV to his knees in the snow at Canossa, Italy, in 1077. Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered by knights of King Henry II in Canterbury In 1170 in the course of their conflict over church autonomy. St. Oscar Romero was assassinated by the regime of El Salvador’s vicious dictator in 1980 for standing up for the people against their unrelenting oppression. Trump said Bishop Budde was “nasty.” A Congressional supporter said she should be deported. The lines are drawn once again.

In these contests Bishops and Popes appealed to the Christian consciences of kings and emperors. In the Middle Ages religious writers and leaders promulgated thousands of “mirrors” portraying the ideals of Christian kingship to which they could appeal in these conflicts. But Trump is no king. He knows nothing of the ideals of kingship, nor does he have a Christian conscience shaped by these “mirrors of the princes” and the Scripture’s image of the king as a servant of all. Traditional kings rule by and within deep traditions that bind them to their “kin,” their “kind.” They understand themselves to have some kind of paternal bond of care as well as control over their people. Bishop Budde was operating in this ancient tradition while standing in the Gothic nave of the National Cathedral in Washington that winter day.

But if not a king, what? Should we say Trump is a despot, the ancient Greek ruler of the household, who held the fate of his entire household in his hands? To be a despot was, for all exponents of republics over the centuries, to treat people like children or slaves rather than citizens. The despot had no place in a genuine republic. But, in spite of the family ensemble in the White House around him, Trump is not a despot. He seems to have no public sense of paternal care for others, not to mention even a self-interested concern for their welfare.

The ancient Greeks, who first grasped what it is to be a self-governing citizenry, knew how easily such a civil sphere can be corrupted and destroyed. They had a name for people like Donald Trump. A tyrant. It is the name of the figure our founders saw as the main threat to the republican order they were establishing. They knew their history. “Sic semper tyrannis” became their motto.

A tyrant has no inner morality other than to acquire all the power and fame possible for the tyrant’s purposes alone. The tyrant does not rule with others but as a solitary One. The tyrant knows nothing of tradition or law, but only of the tyrant’s will alone. That will itself is “the law.” Indeed, the tyrant’s seeming ability to create his own law led some Athenians to call Solon, the giver of Athen’s law, a “tyrant, even though he was not. Some theologians have seen God’s absolute will as the basis for God’s law rather than to bed that law in the very nature of God. They worship a tyrannical God. Indeed, this tyrannical understanding of God and “his” law, has been embedded in much of Christian language and worship to this day, fueling the very tyranny we see in the Christian nationalism roiling around us.

But because the tyrant rules in solitude and reduces law to his fluctuating will, the tyrant’s chaotic rule, though highly destructive, is also brief. The fires of chaos burn out. A people who treasure their citizenship and self-governance must set out once again to rebuild the public spaces, the persuasive forums, the centers of fact and rigorous argument, and the bonds of solemn law and covenant that undergird a genuine republic. Amidst the tyrant’s bombast and destruction we must shelter “the least of these” as we oppose the tyrant’s corrupt lawlessness whenever we can, and live into  the deeper truths entrusted to us. It is time to get to work, knowing what is at stake. The tyrant never sleeps, because of his fear. It is our task to live for the love of our republic.

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5 thoughts on “Bishops, Kings, and Tyrants”

  1. Dear Bill, this is a very perceptive analysis of the ever erratic and at the same time shrewd and dangerously risky provocations of the tyrannical president. He does not care who and how many might suffer from his sudden impulses. Let us hope that the legal and customary ways of the elected politicians and the experienced civil servants can counteract the rash and unexpected moves of the tyrannical ruler. Checks and balances should work and counteract the would-be tyrant – also to his own benefit. Or what else is the destiny of a tyrant – is it tyrannicide? He claims God saved him from that before. What a lack of humility and mercy! The bishop was to the point calling him to repent. Will he? We all doubt.
    Today the news mentioned that Greenland ice is melting much faster than expected and the Oceans will rise by 7 meters, about 8 yards. That denial of the climate catastrophe to come will be the general disaster ignored by this special disaster.
    Let us hope for God saving us from both, Gerd

  2. I am going to share your words with others. Although I feel helpless in so many ways, I agree, that we must persist.

  3. Bill, this is so clear and compelling — somehow even consoling in that it illuminates a way forward. I’m sharing it with friends. Much gratitude.

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