{"id":28235,"date":"2025-07-11T14:45:30","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T18:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=28235"},"modified":"2025-07-11T14:45:30","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T18:45:30","slug":"episcopal-leader-slammed-for-evoking-bonhoeffer-in-call-to-resist-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/07\/episcopal-leader-slammed-for-evoking-bonhoeffer-in-call-to-resist-trump","title":{"rendered":"Episcopal Leader Slammed For Evoking Bonhoeffer in Call to Resist Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Left: Public Domain | Right: Socrates in the City \/ commons.wikimedia.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An Episcopal leader earned himself a harsh rebuke from Dietrich Bonhoeffer biographer Eric Metaxas after he compared resisting Trump to Bonhoeffer\u2019s resistance to Nazis. In an op-ed for Religion News Service<\/em><\/a>, Rev. Sean W. Rowe, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, called on the Church to be a force of resistance against the Trump administration. Calling the Episcopal Church the church of the Founding Fathers as 34 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were Episcopalian, he stated it was now the church\u2019s responsibility to seek a different kind of freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen religious institutions like ours enjoy easy coexistence with earthly power, our traditions and inherited systems can become useless for interpreting what is happening around us. But our recent reckoning with the federal government has allowed us to see clearly the ease with which the Protestant tradition of patriotism can lead Christians to regard our faith more as a tool of dominion than a promise of liberation,\u201d wrote Rowe. He cited a number of examples of the Episcopal Church\u2019s resistance to the Trump administration, including joining a coalition of other faiths to sue the government over its immigration policies, canceling its refugee program after being requested to help white Afrikaners resettle, and dealing with the administration\u2019s recent travel ban.<\/p>\n

Rowe pointed to failures of the Episcopal church, such as not speaking out against slavery. He also noted how some churches in Nazi Germany sided with the Reich in a misguided attempt at patriotism, while those who resisted, known as the Confessing Church, stood against the Reich not to stand against antisemitism, but \u201crather in its belief in the autonomy of the institutional church and its resulting desire to block state interference in church affairs.\u201d He stated the church needed to stand against the actual evils of the current climate, not just protect its own autonomy. \u201cI do not intend to diminish the witness of the Confessing Church \u2014 especially that of Bonhoeffer, who was brutally executed by the Nazi regime less than a month before the end of the war in Europe. [Church] history, however, teaches us that when we are awash in propaganda, even our resistance can be bound by its definitions and incline us to see the world in the same categories,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Christian Post<\/em><\/a>, Metaxas pushed back against what he called Rowe\u2019s attempt \u201cto liken his church\u2019s uber-trendy \u2018resistance\u2019 to Trump to Bonhoeffer\u2019s heroic resistance to Adolf Hitler.\u201d \u201cOf course, this pathetic plea for relevance only serves to remind us of ECUSA\u2019s decades-long slide into an abyss of permanent irrelevance. While the silly statement will provoke some horse laughs, it is also genuinely offensive to those actual Christians who risk their lives for the truth, as Bonhoeffer obviously did \u2014 and as many around the world do today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He accused Rowe, and the Episcopal Church at large, of being more interested in having a right standing with the cultural elite than having actual principles. \u201cJust as The Episcopal Church said not a word against slavery when that was the political issue \u2014 and nothing against vile anti-Semitism in the 1930s when that was the cultural issue \u2014 they now say not a word about the actual problems which they should address, and which President Trump is attempting to address politically, but instead choose to live in the self-aggrandizing fantasy that they are modern-day Bonhoeffers,\u201d he said. Adding that the Episcopal Church has fallen away from sound doctrine such as the bodily Resurrection of Jesus, he quoted the book of Jude. \u201cThey are \u2018clouds without water,\u2019 and simply follow the zeitgeist, as they have always done \u2014 and for which they should be ashamed,\u201d he said. \u201cMay God forgive them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Episcopal leader earned himself a harsh rebuke from Dietrich Bonhoeffer biographer Eric Metaxas after he compared resisting Trump to Bonhoeffer\u2019s resistance to Nazis. In an op-ed for Religion News Service, Rev. Sean W. Rowe, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, called on the Church to be a force of resistance against the Trump administration.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":28238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nEpiscopal Leader Slammed For Evoking Bonhoeffer in Call to Resist Trump<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Eric Metaxas rebukes an Episcopal bishop for comparing resisting Trump to Bonhoeffer\u2019s stand against Nazis, calling it offensive.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/07\/episcopal-leader-slammed-for-evoking-bonhoeffer-in-call-to-resist-trump\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Episcopal Leader Slammed For Evoking Bonhoeffer in Call to Resist Trump\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Eric Metaxas rebukes an Episcopal bishop for comparing resisting Trump to Bonhoeffer\u2019s stand against Nazis, calling it offensive.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/07\/episcopal-leader-slammed-for-evoking-bonhoeffer-in-call-to-resist-trump\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-07-11T18:45:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/07\/Eric-Metaxas_credit-Left-Public-Domain-Right-Socrates-in-the-City-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Episcopal Leader Slammed For Evoking Bonhoeffer in Call to Resist Trump","description":"Eric Metaxas rebukes an Episcopal bishop for comparing resisting Trump to Bonhoeffer\u2019s stand against Nazis, calling it offensive.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/07\/episcopal-leader-slammed-for-evoking-bonhoeffer-in-call-to-resist-trump","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Episcopal Leader Slammed For Evoking Bonhoeffer in Call to Resist Trump","og_description":"Eric Metaxas rebukes an Episcopal bishop for comparing resisting Trump to Bonhoeffer\u2019s stand against Nazis, calling it offensive.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/07\/episcopal-leader-slammed-for-evoking-bonhoeffer-in-call-to-resist-trump","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2025-07-11T18:45:30+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/07\/Eric-Metaxas_credit-Left-Public-Domain-Right-Socrates-in-the-City-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/07\/episcopal-leader-slammed-for-evoking-bonhoeffer-in-call-to-resist-trump","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/07\/episcopal-leader-slammed-for-evoking-bonhoeffer-in-call-to-resist-trump","name":"Episcopal Leader Slammed For Evoking Bonhoeffer in Call to Resist Trump","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/07\/episcopal-leader-slammed-for-evoking-bonhoeffer-in-call-to-resist-trump#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/07\/episcopal-leader-slammed-for-evoking-bonhoeffer-in-call-to-resist-trump#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/07\/Eric-Metaxas_credit-Left-Public-Domain-Right-Socrates-in-the-City-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg","datePublished":"2025-07-11T18:45:30+00:00","dateModified":"2025-07-11T18:45:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"Eric Metaxas rebukes an Episcopal bishop for comparing resisting Trump to Bonhoeffer\u2019s stand against Nazis, calling it offensive.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/07\/episcopal-leader-slammed-for-evoking-bonhoeffer-in-call-to-resist-trump#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/07\/episcopal-leader-slammed-for-evoking-bonhoeffer-in-call-to-resist-trump"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/07\/episcopal-leader-slammed-for-evoking-bonhoeffer-in-call-to-resist-trump#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/07\/Eric-Metaxas_credit-Left-Public-Domain-Right-Socrates-in-the-City-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2025\/07\/Eric-Metaxas_credit-Left-Public-Domain-Right-Socrates-in-the-City-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Left: Public Domain | Right: Socrates in the City \/ commons.wikimedia.org"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/07\/episcopal-leader-slammed-for-evoking-bonhoeffer-in-call-to-resist-trump#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Episcopal Leader Slammed For Evoking Bonhoeffer in Call to Resist Trump"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d","name":"Brandy Grenier","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e53\/e53f6ea4c6b15081d4df68e2d7d7750ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e53\/e53f6ea4c6b15081d4df68e2d7d7750ex96.jpg","caption":"Brandy Grenier"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/bgrenier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28235"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28244,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28235\/revisions\/28244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}