A Time (and Place) for Everything

One day post-inauguration, The Rt. Rev. Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde shared a fifteen-minute sermon at the Washington National Cathedral. In her final three minutes, after commending to listeners the foundations of unity, she implored President Donald Trump — seated feet away — to have mercy on groups she identified as vulnerable.

Budde’s objectors suggest her “gratuitous criticisms ring hollow” and represent “the cause of America’s decline.” Others applaud the bishop’s “faith-filled witness” and for “nail[ing] her colours to the mast … But with a brave and gentle hammer.” Faithful America, a Christian social action community, raised over 55,000 signatures in a pro-Budde solidarity petition.

Such responses offer judgments of content, praise or condemnation of Budde’s message, rather than the style or context of its delivery.

But others remark on Budde without mention of her position. For instance, some call blasphemy on the legitimacy of her priesthood; knowledge that a woman delivered the sermon, without hearing it, suffices as evidence for opposition. Analogously, for religiously disinclined folk, perhaps any infusion of prayer into politics is itself objectionable. Consider, too, this impression: “[Budde] is courageous, I’ll agree. But sometimes truth needs not to be delivered in a sermon to a single man in the middle of church.”

Here are evaluations of form, approval or disapproval of (some facet of) Budde’s presentation of the message, rather than the message itself.

I have my own perspective on Budde’s sermon, finding commiseration and divergence with various published reactions to her message and its presentation. However, what I find unsettling — rather than merely unconvincing — is a different, furtive phenomenon lurking within the discourse: the act of concealing a critique of content behind a critique of form.

That is, it is unhelpful to bemoan the timing and context of Budde’s words when purportedly discussing the legitimacy of what they actually were. It is also off-topic to announce a perspective on her message when conversing about the timing and manner of her delivery. To grasp an honest view of form, imagine the speaker expressing a message of a different persuasion but in the exact same way. What message-focused opinions weaseled their way into judgment of presentation?

Let’s envision this more concretely. Imagine a large flag draped over the back of a vehicle. In response, if you scoff while suggesting, “No one should display a flag that big,” then you imply a disagreement with the flag-bearer’s choice in presentation, not message. The purest way to test the truth of your critique is imagining different flags — different content — in its place. If your opinion fails to hold, then you meant something else, perhaps as simple as: I don’t like that flag’s message.

But why do we hesitate to say what we actually mean?

Generalization — asserting a sweeping statement — grants the face-saving power to preserve true opinions, but doing so hurts an opportunity to accurately communicate with and dignify others. If you are overheard generalizing a hatred of flags by someone who, unbeknownst to you, displays a flag you actually don’t mind, then they understand displaying flags to be bad, rather than what you actually mean: I don’t approve of the message of that flag.

Our world is rife with analogous opportunities for muddling responses to content and form. Recall collective actions like essential worker strikes, mid-pandemic protests dissenting mask mandates, school walk-outs against gun violence, and college campus encampments urging divestment. At an individual scale, we see mid–concert political declarations, national anthem disengagement at sporting events, or public assertions of one’s unwanted presence.

In such cases, e.g., if you felt more or less connected to a artist because of a mid-concert political quip or a classmate complain about insufficient or excessive mask-wearing, then — rather than simply use this information for the singular end of labeling Person Z to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ — identify what, exactly, lies behind your knee-jerk value judgment about that individual.

Because in misattributing an error, we concoct a moral and epistemological hazard. Suggesting, “Professional athletes should never be political” when you meant, “I don’t like that athlete’s political message” threatens healthy discourse. That is, by saying one thing and meaning another, we fail to move the conversation in its true direction, cementing the wall between ideological adversaries. In pursuit of appearing apolitical, we taint the rhetorically sacred.

Are you frustrated by the occasion for the opinion? Or what the opinion actually was?

Consider another example: last May, the news was flurried with commentary on the commencement address NFL Kicker Harrison Butker delivered at Benedictine College. Facing the graduates, he prescribed traditionalist intra- and interpersonal order as an antidote to the cultural disarray he indicated to be buttressed by then-President Biden.

Butker was praised for “saying things that ‘people are scared to say,’” and “guiding young minds towards paths of purpose and integrity.”  Simultaneously, over 260,000 petitioners called for his NFL dismissal, and Mount St. Scholastica’s Benedictine sisters suggest his “remarks do not ‘represent the Catholic, Benedictine, liberal arts college that [Benedictine College’s] founders envisioned.’”

It is entirely possible to disagree with Butker’s message yet believe him deserving of an opportunity to share it—or offer agreement and, at the same time, maintain graduation to be an inappropriate time for delivery. For instance, consider historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall’s precept: “I do not agree with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it.” Seeking to be ‘for’ or ‘against’ an entire moment, rather than its particular components, promotes sweeping conclusions. If we don’t get curious about the values motivating particular decisions, then we will misinterpret each other to be impenetrable bundles of nonsense.

So, in future matters of disagreement over public statements — because there will be more — I challenge us all (me included) to make more distinctions, to invoke more precision. Clarity invites opportunities for more accurate, intelligent, and charitable deliberation. Sweeping generalizations, though comforting, profitable, and entertaining, are inaccurate, dehumanizing, and curiosity-squashing. It is of existential, communal import to say precisely what we mean; we owe it to our neighbors to listen and speak not in competition but, instead, with compassionate candor.

Isn’t mutual understanding the whole point of speaking to each other at all?