From RNS:
Reactions from faith leaders and fellow politicians to Donald Trump’s narrow escape from an apparent assassin’s bullet called upon God’s protection for the former president and for the nation.
“May God protect all who serve us,” wrote Albert Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Seminary, on X after news broke Saturday evening (July 13) that shots had been fired at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, shortly after the candidate took the stage. “Thankful former President Trump is safe. We need to know what happened here. This kind of attack is an attack upon our entire political system and our commitment to ordered liberty. Let’s pray for our nation.”
Mohler’s sentiments about the dangers of political violence were echoed across the religious spectrum in the United States. “There can be no place for violence, political or otherwise, in our nation,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism. “This is a dangerous moment and we must all appeal to the better angels of our nature. We are praying for President Trump’s health and for all those injured.”
Bishop W. Shawn McKnight of the Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri, in his statement on X wrote, “I ask you to join me in prayer for Donald Trump’s health and for our country to pull together in peace during these divisive times.”
Others were moved to thank God that the assailant, who was killed by Secret Service, was not successful. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, also on X, “I thank God that former President Trump is safe.”
Franklin Graham, the head of his father’s Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, similarly posted simply, “I thank God that former President @realDonaldTrump is alive.”
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida went further, proclaiming that “God protected Donald Trump,” seeming to bolster the notion, popular among some conservative Christians, that Trump has been ordained by God to lead the country.
Paula White, a Pentecostal pastor who headed the White House Faith-Based Office in the Trump administration and recruited many members of the former president’s informal evangelical advisory board, also imbued the incident with a broader scope. “They have tried to destroy this man from the day he walked down the escalator,” she wrote on X, accompanied by a picture of Trump with Jesus over his shoulders. “They lied on him, slandered him, tried to impeach him, tried to imprison him and now have tried to kill him.”
The Washington Post has a roundup of what some preachers had to say on Sunday:
By the time worshipers assembled for services across the country Sunday, not even 24 hours had passed since a suspected assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa. — almost no time for church leaders to figure out how best to guide their shocked congregations through a bloody moment in U.S. history.
Trump, never one to display religiosity, had emerged even before Saturday’s shooting as a messiah-like figure to many hard-right Christians who form the backbone of his MAGA movement. With Trump positioned as a symbol of the faith, an attack on him was cast by some supporters as an attack on Christianity. At a moment of intense division in America, that potentially explosive track led many church leaders — with some notable exceptions — to issue urgent appeals for calm Sunday.
“As Americans, we all have to be horrified today at what took place not too far from here in Butler last evening,” said the Rev. Kris Stubna in remarks Sunday at St. Paul Cathedral, a Catholic parish in Pittsburgh.
“We’re far better than what we saw,” Stubna added. “We condemn what happened to President Trump and will never, ever accept the use of violence for any reason at all.”
The Trump campaign gave no indication that the former president attended church Sunday, though a person who spoke to him said he was almost “spiritual” about the near miss assassination attempt and felt as thought he was “handed a gift from God” by surviving.
Given the mosaic of Christian communities, responses at the pulpit and in the pews varied widely according to location, denomination and demographics. But many drew on similar biblical teachings urging peace and healing — scripture that repeatedly has guided believers in the aftermath of hate-fueled killings and political unrest in recent years.
Some evangelical leaders made pointed allusions to “enemies” and “tests” of the faithful without specifically mentioning Trump or the attack. Others, especially affiliates of the fast-growing Christian supremacist subset known as the New Apostolic Reformation, mentioned Trump by name in sermons and declared spiritual warfare against his opponents.
