We Can Be Brave

I believe we first learn what it feels like to be brave when we are young, when nearly every day we must do something that we’ve never done before. With this belief in mind, I jumped at the chance to publish an edition of my book How We Learn to Be Brave for young readers.

Parenting was, for me, a master class in courage—not a class that I taught, but one where I was the student, witnessing the countless times our sons stepped into the unknown, attempted the impossible, made mistakes and learned from them, and persevered toward the horizons only they could see. While I kept our sons’ stories mostly in the background of these pages, what I saw in them as they grew, and continue to see in the men they have become, informed every word.

It has never been my intention or desire to be best known for words spoken to or about President Donald J. Trump. I am a bishop in the Episcopal Church, which means that I spend most days doing all I can to support the clergy and congregations in my care, far from the public eye. Yet all Christians have a public role, for we pledge at our baptism “to strive for justice and peace, and to respect the dignity of every human being.”

I first wrote How We Learn to Be Brave after my response to President Trump holding a Bible for a photo while standing in front of St. John’s Lafayette Square reverberated across the world.
This was in June 2020, during the intense days following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a police officer, which sparked protests across the country. I took issue with the president’s misappropriation of sacred symbols—the Bible and the church itself—and with the order to forcibly remove hundreds of peaceful protestors in Lafayette Square Park to clear the way for the president’s photo op.

My goal in writing was not to dwell on that one decisive moment, but rather to put it in perspective, by describing the many decisive moments in life that teach us all how to be brave.

Five years later, on January 22, 2025, I gave the sermon at an interfaith prayer service for the nation held at the Washington National Cathedral the day after Donald Trump returned to
the White House. It was the global response to that sermon that prompted Dutton Books to propose a young reader’s edition and to invite Bryon Bliss to join as co-author.

A bit of background about the sermon and the service itself:
Washington National Cathedral has been the site of an interfaith prayer service on the day after presidential inaugurations since the 1930s. In more recent years, the Cathedral allowed the presidential inaugural committee to plan much of the service, including the selection of a preacher. But in June 2024, the Cathedral announced that it would retain control over all aspects of the service. Its theme would be national unity. After a particularly bruising and divisive campaign season, the Cathedral’s goal was to offer prayers for healing, asking God to help unite our country. Regardless of who won, I, as bishop of the Diocese of Washington, would preach.

Thus, my assignment was clear, and I had ample time to prepare. I was to preach about unity to a divided country. But what is unity and how do we achieve it?

As a spiritual leader, I faced a real dilemma: how to speak and pray for unity when, as a nation, we are actively undermining the foundations upon which unity depends. From a political perspective, President Trump and the Republican Party had every reason to assume a mandate for change, having won every branch of the federal government, with a plurality of voting Americans expressing their support for his agenda. During the inauguration ceremonies, President Trump was surrounded by clergy who prayed in thanksgiving that God “saved his life and raised him up with strength and power.” In his inaugural address, the president himself declared his belief that in surviving an assassin’s bullet during the campaign, he “was saved by God to make America great again.” He claimed for himself the mantle of unifier and peacemaker.

In choosing to speak to the necessary foundations of national unity, which include honoring the inherent dignity of every human being, speaking the truth, and humility born of self-awareness, I sought to address, as respectfully as I could, what was not being acknowledged: that millions of people were simply not included in the president’s vision of America. I appealed to him to have mercy on those in our country who had every reason to be scared.

The responses to my words were immediate, intense, and reflective of our divisions as Americans. There was no middle ground. Some angrily demanded an apology and called for my resignation, even expulsion from the country. Others expressed effusive gratitude for my courage. Many described the sermon as prophetic, a brave example of speaking truth to power. I didn’t feel like a prophet. I felt like a pastor, speaking to the country I love.

In preparing to speak at this prayer service, among the questions I struggled with was how to say what needed to be said. Of course, I wondered what might God have to say to us at this moment, and I sought guidance from our sacred texts. How could I issue a gentle but clear warning that prayers for unity mean nothing if our actions are based in contempt for those who see the world differently? Equally important, how could I humanize those described in sweeping, derogatory generalizations and, with as much calm and respect as I could muster, make a plea for mercy?
While the response it evoked was extraordinary, as sermons go, it was pretty basic fare—an attempt to apply biblical truths to a particular moment, with spiritual themes not unlike those preached every Sunday in churches around the world. The main reason I have chosen to remain in the public eye after January 22, 2025, is to give witness to a way of being Christian that recognizes all human beings as created in the image of God and seeks to follow in Jesus’s way of love, humility, and compassion.

The future of our country rests in our hands. For me, as a Christian, giving up hope is never an option. I dare to believe that God will never give up on us, and that with God’s help, we can rise to the challenges before us.

I hope that you will find inspiration in the stories of how others learned to be brave and realize that all great heroes once stood on the same threshold of youth. Most importantly, I pray that you will be encouraged to trust your inner voice in the decisive moments that will set you on the path of your destiny.

Courage is contagious. Together, with God’s help, we can learn to be brave. Together we can work for good in this world.