Trump, the Commination, and Me
How an old Anglican liturgy helped me pray through Election 2024
![Title: Christ, Forgive a Pentitent!
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I. WHAT’S ON MY HEART
Like many people, I was disappointed by the election results. I didn’t want Donald Trump to win. I felt foolish for being optimistic enough to believe Harris would win this time. Many people are lamenting and worried about their lives or the lives of their loved ones. I do not think it is unreasonable to consider Trump and the lump of sycophants who leech off his aura to be an existential threat to the kind of society the United States has been building since the New Deal.1 I am disturbed to consider how Trump first announced his candidacy in 2015. He has been in the spotlight of American politics for almost a decade. Even during Biden’s term he spat and sputtered in the background, avoiding lasting accountability and instigating the January 6 Capitol riots. Trump Round 2 really feels like Round 3 with this in mind. I am disturbed by what he has normalized. To consider a decade of Trump in American political life is to consider how he has affected a person’s sense of what that political life is supposed to look like. Today’s incoming college students have perceived Trump in American life since they were children. It shapes them. I wonder what mold is being cast.
Trump has given many Americans license to indulge the demons of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia. And I do mean “demons” in a more than figurative sense—I have not become more convinced of the reality of demonic activity in the unseen spiritual realm, and of the assurance of Christ and his angelic host’s opposition to it, than I have since the 2016 election. But with that said, in the last eight years, I have also become uncomfortable with a certain picture of America that believes Trump and his demonic aura is an aberration of American history. To be a bit theologically cute, the rise of Trumpism feels like an apocalypse, in its semantic sense: an unveiling. Brave activists, scholars, and other truth tellers and leaders have witnessed to how Trumpism culminates and continues many wicked trends in American history.
I have therefore developed an ambivalence, as a Christian, to a rosy perception of America’s ideals. To be clear: I like being American, and I believe it is valuable to have affection for one’s own country insofar as it drives one to make society more just and peaceful. But I no longer can tolerate an uncritical patriotism that downplays how violence and imperial values co-constitute the American project along with its positive ideals.
And this means that over the last few years I’ve developed a distaste, as an Anglican and member of The Episcopal Church, for the injection of patriotism in our liturgical life. July 4 and Thanksgiving Day are classified as “National Days,” a kind of celebratory Major Feast that makes them liturgically co-equal in the 1979 Prayer Book system with days like, say, St. Michael & All Angels or all of the days commemorating the Apostles.2 This doesn’t feel right to me. Moreover, it’s more likely that a congregation will demonstrate enthusiasm for observing national holidays in worship over days commemorating central New Testament figures in our salvation. Such lopsided enthusiasm does not feel appropriate for a Christian, whose true allegiance is to Christ, whose true flag is the Cross, whose true homeland waits in heaven and a New Creation.
And so, in spite of Anglicanism’s origins as a national established Church, and the way in which these origins shape other Anglican churches’ relationships to the state, I am uncomfortable. Yet I feel compelled by the regula of the Book of Common Prayer to observe these days somehow. But pure celebration does not seem like the right note to strike, the right tone of voice in which to speak. Celebrating the founding myths of the United States on July 4 and Thanksgiving without acknowledging the original sins of the American project feels inappropriate for me, as an American and a Christian. I’m reminded of one of my college professors describing his perception of Thanksgiving as a Native American, saying that many Natives nickname the holiday as “Thanksgrieving.” I experienced a similar grief on Election Day. This grief bubbled up in me even before I knew the results. I was angry. I was frustrated. I was sad. I was afraid. I needed to acknowledge this in my devotion.
What am I to do? How am I to pray through this?
On Election Day, I turned to an obscure Anglican resource: the Commination Against Sinners from the Church of England’s 1662 Book of Common Prayer. I consider the 1662 BCP to bear a tremendous legacy since England never officially revised their Prayer Book after this (save for a failed effort in 1928),3 meaning that it has been used for centuries and was exported all around the world by the British Empire4 and thus, in my view, is in the historic and liturgical DNA of global Anglicanism.
The Commination (“The Threatening”) was appointed as the Ash Wednesday service to begin Lent, beginning with the very first BCP of 1549. It received its name in a later revision.5 It is a service centered on threatening the wrath of God against the unrepentant, and prayers of penitence with declarations of divine mercy. It is an intense service. It is unapologetic in its affirmation that God gets angry. In that sense, while I do affirm God’s wrath against sin, the rite feels grievous and intolerable to contemporary Christian sensibilities. I would not recommend this rite for public worship except in a group that is mature enough to stomach it. And I certainly would not want to foist this liturgy to form the consciences of new Christians. It is telling that Ash Wednesday services in later Prayer Books, while adopting some features of the Commination, altered it heavily, and never retained the title.
Yet, in this unlikely text I found a powerful resource to pray against nationalism and violence. I found that praying this rite after Morning Prayer on Election Day felt cathartic. Re-contextualizing liturgy can be a powerful means of spiritual agency. Rather than directing God’s wrath against sinners in general, I thought about the horrors of the empire that is the United States and its many sins. I considered the hell my nation has wrought on people in the past and continuing to the present day. The strong medicine of this liturgy gave a channel to direct anger, frustration, and the desire for vindication. I had already prayed the Commination for July 4 in the summer, but using it for Election Day injected my prayer with a new urgency and necessity.
II. WALKTHROUGH OF THE COMMINATION
Allow me to walk through this rite. I identify five main movements in it:
I) An introduction
II) A litany
III) A sermon
IV) Psalm 51
V) Prayers for penitence
Part I. An introduction
There is an introduction to the service claiming that “in the primitive church” at the beginning of Lent, sinners were punished with “open penance.”6 The rite imagines itself as a halfway measure to something better: “… until that discipline may be restored again… it is thought good that at this time (in the presence of you all) should be read the general sentences of God’s cursing against impenitent sinners…”7 The liturgy does not proclaim anger for anger’s sake, however—in biblical fashion, divine anger is supposed to move the penitent to “earnest and true repentance.” Episcopalians might find the idea of a preamble to a liturgy familiar from the 1979 BCP's Ash Wednesday liturgy.8
The introduction pricked my heart anew with this final sentence: “that, being admonished… ye may rather be moved… and may walk more warily in these dangerous days, fleeing from these vices, for which ye affirm with your own mouths the curse of God is due.”
Dangerous days! There is anxiety and fear about this second Trump term. Even in the beginning of this liturgy I was already being guided to consider the necessity of acknowledging sin in our times, and the fact that God does not ignore the sin many recognize in politically turbulent times, but is angry about it, and wills to act for its repair. The particular phrase here also reminds me of Ephesians 5.15-16: “See then that ye walk circumspectly… because the days are evil” (KJV, emphasis mine). I cannot tell for sure if this was the intent. But perhaps here the Commination tries to ground itself from the outset upon apostolic authority.
Part II. A litany of malediction
The Commination properly begins with a series of curses (“maledictions,” the opposite of benedictions) from Deuteronomy 27, when God warns the congregation of Israel what will befall them if they do not obey his Law in the promised land — not Sunday school material! There are ten maledictions, which mirror the Ten Commandments. The maledictions, then, are a kind of negatively expressed version of the Law from Mount Sinai.
Cursed is the man that maketh any carved or molten image…
… that curseth his father or mother.
… that removeth his neighbor’s landmark.
… that maketh the blind to go out of his way.
… that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, the fatherless, and widow.
… that lieth with his neighbor’s wife.
… that taketh reward to slay the innocent.
… that putters his trust in man… and his heart goeth forth from the Lord.
… the unmerciful, fornicators and adulterers, covetous persons, idolaters, slanderers, drunkards, and extortioners.9
I thought about the dangers of far-right nationalism, the violence it generates, and, especially with the last malediction, the character of Trump and his cronies that others find detestable. I need to be clear: I did not enter this litany (and the Commination as a whole) intending to only direct these words toward others. I did think about my own sins, and my own complicity in movements and systems that bring suffering to others. As a Christian, it is basic discipleship to remember we also have a log in our eye!
Part III. A sermon
After the litany is what I would consider the meat of this liturgy, a sermon—its length reminds me that early attempts at Reformed liturgy could be overly didactic.10 But reading this sermon reveals more treasures. The sermon is woven together heavily from many passages of Scripture relating to God’s judgment and God’s mercy. The Prayer Book scholar Brian Cummings calls it a “tissue.”11 This tapestry follows a Deuteronomic logic: the unrepentant will not be heard, but the repentant will receive mercy.
I was struck by this section in particular:
For now is the axe put unto the root of the trees, so that every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God: He shall pour down rain upon the sinners, snares, fire and brimstone, storm and tempest; this shall be their portion to drink. For lo, the Lord is come out of his place to visit the wickedness of such as dwell upon the earth. But who may abide the day of his coming? Who shall be able to endure when he appeareth? His fan is in his hand, and he will purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the barn; but he will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. The day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night: and when men shall say, Peace, and all things are safe, then shall sudden destruction come upon them, as sorrow cometh upon a woman travailing with child, and they shall not escape. Then shall appear the wrath of God in the day of vengeance, which obstinate sinners, through the stubbornness of their heart, have heaped unto themselves; which despised the goodness, patience, and long-sufferance of God, when he calleth them continually to repentance. (1662 IE p. 355)
Every single sentence here is from the Bible.12 It reminds me that one of the powers of good liturgy is to recontextualize the Bible and make Scripture comment on itself to say something about the Gospel to us. (Consider the creativity of sampling in hip hop, a genre which I imagine Cranmer is enjoying in heaven). In this case, this paragraph on God’s judgment reveals a truth about the Gospel, one proclaimed in both Testaments and the Creeds: God is judge, and God’s judgment is righteous, because unlike the partiality of human judgment, God’s judgment, which is to say His power to evaluate good from evil, is perfect. Divine judgment, then, is something to welcome, because justice and goodness are things to welcome. For me to read, or rather, to pray this paragraph in devotion made me yearn more for justice as I processed the structures of injustice that allowed Trump to win and for far-right nationalists to move with speed and power.
The sermon of the Commination is not all doom and gloom. Judgment gives way to mercy and restoration, because the Commination understands the Gospel. It understands the loving character of Almighty God. The latter half continues to describe restoration simply by weaving together Bible verses:
Cast away from you all your ungodliness that ye have done: Make you new hearts, and a new spirit: Wherefore will ye die, O ye house of Israel? seeing that I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. Turn ye then, and ye shall live.
Although we have sinned, yet have we an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins. For he was wounded for our offences, and smitten for our wickedness. … if we will take his easy yoke and light burden upon us, to follow him in lowliness, patience, and charity, and be ordered by the governance of his Holy Spirit; seeking always his glory, and serving him duly in our vocation with thanksgiving.13 (1662 IE pp. 356–57)
The statement about new hearts and God’s statement that He takes “no pleasure” in destruction comes from the prophet Ezekiel (18.23, 32). And, in good Christian fashion, Hebrew prophecy prepares the way to the Messiah. Following immediately is a reminder of the atonement made by Jesus on the cross for sin, which is to say the injustice, evil, wickedness, and neglect that have been described so far in the rite. These are sins that we have committed ourselves and that have been committed, individually and societally, by others. It is all included. And this heavy burden of Christ’s cross gives way to our response: to take up his “yoke,” a way of discipleship that lightens our burdens and makes us a loving blessing to others.
Part IV. Psalm 51
As if to enact the mercy and restoration described in the sermon, the Commination then has us pray Psalm 51 in its entirety. This is a feature of the rite that has survived in most Anglican Ash Wednesday services, up to the current Episcopal BCP.14 Psalm 51 is the crown jewel of the classic seven “Penitential Psalms” (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143) popularized in the Middle Ages.15
This Psalm marks a turning point in the rite. The tone of the service turns more toward mercy now, as the congregation and minister begin to pray together for forgiveness. There is perhaps an evangelical, Reformational point to be made here: continuing the method of the sermon, the means of knowing forgiveness is Scripture. Scripture gives way to Scripture. Scripture has been heard, and now it will be prayed.
Psalm 51 is one of my favorite psalms. It is a classic for a reason. Like many of the Psalms, it is ascribed to King David (and its superscription is unusually detailed, imagining that David prayed this after taking Bathsheba and murdering Uriah). But like much of the Psalter, it has a universal character. It allows the depths of the human heart to be laid open to God. And what is revealed to Him will surely be healed by His gaze.
What feels most pertinent to me about this Psalm for this rite are these two verses:
O give me the comfort of thy help again, /
and establish me with thy free Spirit.Then shall I teach thy ways unto the wicked, /
and sinners shall be converted unto thee.(vv. 12–13; 1662 IE pp. 358, 427)
Divine intervention brings freedom. Forgiveness brings freedom. And the freedom of living in forgiveness, and sinning no more, carries a joyful response of gratitude: to spread that freedom to others. God wishes for the liberation of Christ to be fruitful and multiply.
“For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (Luke 12.48 KJV).16 What Jesus casts in terms of responsibility can also be expressed in terms of liberation. If Christians are a forgiven people, who know God’s judgment, and recognize what kinds of sins in individuals and society provoke God’s wrath, then Christians are also a people equipped by the Lord to free others from sin. I am reflecting on what kind of character Christians are called to demonstrate in response to the freedom of forgiveness in these times. Systems of sin affect us all, but without the right kind of vision and a path forward, we will remain stuck in them. Knowing that God recognizes what is wrong, and wishes to liberate us from this wrongdoing and rectify it, can empower us to follow His lead.
Part V. Prayers
After the Psalm comes a Kyrie (the standardized liturgical plead for mercy takes on a special pitch for this service) and the Lord’s Prayer. From prayers in the Old Testament and the sermon’s reminder of Christ’s atonement comes the paradigmatic prayer of the New Testament from Jesus Himself. Then come more prayers for penitence. One prayer of confession in particular echoes Ezekiel 18, which had been quoted in the sermon of Part III: “O most mighty God and merciful Father… who desires not the death of a sinner, but that he should rather turn from his sin and be saved… Mercifully forgive us our trespasses…” (1662 IE p. 360) This phrase also echoes the Lord’s Prayer. I enjoy this prayer so much that I wonder if it could be adapted for contemporary use.
This prayer at the end is a classic. It remained in the Ash Wednesday services of future Prayer Books, although unfortunately it does not appear in the 1979 BCP. It deserves to be read in full:
Turn thou us, O good Lord,
and so shall we be turned.17
Be favorable, O Lord, be favorable to thy people,
who turn to thee in weeping, fasting, and praying.
For thou art a merciful God,
full of compassion, long-suffering, and of great pity.18
Thou sparest when we deserve punishment,
and in thy wrath thinkest upon mercy.
Spare thy people, good Lord.
Spare them, and let not thy heritage be brought to confusion.
Hear us, O Lord, for thy mercy is great,
and after the multitude of thy mercies look upon us,
through the merits and mediation of thy blessed Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(1662 IE p. 360–61)
“Merciful… mercy… mercy… mercies…” The final prayer cannot help but meditate on this essential attribute of God. “And in thy wrath thinkest upon mercy.” The final prayer reminds the penitent that the wrath of God is instrumental, a narrow gate that opens to life. It will not have the final word for His beloved, for God “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Timothy 2.4 NRSV). Divine wrath, perhaps, is experienced by human beings as a kind of plow, as God digs down the dirt so that He may find the treasure of humility, justice, and kindness inside the human heart. That is where the turning happens.
Finally, the service ends in a benediction: “The LORD bless us, and keep us; the LORD lift up the light of his countenance upon us, and give us peace, now and for evermore. Amen.” What began with cursing now ends in blessing. The commination, “the threat,” was never fulfilled after all. The one who enters this liturgy was tried by fire, and has come out refreshed with the living water of forgiveness. It’s also important to me that this final blessing is the Priestly Benediction from Numbers 6.24-26. In other words, the genre of the canon from which the blessing is drawn is the Law (Pentateuch), just like the beginning litany of curses from Deuteronomy 27. What began with Scripture ends with Scripture, and what began with Law ends with Law. But this is good news. Even in the early modern Protestant imagination, which can feel harsh and austere on the surface, the Law is more than a curse, certainly more than the shadow to the Gospel’s light.19 No, at the end the Law comes as a gift. I might even say that with this closing benediction, the old Prayer Book service rightly divides Law and Gospel, by recognizing an aspect of the Law as Gospel.
CONCLUSION
The Commination leaves a strong taste, but I believe it was effective medicine for my soul. It is not snake oil. It tasted bitter at first. It burned my spirit on the way down. But as I considered the rise of fascism with this administration, the possibilities of mass deportations, discrimination against the trans community and other sexual minorities, the glee in spreading lies and conspiracy theories, and the jingoism pretending to support the Jewish people, I remembered the fear and anger of so many, and the liturgy honed this electricity and directed it. With the Commination I could place anger and hope together, with confidence that in the mysterious and mighty mercy of God they can kiss each other. We can pray in this way for ourselves and other people who may not have the words.
I am filled with a burning rage, / because of the wicked who forsake your law.
I will tell of your decrees before kings / and will not be ashamed.
It is time for you to act, O LORD, / for they have broken your law.
Hear my voice, O LORD, according to your loving-kindness; /
according to your judgments, give me life.(Psalm 119.53, 46, 126, 149 BCP1979)
I want to thank Jamelle Bouie from the New York Times for the insight. He speaks about it at length in an interview with comedian Adam Conover: “How Trump Will Transform America Forever with Jamelle Bouie,” YouTube, Nov. 8, 2024, accessed Nov. 14, 2024,
The Episcopal Church’s current Book of Common Prayer (1979) categorizes and tiers all of its observances for the Christian calendar. At the top are Principal Feasts (e.g. Christmas and Easter); then all Sundays; then “Holy Days,” which are split three ways between “Feasts of Our Lord” with fixed dates (special days celebrating events central to the Incarnation, like the Annunciation), Major Feasts (major New Testament saints), and Major Fasts (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday). See “The Calendar of the Church Year,” in the 1979 BCP, pp. 15–17.
The Church of England’s contemporary liturgies in Common Worship (2000) are, technically, considered “alternative services,” even though they are the de facto worship of the denomination these days. This is also true for the Anglican Church of Canada, the liturgy of which is split between their traditional-language Book of Common Prayer (1962) and the contemporary-language Book of Alternative Services (1985).
The imperial foundation of Anglicanism’s evolution from an Anglophone tradition to a global one is yet another feature of the tradition that makes me uncomfortable, but one I have to live with nonetheless in my membership in this branch of Christianity.
Specifically, the 1552 Prayer Book of King Edward VI. See Brian Cummings, ed., The Book of Common Prayer: The Texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662; Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford University Press, 2013), 719.
Cummings locates the origin of this introduction in the 8th-century Gelasian Sacramentary. “The term ‘open penaunce’ [archaic spelling] refers to the practice of formally expelling notorious penitents in the presence of the officiating archdeacon or priest; those ejected on Ash Wednesday were readmitted on Maundy Thursday.” (“Notes to Commination • 1549,” in The Book of Common Prayer, ed. Cummings, 719–20.
Samuel L. Bray and Drew Nathaniel Keane, eds., The 1662 Book of Common Prayer: International Edition (InterVarsity Press, 2021), 353.
“Proper Liturgies for Special Days: Ash Wednesday,” in Book of Common Prayer (1979), 264.
Bray and Keane, eds., 1662 BCP: International Ed. [henceforth “1662 IE”], 354.
Most BCP editions print this sermon as one long paragraph, e.g. the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Cummings, 94 (1549 BCP), 176 (1559), 460 (1662). The recent International Edition mercifully divides it into six paragraphs (1662 IE, pp. 354–57).
Cummings, ed., The Book of Common Prayer, 720.
Matt 3.10; Heb 10.31; Ps 11.6; Isa 26.21; Mal 3.2; Matt 3.12; I These 5.2-3; Rom 2.4-5. See Cummings, ed., The Book of Common Prayer, 460–61.
Ezek 18.30; I John 2.1-2; Isa 53.5; Matt 11.29-30. See Cummings, ed., The Book of Common Prayer, 461–62.
BCP (1979), 266. The final two verses about restoring Jerusalem and offering animal sacrifice have been removed, beginning with the 1928 Book, likely because the editors decided they didn’t feel relevant. See Marion J. Hatchett, Commentary on the American Prayer Book (New York: The Seabury Press, 1981), 222.
The classical BCPs cleverly appointed the other six Penitential Psalms for Morning and Evening Prayer. The 1979 BCP still appoints four. See “Daily Office Lectionary,” pp. 950–51.
Also Uncle Ben Parker: “With great power comes great responsibility.” :)
Cf. Lamentations 5.21, the penultimate verse of the book: “Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old” (KJV).
Cf. Exodus 34.6-7; Joel 2.12-13.
I am expressing this sentiment for rhetorical effect. I don’t actually believe it. My rhetoric alludes to how some kinds of Protestant writings about the Law, inflected with sola fide and the fear of legalism, can cast the Law in an overly negative light in a way that fuels antisemitism.