Trump Attends Traditional Inaugural Interfaith Prayer Service

This morning, President Donald Trump attended an interfaith prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral.  The service is traditionally held the day after the presidential inauguration. Washington Post reports:

The national prayer service... included a rabbi, an imam, a Baha’i leader, a Hindu priest and everyone in between — but with no sermon, the service included little topical content directly addressing Trump’s incipient presidency. Instead, the service focused on biblical readings, patriotic music and Christian hymns, and prayers for the country and its leadership.

This earlier article from the Washington Post lists all the participants in the service.

Religion and Trump's Inauguration

Deseret News today has a lengthy article titled The role religion played in Trump's inauguration. Reviewing the music, the invocations, the swearing-in, the prayer service at St. John's Episcopal Church this morning, and more, the report says in part:

Church choirs sang, a half-dozen religious leaders prayed and Trump mentioned God in his inauguration speech..... Trump's religiously rich ceremony was notable for a president whose personal faith wasn't a prominent part of his campaign. He formed a powerful partnership with evangelical Christian leaders and promised to make it safe to say "Merry Christmas," but he sometimes stumbled when asked to share his own beliefs.

Washington Post has a full transcript as well as analysis of the sermon delivered by Southern Baptist Pastor Robert Jefress at this morning's prayer service at St. John's. His remarks included this hardly-veiled political reference:

When I think of you, President-elect Trump, I am reminded of another great leader God chose thousands of years ago in Israel. The nation had been in bondage for decades, the infrastructure of the country was in shambles, and God raised up a powerful leader to restore the nation. And the man God chose was neither a politician nor a priest. Instead, God chose a builder whose name was Nehemiah.

And the first step of rebuilding the nation was the building of a great wall. God instructed Nehemiah to build a wall around Jerusalem to protect its citizens from enemy attack. You see, God is NOT against building walls!

Meanwhile RNS and The Forward report that Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner (who are Orthodox Jews) received a ruling from a rabbi close to them that it was permissible for them to travel in a car from activities such as the post-inaugural balls even after sunset that begins the Jewish Sabbath.  The ruling came from concerns for protecting the couple’s safety.

Trump To Be Sworn In On Family Bible and Lincoln Bible

According to Religion News Service, at his inauguration this Friday, Donald Trump will take the oath of office on two Bibles-- his family Bible given to him by his mother in 1955 when he graduated Sunday school, and the Lincoln Bible borrowed from the Library of Congress. The Lincoln Bible was also used by President Obama during his swearing in ceremonies.

Religious Leaders Have Have Variety of Top Agenda Items For President Trump

In advance of Donald Trump's inauguration on Friday, religious leaders have a variety of suggestions for Trump's top agenda items.  Here is a sampling:

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research council, says:

To start, religious liberty in the military needs to be addressed. Over the past several years we have witnessed chaplains being disciplined for their faith, and religious speech being censored. President-elect Trump can direct that religious liberty in the military be clarified and strengthened, and that appropriate training is conducted to ensure the law is followed.

In addition, our foreign policy, contrary to the law, has not prioritized religious freedom like it should. President-elect Trump must direct that religious freedom be properly integrated into all foreign policy of the United States at every level....

[G]overnment nondiscrimination legislation is needed to protect supporters of marriage between one man and one woman.  People of faith should not be punished by the government for living in accordance with their beliefs.

Rev. Robert Sirico, president of the Acton Institute says:

Abolish the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.

Even though there is long-standing precedent for government at all levels to contract with various church-affiliated organizations, such as the Lutheran Samaritas or Catholic Charities USA, these organizations end up going to great lengths to separate their services from their religious mission. This alters the genius of faith-based charities, their effectiveness and their very mission.

This well-intentioned subsidy obfuscates the nature of religious charities by incentivizing them to draw a stark line between their faith and their works. What animates believers to care for the poor is precisely their religious belief — not to serve the interests of the state, politicians and their bureaucracies.

Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse, says:

I think maybe God has allowed Donald Trump to win this election to protect this nation for the next few years by giving maybe an opportunity to have some good judges.

Elijah M. Brown, general secretary of North American Baptist Fellowship, says:

President-elect Trump should ... demonstrate his sincere commitment to the many individuals and faith communities around the world living at the edge of extinction by nominating in his first 100 days an ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.

Clergy Who Will Speak At Trump Inaugural Announced

The Washington Post reported this week on the religious figures who will deliver prayers as part of Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony. According to the Trump Inaugural Committee, religious readings will be delivered by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Rev. Franklin Graham, Rabbi Marvin Hier, Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez and Pastor Paula White.

DHS Removes NSEER Rules, Making Any Muslim Registry Program By Trump More Difficult

Yesterday the Department of Homeland Security issued a release (full text) removing regulations relating to the  National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS).  As reported by Vox, in 2011 President Obama had suspended the program, which targeted Muslims, by removing all countries from the list of those to whom the registration requirements apply. The program as it operated after 9-11 required males on non-immigrant visas who are 16 years old or older from 25 countries-- 24 of them Muslim countries-- to register.  The much-criticized program led to 13,000 deportations. Yesterday's action completely removes the regulations.  The Department of Homeland Security, finding that the data captured under SEERS is now available through other means, concluded that the removal of the old rules is merely procedural to delete "regulations related to an outdated, inefficient, and decommissioned program."  DHS was thus able to delete the old rules without going through the notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act by invoking the exception for "rules of agency organization, procedure, or practice."

The action, effective with publication in today's Federal Register, means that the incoming Trump Administration, which has variously called for registration of Muslim immigrants, or those entering the U.S. from Muslim countries, will need to go through the full Administrative Procedure Act notice-and-comment requirements to implement a registration system. It will not be able to just reinvigorate SEERS. New York Times also reports on the action by DHS.

Evangelical Leader Opposes Trump's Choice For Secretary of State

In his Washington Update this week, Christian Evangelical leader Tony Perkins voices strong opposition to President-Elect Donald Trump's choice for Secretary of State.  Perkins has the following to say about the nominee, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson:

The Left, which doesn't usually need a reason to oppose Trump's choices, won't find many here, since the ExxonMobil executive may be the greatest ally liberals have in the Cabinet for their abortion and LGBT agendas. That should be particularly alarming to conservatives, who've spent the last eight years watching the State Department lead the global parade for the slaughter of innocent unborn children and the intimidation of nations with natural views on marriage and sexuality.... 

To hear that Donald Trump may be appointing a man who not only led the charge to open the Boy Scouts to gay troop leaders but whose company directly gives to Planned Parenthood is upsetting at best.... Trump calls Rex a "world class player and dealmaker," but if these are the kinds of deals Tillerson makes -- sending dollars to an abortion business that's just been referred for criminal prosecution and risking the well-being of young boys under his charge in an attempt to placate radical homosexual activists -- then who knows what sort of "diplomacy" he would champion at DOS?

Israeli Rabbinate Will Adopt New Standards Likely To Validate Conversion of Ivanka Trump

As previously reported, in Israel in July the country's Supreme Rabbinical Court (which hears appeals in personal status matters) ruled that it will not recognize religious conversions performed by U.S. modern Orthodox Rabbi Haskel Lookstein.  Lookstein is the New York rabbi who officiated in the conversion of Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka. In recent years, the Israeli Rabbinate has become more restrictive in recognizing conversions performed abroad.  Now however it appears that Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election has even impacted the Israeli Rabbinate.  According to JTA, in separate announcements yesterday both Israel's Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis announced that they will convene a meeting next week with the Chief Rabbinate Council and the Supreme Rabbinical Court to create standards for determining which rabbis' conversions will be recognized.  Once a rabbi is on the list, his conversions will be automatically recognized without further investigation. Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef suggested that the standards will result in recognition of Ivanka Trump's conversion.

Muslim Lawyers' Groups Strategize Over Trump Administration

National Law Journal reported Monday that Muslim lawyers' groups around the country are planning ahead for the issues that may arise in the Trump administration, saying in part:

"People right now are struggling to figure out where we're going to focus our efforts," said Fatema Merchant, a member of the Capital Area Muslim Bar Association (CAMBA) board....

Civil rights, hate crimes, First Amend­ment protection, immigration law and election law are some of the concerns of the 100-member organization.... The challenge is to determine how to spend the group's energy. "We can't do everything," she said.

CAMBA is among Muslim attorney groups nationwide grappling with changes expected in the professional and private lives of Muslim lawyers following Trump's election. Of particular worry is his proposal to create a Muslim registry.

Before DeVos, Trump Offered Secretary of Education Post To Jerry Falwell, Jr.

As previously reported, Donald Trump last week picked school-choice advocate Betsy DeVos as his nominee for Secretary of Education.  AP reported yesterday that Trump had first offered the position to Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr.:

Falwell tells The Associated Press that Trump offered him the job last week during a meeting in New York. He says Trump wanted a four- to six-year commitment, but that he couldn't leave Liberty for more than two years.

Falwell says he couldn't afford to work at a Cabinet-level job for longer than that and didn't want to move his family, especially his 16-year-old daughter.

Trump Picks School Choice Advocate For Secretary of Education

The Detroit News reports that Donald Trump has chosen Betsy DeVos, a national leader in the school choice movement as his nominee for Secretary of Education:

DeVos is chair of the American Federation for Children, a Washington, D.C.-based single-issue organization devoted to expanding school of choice options across the country....

DeVos is a former Michigan Republican Party chairwoman whose husband, Dick, unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2006.

The DeVos family, heirs to the Amway Corp. fortune, are the most prolific donors to the Michigan Republican Party, GOP officeholders and candidates....

In 2000, Betsy and Dick DeVos funded an unsuccessful statewide ballot initiative to amend the state Constitution to allow tax dollars to be used for private school tuition through education vouchers. They have since advocated for school vouchers in other states.

Earlier today, before the choice was publicly announced, Breibart News carried an article opposing DeVos which it headlined: Potential Trump Education Chief Pick Betsy DeVos Is Pro-Common Core, Family Donated To Clinton Foundation.

UPDATE: DeVos says she is not a supporter of Common Core, clarifying her position on her website.

Donald Trump On His SCOTUS Appointment, Abortion Rights and Marriage Equality

Last night, CBS' "60 Minutes" broadcast an hour-long interview (full text and video) by Leslie Stahl with President-elect Donald Trump and with members of his family. Portions of the interview dealt with the impact of his Supreme Court nomination on abortion rights and marriage equality. Here are excerpts from the interview:

Lesley Stahl: One of the things you’re going to obviously get an opportunity to do, is name someone to the Supreme Court. And I assume you’ll do that quickly?

Donald Trump: Yes. Very important.

Lesley Stahl: During the campaign, you said that you would appoint justices who were against abortion rights. Will you appoint-- are you looking to appoint a justice who wants to overturn Roe v. Wade?

Donald Trump: So look, here’s what’s going to happen-- I’m going to-- I’m pro-life. The judges will be pro-life. They’ll be very—

Lesley Stahl: But what about overturning this law--

Donald Trump: Well, there are a couple of things. They’ll be pro-life, they’ll be-- in terms of the whole gun situation, we know the Second Amendment and everybody’s talking about the Second Amendment and they’re trying to dice it up and change it, they’re going to be very pro-Second Amendment. But having to do with abortion if it ever were overturned, it would go back to the states. So it would go back to the states and--

Lesley Stahl: Yeah, but then some women won’t be able to get an abortion?

Donald Trump: No, it’ll go back to the states.

Lesley Stahl: By state—no some --

 Donald Trump: Yeah.

Donald Trump: Yeah, well, they’ll perhaps have to go, they’ll have to go to another state.

Lesley Stahl: And that’s OK?

Donald Trump: Well, we’ll see what happens. It’s got a long way to go, just so you understand. That has a long, long way to go....

***

Lesley Stahl: Well, I guess the issue for [the LGBTQ community] is marriage equality. Do you support marriage equality?

Donald Trump: It-- it’s irrelevant because it was already settled. It’s law. It was settled in the Supreme Court. I mean it’s done.

Lesley Stahl: So even if you appoint a judge that--

Donald Trump: It’s done. It-- you have-- these cases have gone to the Supreme Court. They’ve been settled. And, I’m fine with that.

Some Early Press Reactions To Trump's Surprise Victory

For Religion Clause readers, here are some early press reactions to Donald Trump's unexpected win in yesterday's presidential election that may be of interest:

• Evangelicals Hand Victory To Donald Trump (Christianity Today).
• Trump's Win, the Greatest Victory for anti-Semitism in America Since 1941 (Haaretz).
• Mixed reaction to Trump from prominent Muslim Americans (AlJazeera).
• Vatican prays Trump presidency will promote peace amid conflict (Catholic News Agency).
• The End of Roe v. Wade Is Now a Real Possibility (Cosmopolitan).

NYT: Peale Had Religious Influence on Trump

The New York Times yesterday reports on the influence of New York City's Marble Collegiate Church and its former leader, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Difficult Week For New York Orthodox Rabbi As Politics of U.S. and Israel Cause Him Problems

It has been a difficult week for respected Modern Orthodox Rabbi Haskel Lookstein.  Lookstein is the Rabbi Emeritus of Manhattan's Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, the synagogue attended by Donald Trump's daughter and son-in-law. Lookstein is also the rabbi who sponsored Ivanka Trump's conversion to Judaism.  So this week he was tapped to offer an invocation at the Republican National Convention. However a petition (full text) signed by over 800 Orthodox Jews took Lookstein to task, saying in part:

We, the undersigned, are outraged that Rabbi Haskel Lookstein – rabbi emeritus of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun and the Ramaz School – has decided to lend his blessing to Donald Trump and speak at the Republican National Convention.

Donald Trump openly spouts racist, misogynistic rhetoric; he advocates torture, the expulsion of millions of families, some long settled in America, and insinuates that some citizens of this great country are somehow less than others.

So Lookstein decided not to speak at the Convention after all, saying: " The whole matter turned from rabbinic to political, something which was never intended."  The Forward reports on these developments.

Meanwhile, as reported by the Times of Israel, Israel's Supreme Rabbinical Court, the court which hears appeals in personal status matters, ruled on Wednesday that it will not recognize religious conversions performed by Rabbi Lookstein in the United States. It required an American woman who had converted to Judaism under Lookstein's auspices to convert again in Israel in order to get married there.  The ruling, of course, calls into question the Israeli rabbinate's willingness to recognize Ivanka Trump's conversion as well.  Israel's Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau says he recognizes Lookstein's conversions, but the Chief Rabbinate is separate from the Supreme Rabbinical Court. Israeli officials such as Jewish Agency head Natan Sharanksy also back Lookstein.

Trump Meets With Evangelical Leaders In New York

Washington Post has a lengthy account of Donald Trump's meeting in New York yesterday with a large group of Christian conservative leaders. Here are some excerpts from the article:

Donald Trump won a standing ovation from hundreds of Christian conservatives who came to New York City on Tuesday with a somewhat skeptical but willing attitude toward a man who has divided their group with comments on women, immigrants and Islam. In his comments, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee said he would end the decades-old ban on tax-exempt groups’ — including churches — politicking, called religious liberty “the No. 1 question,” and promised to appoint antiabortion Supreme Court justices....

Throughout the talk Trump emphasized that America was hurting due to what he described as Christianity’s slide to become “weaker, weaker, weaker.” He said he’d get department store employees to say “Merry Christmas” and would fight restrictions on public employees, such as public school coaches, from being allowed to lead sectarian prayer on the field....

While polls show that the majority of evangelicals — who make up about a fifth of the country — are favorable toward Trump, his campaign has bitterly divided Christian conservatives in general. Those who oppose him do so strongly, and later Tuesday, a separate group of conservatives — including leading evangelicals — were meeting to strategize about a possible third candidate.... 

“This meeting marks the end of the Christian Right,” Michael Farris, a national homeschooling pioneer and longtime figure of the Christian Right, wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday.  He noted that he was present at the first gathering of the Moral Majority in 1980: “The premise of the meeting in 1980 was that only candidates that reflected a biblical worldview and good character would gain our support. … Today, a candidate whose worldview is greed and whose god is his appetites (Philippians 3) is being tacitly endorsed by this throng. … This is a day of mourning.”

Also yesterday the Trump campaign announced a new 25-member Evangelical Executive Advisory Board.  The Board includes Michele Bachmann, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed.  A larger Faith and Cultural Advisory Committee will be announced later this month.  [Thanks to Scott Mange for the lead.]

UPDATE: Here is a full transcript of Trump's meeting.

Paper Calls Out Anti-Semitic Harassment of Journalists

The Forward today is calling attention to the continuing anti-Semitic harassment on social media (mainly Twitter) of Jewish journalists (or those perceived to be Jewish).  The anti-Semitic messages have often come in response to journalists' coverage of Donald Trump's campaign. A June 7 Washington Post piece has examples. The Forward says:

Online bullying is a non-partisan activity — both the far left and the far right are quite good at it — but the virulent anti-Semitism many journalists experience today comes from what is known as the “alt-right,” shadowy white supremacists who mainly hide behind the anonymity of Twitter to traffic in horrible Holocaust imagery and directly threaten Jews.

Many of these threats draw on connections with Trump’s presidential campaign, using Trump’s image and targeting his critics, including several of our regular writers. Even if you don’t believe that the presumed Republican standard bearer has stoked this cyber-hate (which is a generous assumption), you have to admit that he appears to have done nothing to minimize or condemn it.

As a symbolic protest, The Forward says it will refuse for 24 hours (starting tomorrow) to publish anything mentioning Trump's name or his campaign.

Donald Trump On Profiling of Muslims

Yesterday in a phone interview with program host John Dickerson on CBS's Face the Nation, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump spoke about the possibility of profiling Muslims in the wake of the attack in Orlando on a gay nightclub. Here is an excerpt from the full transcript:

DICKERSON: When you talk about political correctness, should a Muslim buying ammunition and weapons get extra scrutiny?

TRUMP: I don't know about that.

I think, right now, we have some pretty big problems. And there are problems coming out of radical Islamic -- the radical Islamic groups. You have a very, very strong group of people that is radical Islamic, and that seems to be a problem.

DICKERSON: And you said you would check respectfully the mosques. How do you respectfully check a mosque?

TRUMP: Well, you do as they used to do in New York, prior to this mayor dismantling.

By the way, if you go to France right now, they're doing it in France. In fact, in some instances, they are closing down mosques. People don't want to talk about it. People aren't talking about it. But look at what they're doing in France. They are actually closing down mosques.

DICKERSON: Can I ask you just a bottom-line question before we move on? You like to speak plainly. In December, we talked, and you said there possibly should be profiling. Just as a bottom line here, are you talking about increasing profiling of Muslims in America?

TRUMP: Well, I think profiling is something that we're going to have to start thinking about as a country. And other countries do it.

And you look at Israel and you look at others, and they do it. And they do it successfully. And I hate the concept of profiling. But we have to start using common sense, and we have to use -- we have to use our heads.

I see people that -- and I have seen it recently. We had a case where very much in my case, where we had -- we had tremendous numbers of people coming into a speech I was making. And people that obviously had no guns, had no weapons, had no anything, and they were being -- they were going through screening.

And they were going through the same -- the same scrutiny, the absolute same scrutiny as somebody else that looked like it could have been a possible person. So, we really have to look at profiling. We have to look at it seriously.

And other countries do it. And it's not the worst thing to do. I hate the concept of profiling, but we have to use common sense. We're not using common sense.

Obama Counters Trump's Statements On Muslims

President Obama, speaking in Washington yesterday after a meeting with his National Security Council (full text of remarks) responded to claims by Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump that the President should be using the term "radical Islam" to refer to terrorists, and more broadly to some of Trump's proposals relating to Muslim immigrants:

So there’s no magic to the phrase “radical Islam.”  It’s a political talking point; it's not a strategy.  And the reason I am careful about how I describe this threat has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with actually defeating extremism.  Groups like ISIL and al Qaeda want to make this war a war between Islam and America, or between Islam and the West.  They want to claim that they are the true leaders of over a billion Muslims around the world who reject their crazy notions.  They want us to validate them by implying that they speak for those billion-plus people; that they speak for Islam.  That’s their propaganda.  That's how they recruit.  And if we fall into the trap of painting all Muslims with a broad brush and imply that we are at war with an entire religion -- then we’re doing the terrorists' work for them....

... We now have proposals from the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States to bar all Muslims from emigrating to America.  We hear language that singles out immigrants and suggests that entire religious communities are complicit in violence.  Where does this stop?... 

Are we going to start treating all Muslim Americans differently?  Are we going to start subjecting them to special surveillance?  Are we going to start discriminating against them because of their faith?  We’ve heard these suggestions during the course of this campaign.  Do Republican officials actually agree with this?  Because that's not the America we want.  It doesn't reflect our democratic ideals.  It won’t make us more safe; it will make us less safe -- fueling ISIL’s notion that the West hates Muslims, making young Muslims in this country and around the world feel like no matter what they do, they're going to be under suspicion and under attack.  It makes Muslim Americans feel like they're government is betraying them.  It betrays the very values America stands for.

We've gone through moments in our history before when we acted out of fear -- and we came to regret it.  We've seen our government mistreat our fellow citizens.  And it has been a shameful part of our history.

Trump Reacts To Orlando Attack In Speech Focusing On Immigration

Yesterday Republican presumptive Presidential nominee Donald Trump delivered a controversial speech (full text) in reaction to the June 12 killing of 49 people at a night club in Orlando, Florida. Focusing on immigration, Trump said in part:

We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer.

Many of the principles of Radical Islam are incompatible with Western values and institutions.

Radical Islam is anti-woman, anti-gay and anti-American.

I refuse to allow America to become a place where gay people, Christian people, and Jewish people, are the targets of persecution and intimidation by Radical Islamic preachers of hate and violence.

Here is part of the New York Times coverage:

Without distinguishing between mainstream Muslims and Islamist terrorists, Mr. Trump suggested that all Muslim immigrants posed potential threats to America’s security and called for a ban on migrants from any part of the world with “a proven history of terrorism” against the United States or its allies. He also insinuated that American Muslims were all but complicit in acts of domestic terrorism for failing to report attacks in advance, asserting without evidence that they had warnings of shootings like the one in Orlando.

Mr. Trump’s speech, delivered at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., represented an extraordinary break from the longstanding rhetorical norms of American presidential nominees. But if his language more closely resembled a European nationalist’s than a mainstream Republican’s, he was wagering that voters are stirred more by their fears of Islamic terrorism than any concerns they may have about his flouting traditions of tolerance and respect for religious diversity.