President Donald Trump and a who’s who of political leaders returned Tuesday to the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, better known as the National Cathedral, for the funeral of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham.
The service reaffirmed something many Republicans seemed ready to abandon only 18 months ago: The National Cathedral remains America’s Westminster Abbey.
The last time Trump entered the Gothic edifice was Jan. 21, 2025, the first full day of his presidency. During the traditional inaugural prayer service, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, used the ornately carved Canterbury Pulpit to berate Trump. The dominant theological left in the Episcopal Church and broader Mainline Protestantism applauded. Theological conservatives, particularly evangelicals, recoiled.
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In the aftermath, it appeared Trump and Republicans might finally strip the National Cathedral of the unique role it has long enjoyed. Instead, they returned.
The irony extends beyond politics.
Graham was a Southern Baptist. His funeral, however, followed the Episcopal Church’s solemn liturgy.
In all matters of religion, Southern Baptists and Episcopalians are different ends of the Protestant spectrum.
The Episcopal Church and the more theologically conservative Anglican Church in North America, which split from it more than a decade ago, retain bishops, priests, and deacons. Baptists and other dissenting Protestants literally fought in the English Civil War over the episcopacy — that is to say, bishops — in the Church of England.
The differences hardly end there.
The Southern Baptist Convention does not ordain women as clergy. Not only has the Episcopal Church done so for decades, but the new archbishop of Canterbury is a woman.
Admittedly, most churchgoers today would struggle to explain what makes a Baptist a Baptist or an Episcopalian an Anglican. The old denominational distinctions have become largely irrelevant in modern American religious life.
The real reason Graham’s funeral took place at the National Cathedral is remarkably simple: the Episcopalians put on a good show.
Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion and Democracy has long argued that, despite the Episcopal Church’s decline, the denomination, and especially the National Cathedral, functions as a default civil religion.
The cathedral is one of Washington’s most monumental spaces and one of the few authentic examples of medieval Gothic architecture anywhere in the United States. Its pointed arches are structural rather than decorative. It was built for moments of national life.
The formal Episcopal liturgy possesses a dignity and ceremonial precision that few churches, Baptist or otherwise, could match. The vested clergy look the part. The choir fills the cavernous nave with music. The architecture supplies a grandeur no event planner or set designer could recreate on an auditorium stage.
Then there are the practical realities.
The National Cathedral is enormous. It dwarfs the National Presbyterian Church, the National United Methodist Church, and the National Baptist Memorial Church. Only the Roman Catholic Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception rivals it in size.
Just as importantly, no other church has the National Cathedral’s institutional experience. Its clergy and staff have spent decades producing presidential funerals, national memorials, and other services of national significance. The Metropolitan Police Department and Secret Service know the building. Television networks already know the lighting, camera positions, and production logistics. That expertise cannot easily be replicated.
Based on current demographic trends, the Episcopal Church will almost certainly cease to function as a truly national denomination by the middle of this century. Yet the National Cathedral will almost certainly outlast the church that built it.
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Graham’s funeral demonstrated why.
Regardless of who occupies the White House or where the deceased worshipped on Sunday mornings, when America needs a sacred stage for its most important public moments, it still turns to the National Cathedral.
Dennis Lennox (@dennislennox) is a political commentator and public affairs consultant.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
