American Presidents and the Rhetoric of Virtue

William McKinley

“We hope that all who are represented here may be moved to higher and nobler effort for their own and the world's good.”

– President William McKinley, Buffalo, New York, September 5, 1901

As the nation’s political and symbolic leaders, United States presidents have long encouraged public virtue. Until this week, that is, when virtue seems to get lost in the muck, as President Donald Trump posted a bizarre video that depicts him as a fighter pilot, wearing a royal crown, divebombing peaceful demonstrators with his own fecal matter.

Trump’s disgusting video, which his political movement has solidly supported, invites us to put aside the day’s horrors, the unspeakable disgrace, the indelible contempt that Trump has brought to our nation, and to remember that American presidents have regularly urged their fellow citizens to live virtuous lives, to follow the honorable course, and to do right by one another. For one of the President’s traditional roles is to bring out our best. And this is exactly what previous presidents have undertaken – over, over, and over. Until now. Let us not wallow in disgust and Trump’s infantile behavior. Let us, instead, remember uplifting rhetoric’s long tradition. Let us remember history’s finest lessons! We can begin with our first president.

McKinley's Last Speech: Inclusive, Rational, Persuasive

 

George Washington

George Washington immediately set his new nation’s moral tone. In his First Inaugural Address, he offered his fellow citizens principles of honor and moral behavior. Indeed, Washington took it for granted that, despite their policy disagreements, the opposing political movements would all forever agree on basic principles: honor, freedom, and justice. He further asserted that only good and moral people could enjoy free government and command the world’s admiration: 

“… the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world.”

The Father of Our Country continued:

“… there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness.”

A population that forgets virtue has forsaken happiness! Words to ponder indeed. The Father of Our Country set the tone, and Abraham Lincoln, who was perhaps, our greatest president continued it while facing the most trying circumstances.


Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Even during the trials of the American Civil War, a violent struggle like no other that our nation has experienced, the President of the United States urged reconciliation, forgiveness, and mutual respect.

Abraham Lincoln, who preserved the Union, was perhaps the most elegant speaker our nation has ever produced. And maybe the wisest. Let us consider the words that concluded his Second Inaugural Address in 1865. He gave that speech at the end of the Civil War, a time when grief, hatred, and bloody horror spread across the entire land, when few households had not lost a husband, son, or brother, and urged the warring parties to unite with forgiveness and kindness:

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

“With malice toward none!” Not just victory, but “a just, and a lasting peace.”

Did the reunited nation fully live up to Lincoln’s plea? Of course not. A disgruntled Southerner soon shot Lincoln dead. As the years passed, the nation was wracked by the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow laws, racial segregation, the myth of the Lost Cause, and the violent oppression of civil rights.

Abraham Lincoln and the Definition of “Liberty:” A Lesson for Our Time

Nevertheless, Lincoln urged the nation to do what was right, to live virtuously, and to overcome our differences. We would all – all of us – have been better off if we had lived by his rules. Lincoln tried, almost with his dying breath, to put the United States on the right path.


John F. Kennedy

John Kennedy was, in his own way, as eloquent as Lincoln. Like Washington and Lincoln, he encouraged patriotism and selflessness. In his Inaugural Address, Kennedy stated a model of virtue and citizenship that should inspire every American patriot:

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

Not only did he urge Americans to “ask what you can do for your country,” but, recognizing that national power brings moral obligations, Kennedy encouraged the entire world to work for freedom and justice:

“My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

(That, by the way, was my mother’s favorite passage from Kennedy’s great speech.) A decorated veteran of World War II, Kennedy knew that the United States led the free world and that other nations looked to us for an example.

John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address: A Call to Service


Ronald Reagan

John Kennedy was not the last president to express moral sentiments as the leader of the free world! Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly

Reagan at the UN

in New York City, Ronald Reagan reminded the assembled world leaders of the “fellowship of the human race.” He praised the human spirit:

“The responsibility of this assembly -- the peaceful resolution of disputes between peoples and nations -- can be discharged successfully only if we recognize the great common ground upon which we all stand: our fellowship as members of the human race, our oneness as inhabitants of this planet, our place as representatives of billions of our countrymen whose fondest hope remains the end to war and to the repression of the human spirit.”

Reagan perfectly well understood the traumas of human history, the injustices that people have wreaked upon one another. Nevertheless, he urged the United Nations to look past those horrors instead to create a better world:

“Yes, the deeds of infamy or injustice are all recorded, but what shines out from the pages of history is the daring of the dreamers and the deeds of the builders and the doers.”

Dreamers and builders and doers! Can we live by Reagan’s wisdom? That was in the old days, of course, when American leadership was unquestioned. 

The Lesson to Remember!

For the lesson that Reagan, and many other presidents, have taught is a lesson in rhetorical leadership.

Of course, I could go on. In his Second Inaugural Address, President William McKinley, a heartfelt conservative, told the nation to move past party loyalty: “There are some national questions in the solution of which patriotism should exclude partisanship.” Alas, McKinley’s simple lesson seems to have vanished in the mists. A century later, President Barack Obama reminded the United States that, “In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned.” 

Yes, greatness must indeed be earned. Boasting and bragging make no one great. Sadly, we now seem to live in an era in which people mock virtue. We now live in an era when the current President of the United States celebrates the vilest behavior imaginable. Now, yes, the reader might respond that not all presidents have been virtuous people. The reader might remark that the United States has not always done right. That’s not the point: we all have faults. The most important thing is that, recognizing their role as leaders, American presidents have consistently spoken to guide the nation onto a right path.

Leadership is not all about power, cruelty, and violence. The most powerful leadership is moral leadership. The most powerful leadership comes when we inspire ourselves and others to be our best, to strive for excellence, to live lives of compassion, justice, and, yes, virtue. The most powerful leadership is to guide people on the right path.

The most disturbing part of Donald Trump’s disgusting doggy-doo video is not just that he published it, for nothing that Trump does surprises me. No, the most disturbing part is that his leading supporters not only tolerate, but excuse and even celebrate Trump as he leads the United States into depravity. Yes, leaders can move us down, just as they can move us up.

Still, all is not lost. Our forebears still guide us. We can still act “with malice toward none.” We can still remember to “ask what you can do for your country.” High school history students across the country were taught those lessons. Our presidents’ wise speeches laid down our moral principles. Let us remember them. Let us try to live by them. For true conservativism comes from true traditions, and a proud line of American presidents have handed those traditions down to us. Let us live by them.

by William D. Harpine

Copyright 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of William McKinley, public domain, Library of Congress  

Image of Abraham Lincoln, public domain, Library of Congress

Image of Ronald Reagan, Public Domain, Ronald Reagan Library

Red Cloud's Cooper Union Speech

Red Cloud, c. 1877

“The Good Spirit made us both.” So said Oglala Lakota Chief Red Cloud, speaking at New York City’s Cooper Union on June 16, 1870. In this famous address, Red Cloud established the common humanity that his people shared with the white people. To show that common humanity while also revealing the resultant injustices, Red Cloud used the classic rhetorical device of parallel language structures. 

Red Cloud's simple but powerful language compared and contrasted the two populations. Indeed, one encounters few if any speakers in the American rhetorical tradition who equaled Red Cloud’s simple eloquence. It was an eloquence of connecting power. His parallel words made his thoughts echo off one another. His parallel language established the greatness and yet the injustice of our common humanity.

For, indeed, common humanity was Red Cloud’s theme. “God Almighty has made us all,” Red Cloud said, “and He is here to bless what I have to say to you today.”

As he began by delivering this speech’s most famous passage, Red Cloud compared and contrasted how the white people had received many advantages, while his own people had few and were declining:

“When God Almighty made you he made you all white and clothed you. When He made us He made us with red skins and poor. When you first came we were very many, and you were few; now you are many, and we are getting very few, and we are poor.”

God’s creation creates a frame for that entire passage. That framing helps Red Cloud compare the incidental and meaningless accident of skin color against the contrasting groups’ economic and social status: “you all white and clothed you… us with red skins and poor.” The parallel phrasing contrasted the two groups: “made you… made us.” The repeated phrases linked two opposing thoughts. Red Cloud followed this with a further contrast, still keeping the structures parallel: “now you are many, and we are getting very few.” He concluded the passage, pointing out that his people remained poor. As usual, the rich and powerful overwhelmed the poor – a seemingly

Cooper Union, NYC

inevitable consequence of what we proudly call civilization. 

Then, to establish his credibility, Red Cloud reminded the audience that, “I am a representative of the original American race, the first people of this continent.” Continuing, Red Cloud contrasted the advantages that civilization had given to the white people against his own’s peoples’ struggles:

“The Great Spirit made us poor and ignorant; made you rich and wise and more skillful in things which we know nothing about. The Great Father, the Good Father in Heaven, made you all to eat tame game and us to eat wild game.” 

Again, still sounding fatalistic, Red Cloud continued to compare and contrast. “Poor and ignorant,” he said, contrasted with “rich and wise.” God, “the Good Father,” created the world for the white people to eat tame game and the Lakota to eat wild game. By repeating “game” instead of “meat,” Red Cloud reminded his audience that the cows, chickens, and pigs that white people raised on farms were, after all, just animals that had been tamed. If he had said, “You eat farm stock, while we hunt for food,” the literal meaning would remain, but, without the parallel language, the commonality would have vanished. 

After reviewing the various injustices and broken treaties, Red Cloud made a moral plea:

“I want you to help me get what is right and just.”

Still using parallel language to powerful advantage, Red Cloud pled, not for riches or power, but for justice:

“Look at me. I am poor and naked, but I am the Chief of the Nation. We do not want riches, but we want our children trained and brought up properly. We look to you for your sympathy. Riches will do us no good. We cannot take away into the other world anything we have here. We want to have peace and love.”

As we reflect on that plea, we see more contrasts: Red Cloud was “poor and naked,” but he was also “the Chief of the Nation.” And what did he ask for? He spurned greed, instead pleading for the next generation: “do not want riches, but want our children trained.” Comparing the idleness of wealth against the benefits of doing things the right way! His language followed a familiar pattern, “Not the one, but the other.” Contrasting! Red Cloud showed the power of bringing up children precisely by contrasting that virtue against riches. The comparison and contrast created a plea that inspired just because it was more reasonable.

As he concluded, Red Cloud reinforced his key point, which was that different peoples can still understand and trust one another:

“I am glad I have come here. You belong in the East and I belong in the West. And I am glad that I have come here and that we could understand one another.”

The white people belong in one place, and he belonged in another. “You belong...I belong.” Another comparison and contrast. Yet, as I read those words from so long ago, I could not help but to think of the old Christian hymn, “In Christ there is no East or West.” And as I reflect on that, I, for one, question whether we are ever wise to relegate fellow humanity to different places, fates, or advantages.

Eloquent language is not just beautiful. No! Far from it! Eloquent language makes us think. By comparing and contrasting, Red Cloud gave his audience a chance to slow down and think a little bit. I, for one, am thinking a little bit today. For today, October 13, 2025, some Americans are celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day, while others celebrate Columbus Day. Do we celebrate the conquered, or the conqueror? I hope that thinking about Red Cloud’s powerful, eloquent speech helps all of us reflect on this day of memory.

by William D. Harpine   

_____________

Historical Note: Red Cloud lived a long life and was renowned both as a military and political leader of his people. He converted to Christianity and was renowned for helping his dispossessed population as they adjusted to life on reservations. For people who want to learn a little more about Red Cloud’s life, here is a brief biography.

Theoretical Note: The ancient rhetorical theorists called Red Cloud’s technique “syncrisis,” which means that the speaker compared and contrasted two things by using parallel language structures. It is an excellent speaking technique that slows people down and helps them think. 

People who examine Native American speeches need to be aware that many of the speech texts that have come down to us are of questionable accuracy, as they were often revised to convey a white editor’s version or impression of what the speaker should have said. In contrast, Red Cloud’s speech at Cooper Union appears to be the product of a shorthand record, and therefore probably comes close to what he actually said.

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of Red Cloud, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image of Cooper Union: David Shankbone, GNU Free Documentation License, via Wikimedia Commons 

Lawrence Wong's Commemorative Speech: Inspiring People with Personal Stories

Lawrence Wong

“As we learn from history, let us always look ahead to the future and move forward for the common good.”

Such was the lesson taught by Lawrence Wong, Singapore’s Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, speaking at a ceremony on August 27, 2015 to commemorate the 70^th anniversary of the end of World War II. 

To commemorate Singapore’s liberation, Wong wisely looked back at the past and toward the future. After all, we learn from the past. We also understand that individual people experienced every heroic act and every brutal event. We know that each scintilla of hope exists only because a human being carries it. By shining forth the examples of people from the past and present, Wong served the highest value of commemoration. It was not his purpose to lecture people about events they already knew; no, his purpose was to inspire--to teach by relating personal stories. 

World War II, history’s most awful war, created suffering and heroism that defy human understanding. The island of Singapore, which was a British colony at the time, suffered Japanese invasion and occupation. After a few months of fighting, the Japanese captured Singapore’s massive seaport and solidified their control of the region’s sea lanes. The Japanese occupation was notably cruel. More than 30,000 captured Allied troops eventually died in Japanese captivity.  

To emphasize history's lessons, Wong cited personal stories from the past and present. By bringing up his family’s war experience, praising a war hero, and then praising a young student who looked to the future, Wong gave a speech that exemplified the epideictic genre. Epideictic oratory, that is, ceremonial speaking that honors people for their past accomplishments, uses examples to inspire our future actions.

Lessons from the Past

Speaking from the same room in Singapore’s National Gallery where Lord Mountbatten accepted Japan’s 1945 surrender in the Southwest Pacific, Wong began with stories of wartime suffering.

“It was my late grandfather, who would share with us stories of the Occupation – the food shortages, the illnesses they suffered, and also the lives lost, including that of his brother, my granduncle. He was rounded up with several young men in the village by soldiers then, late at night, and they never returned.”

 Continuing, Wong pointed out how important it is to remember the past:

“So we rely on memories like these, as well as the accounts we have just heard from people like Major Singh and Professor Thumboo. We remember the past in this dark and difficult period of our history.”

Those personal stories carried emotional meaning that would have eluded dry historical summaries. In addition, Wong recognized the sacrifices of the heroes who fought for Singapore’s freedom. Toward that end, the event’s organizers had gathered survivors to sit in the front row for the ceremony. Wong told the story of one Singaporean war hero: 

“One example is Captain Ho Weng Toh, who is 95 this year, and is here with us today. Captain Ho trained in the States with the US Army Air Force, and became a pilot with the Chinese-American bomber squadron known as the ‘Flying Tigers’. They were based in the Shanxi province in China, fighting against the Japanese forces then.”

As Wong continued, he explained that Captain Ho was a symbol of the “countless others” who “inspired us through their actions.” Bringing the point to a climax, Wong emphasized that, “We owe them a debt of gratitude that cannot be repaid”

Wong then asked the veterans to stand for applause.

Lessons for the Future

We wisely revisit the past so we can learn lessons and do better in the future. That is why, after praising the heroes of the past, Wong underlined that the occupation taught Singapore to gain strength and compassion: 

“The common experience of Occupation strengthened the people's mettle. It shaped their resolve to ensure that their children should never suffer in the same way. It catalyzed the building of our nation and forged a common identity out of a community of diverse immigrants.”

To emphasize the future, Wong introduced a 17-year-old student, Jamie Ng. He credited her with introducing the idea for the 70^th anniversary commemoration. Drawing from her experience and wisdom, Wong taught a lesson of peace and friendship: 

“Jamie has a keen interest in World War II history, and I understand her grandparents experienced the war. She shared with us that the most important thing her World War II studies have taught her is the need to prevent war, and to preserve harmony, understanding and friendship between nations.”

So, Wong moved from lamenting the war’s horrors, to praising the past’s heroes, and finally to the values that can guide Singapore’s future.

"A New Era:" General Douglas' MacArthur's Speech on the USS Missouri

George W. Bush on 9/11: A Message of Unity; Have We Forgotten?

The Lesson Learned

Wong advised the audience to learn from history and to move toward the time ahead, standing up for one’s values along the way. Good advice for any commemoration: 

“So as we learn from history, let us always look ahead to the future and move forward for the common good. Let us be a people that keeps faith with our past; a nation that stands up for its values; a Singapore that we will always be proud to call home.”

Wong’s approach was vastly more potent than a dry, academic recital of statistics. He could have remarked that perhaps 50 million people died in World War II. He could have stated how many thousands of Singaporeans died during the war, or how many starved, or how many were brutally murdered by Japanese forces. Mere statistics, however, rarely move the human heart. No, it is personal stories that move the heart. Thus, Wong wisely chose to emphasize the personal. His stories of his grandfather, Captain Ho Weng Toh, and student Jamie Ng touched the soul as well as the mind.

by William D. Harpine

___________

P.S. Lawrence Wong has since assumed office as the Prime Minister of Singapore. He is a member of Singapore’s People’s Action Party, the centrist regime that exercises Singapore’s government. Given Singapore’s de facto one-party rule, Freedom House rates Singapore at 48/100, “Partly Free,” as compared with the United States, 84/100 (“Free”) or Canada, 97/100 (“Free”). Finland rates 100/100, so the rest of us have room to improve. 

Research Note: For readers who want to know more about the often-underestimated genre of epideictic rhetoric, Professor Dale Sullivan wrote a terrific article on the topic. More ambitious readers might look at the relevant sections of The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, by Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. I have been lucky enough to publish a few pieces about epideictic rhetoric; click on the ribbon link above for William D. Harpine's Publications.

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of Lawrence Wong: United States Department of Defense, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons  

Carrie Chapman Catt's Speech "The Crisis," A Metaphorical Call for Women's Rights

Carrie Chapman Catt

“I believe that a crisis has come,” said suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt, as she spoke in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 7, 1916, “which, if recognized and the opportunity seized with vigor, enthusiasm and will, means the final victory of our great cause in the very near future.”

“Victory.” “Great cause.” Chapman Catt gave a militaristic speech in wartime, and her militaristic metaphors carried forth her call for women’s rights, democracy, and economic wisdom. She did not just give a political call, however; no, it was a symbolic battle.

How do metaphors work in speeches? A metaphor directly equates two things, for example, “life is a rose.” Unlike similes (“life is like a rose”), metaphors change how we think. When we talk about a table’s legs, we literally forget that a table isn’t a person, doesn’t really have legs, and does not actually stand on legs, or anything else, for that matter. Instead, the metaphor shapes how we think about tables. So, with women’s rights, there wasn’t literally a crisis, not in the sense that Europe was in a crisis, and no bombs were bursting around the suffragists’ demonstrations. Instead, Chapman Catt’s metaphors created symbolic power. And, in the long run, what kind of power is greater?

Indeed, Chapman Catt insisted in warlike manner, “our victory hangs within our grasp.” She talked about a “long drawn out struggle” and “cruel hostility.” Chapman Catt began by reviewing women’s practical wartime contributions, and ended with a symbolic but militaristic call for women’s struggles. Chapman Catt’s military metaphors – “crisis,” “struggle,” “cruel hostility,” stressed the fight for women’s rights.

So, in 1916, World War I was ravaging Europe, while the United States remained at peace. With the world thinking of war – they called it the Great War, for they never imagined that an even worse war was coming – Chapman Catt’s metaphors drew women’s rights from the global conflict.

So, while casting her eyes on the war’s social and economic effects, Chapman Catt recognized that the war would overturn the social order and create a new world.

Woman working in British
airplane factory, 1914

Citing unnamed authorities, she agreed that the war would “lead to social and political revolution throughout the entire world.” She predicted “that the war presages a total change in the status of women.”

To emphasize her point, Chapman Catt reminded her audience of the war’s economic cost in money and human lives. With the men at war, women began to fill traditional men’s roles. In sad contrast, as Chapman Catt pointed out, men who could have contributed economically were, instead, destroyed on the battlefield. Many of the survivors would, she continued. “go to their homes, blind, crippled and incapacitated to do the work they once performed.” In the meantime, she noted that the war forced women into the workplace, growing crops and building bombs, while also giving “tender and skilled care to the wounded.”

With the war bringing women’s economic contributions forward, what choice would the world have, Chapman Catt asked, then to recognize their work?

“The economic axiom, denied and evaded for centuries, will be blazoned on every factory, counting house and shop: ‘Equal pay for equal work’; and common justice will slowly, but surely enforce that law.”

And thus, as the war ripped the traditional economic system to bits, Chapman Catt stated that the violence of warfare would soon release women from their symbolic (and sometimes more literal) enslavement:

“So it happens that above the roar of cannon, the scream of shrapnel and the whirr of aeroplanes, one who listens may hear the cracking of the fetters which have long bound the European woman to outworn conventions.”

Not just freedom, she said, but “cracking of the fetters.” Building on that symbolic but potent connection, Chapman Catt ended by calling, not only for “emancipation,” but for a “bugle call” to lead women as they march toward freedom. The military metaphor had, in her speech, now become a real battle, emerging from the war’s horrors, and bringing liberty to women who fought for their freedom:

“The Political emancipation of our sex calls you: Women of America, arise! Are you content that others shall pay the price of your liberty? Women in schools and counting houses, in shops and on the farm, women in the home with babes at their breasts and women engaged in public careers will hear. The veins of American women are not filled with milk and water. They are neither cowards nor slackers. They will come. They only await the bugle call to learn that the final battle is on.”

Like the fighting men in Europe, American women were, she said, “neither cowards nor slackers.” Instead, they prepared for “the final battle” to begin. Thus, her prescient discussion of the war’s political and economic effects had now culminated in full-grown military metaphors.

Ursula von der Leyen Warned Us of the Totalitarian Winds

 

Eleanor Roosevelt's Speech about the Struggle for Freedom

 

From disaster, Chapman Catt had drawn hope. She expected “that the war will be followed by a mighty, oncoming wave of democracy.” Her reason was that “the conflict has been one of governments, of kings and Czars, Kaisers and Emperors; not of peoples.”

Overall, Chapman Catt and her metaphors tied her themes together brilliantly. Yes, the Great War had brought women into economic roles that men had previously served. The men answered the call to fight. The women answered their call to serve. The war disrupted the economic institutions that the traditionalists mistakenly thought they were preserving. As the war ended, the fight for women’s rights would just begin. The Great War was a war of slaughter. The metaphorical war of American women was a fight of freedom. Symbols helped create the new reality.

Now, Chapman Catt led various women’s organizations, and we remember her today as the founder of the League of Women Voters. One of her predictions came true: the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, passed only a few years later, recognized women’s right to vote. In that sense, her optimistic belief that the war would lead to more democracy had some truth. Unfortunately, the war was also followed by a tariff war, the Great Depression, economic upheavals, and the rise of worldwide dictatorships. Another war, even more evil than the first, would soon ravage the world. Indeed, the second war was delayed only by the need to raise a new generation of soldiers to replace the ones who died the first time. And I, for one, saddened by the rise of Donald Trump and his movement of resentment and reaction, remain unconvinced that the nation ever learned the lessons that Carrie Chapman Catt so eloquently taught.

by William D. Harpine   

_______

Research Note: Many outstanding scholars have written about metaphors, but, as I wrote, I was particularly thinking about I. A. Richards’ The Philosophy of Rhetoric. And many thanks, once again, to AmericanRhetoric.com, co-founded by my graduate school classmate and book editor, the late Martin J. Medhurst, for publishing the text of this important speech.

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of Carrie Chapman Catt: Joint Suffrage Procession Committee, 

public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image of woman working in factory, University of British Columbia, 

public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dame Sarah Mullally, Archbishop of Canterbury, Spoke for a Christianity of Love and Kindness - How Radical!

Sarah Mullally, 2019

“In the midst of such profound global uncertainty, the possibility of healing lies in acts of kindness and love.”

How does a Christian defend kindness and love against their deadliest enemies: fear, indifference, and vengeance? On October 3, 2025, in her first major speech after becoming the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverand Sarah Mullally spoke for a Christianity of love, compassion, and mercy. Throughout her speech, she reached out with a larger lesson! She looked to the big picture. She spoke, not just for rejecting fear, but for the larger moral principle – the principle of hope:

“Hope is made of the infinite love of God, who breathed life into creation and said it was good. Hope shimmered in the courage of Abraham and Sarah and the challenging call of the prophets. … Hope is found in Christ’s triumph over sin and death.”

In an era dominated by right-wing rage, love is suddenly controversial? Apparently it is. Conservative Reverand Paula White prayed against “every demonic network that has aligned itself against the purpose and calling of President Trump.” Baptist minister Russell Moore reports that conservative congregations are telling their ministers not to preach from the Sermon on the Mount, because they find it “weak” and too “liberal.” Are such views in any way consistent with Bishop Mullally’s vision of hope and compassion?

Paula White Prayed against Trump's Enemies

Mullally neither named leaders of the right-wing movement, nor did she shame them. Instead, she stood up for the biblical message. She focused on the positive, ignoring the negative: instead of refuting other social trends, she sought to uplift the issue. For example, she said:

"In every church you will encounter Jesus Christ, and his teaching to love one another: our source and our standard. This is both gift and responsibility. Jesus Christ is the life-changing hope that brings us together as church, even in our own brokenness and messiness – and sends us out into the world to witness to that Love."

After praying about God’s “generous mercy” from the Book of Common Prayer, Mullally stated her life’s mission:

“Washing feet has shaped my Christian vocation as a nurse, then a priest, then a bishop. In the apparent chaos which surrounds us, in the midst of such profound global uncertainty, the possibility of healing lies in acts of kindness and love.”

The speaker never mentioned the politicians who seek power by spreading racism and greed. She didn’t need to! Instead, she wisely recognized that those politicians merely symptomize a society that thinks small while clinging to false ideals:

“In an age that craves certainty and tribalism, Anglicanism offers something quieter but stronger: shared history, held in tension, shaped by prayer, and lit from within by the glory of Christ.”

As she pointed out the risks of “certainty,” of course, she implicitly attacked the false feeling that we can overcome strife by clinging to dogma. The evil of “tribalism” arises when we blame our misfortunes on persons outside of our own community or group. 

Antisemitism may be the oldest tribalist evil. So, continuing to oppose antisemitism, Mullally drew a moral lesson from a recent synagogue shooting. Not only did she sympathize with the victims, but she also emphasized the larger point, that we must overcome the “fractures” that separate us instead of uniting us. That larger point reinforced her theme:

“Mindful of the horrific violence of yesterday’s attack on a synagogue in Manchester, we are witnessing hatred that rises up through fractures across our communities.”

Communities, tribalism—Mullally urged the world toward unity. To see the bigger picture, to care about one another with love and compassion.

We do, I have noticed, live in an era when too many people misuse the Christian faith, and other faiths, as weapons to divide us. People express bigotry against those whose faith differs from their own. People too often wish to destroy other faiths rather than to live by the principles of their own faith—principles of love and kindness. 

Rabbi Michael Z. Cahana’s Sermon about the Summer of Love: Is Love the Answer to Nazism?

Pope Francis' Sermon for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees

Throughout this quiet but thought-provoking speech, Mullally repeatedly examined society’s practical and moral failings. Yet she appealed to solve them, not by nuts-and-bolts politics, but by renewing Christian principles: faith, compassion, and service. The big picture is often the best.

by William D. Harpine   

____________

Note: in the Anglican Communion’s structure, the Archbishop of Canterbury exercises direct authority only over her own church region. However, the worldwide Anglican community considers her to be “first among equals.” Her leadership comes not from authority, but from the force of her wisdom, combined with the respect that believers give to her office. What better way is there to lead, then to lead by moral power?  

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of Most Reverand Sarah Mullally: 

Roger Harris, public domain, some restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons