Angelus Temple is a mega-church in Los Angeles. Sean Fuecht came to Angelus Temple on January 11, 2025 to lead a special worship/prayer service along with organizing donations for those impacted by the Southern California wildfires. The special service was called Appeal to Heaven for California.
Appeal to Heaven from Wikipedia — …”was one of the flags used during the American Revolution. The phrase “Appeal to Heaven” is a particular expression of the right of revolution used by British philosopher John Locke in his Second Treatise on Government. The work was published in 1690 and rejected the theory of the divine right of kings.
In the 2020s, the flag was flown at events attended by various far-right groups including a Christian nationalist strand of Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement.[23][24]
In May 2024, news outlets reported that the flag had been flown at the vacation home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in 2023. This drew media attention because of the flag’s use by “Stop the Steal” supporters.[23][25][26]. The justice stated that his wife had displayed the flag, referred to the historic background of the symbol, and refused to recuse himself from ongoing cases involving the 2020 United States presidential election.[27][28]“
After participating in the Trump Inaugration, Sean Fuecht posted a nine minute long video on You Tube while waiting in the airport. Here are some excerpts from it — “…I’m just going to jump online and answer a couple questions that people have about what happened, why it happened… the tradition of having a church service the morning after the Inauguration dates all the way back to FDR…it’s meant to be a unifying thing…this is the first time where the elder of that church is a woke LGBTQ woman activist…a complete absolute left wing fanatic..all these anti-Trump ideas and her history of marching with the George Floyd stuff and the BLM stuff and the gay rights stuff..it was just the most disgraceful and embarrassing thing that I’ve ever been a part of…the whole room was horrified, like we were all just like — what is even happening right now…no one in the White House and no one on Team Trump would think that the pastor of the church would be one that would use her position to shove back disgraceful demonic insults at the newly elected President… the good thing about it is it absolutely exposed the wokeness and the demon behind wokeness and it exposed for the whole world how crazy these people are…the other cool thing is there were so many leaders in that room…I got invited to do worship at the Pentagon by my friend Pete Hegseth…I got invited by Speaker Mike Johnson to go into the Capital…I’ve never seen this before and never heard of it before where worship is being invited in…any Cabinet member has almost like an intercession, a government sanctioned intercessor that’s responsible to pray and integrate faith and prayer and decision making into every facet of the government…we should all be so excited, all right, love you all, going to board my plane…”
Here is the final section of the sermon by Bishop Mariann Budde during the Inauguration Prayer Service at the National Cathedral:
“Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you and, as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They…may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurudwaras and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people. Good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen”
The Inauguration Prayer Service took place on January 21, 2025. Representative Josh Breechen from Oklahoma and nineteen other Congressional Representatives introduced House Resolution 59 on January 23, 2025.
House Resolution 59 was referred by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to the Government Oversight and Reform Committee. Representative James Comer from Kentucky is the Chair.
A Committee is not required to hold any Hearings when a House Resolution is referred to them, though they usually do. They can immediately send the Resolution as written to the full House for a vote if they choose. So far, Rep. Comer has not made any comment.
A case can certainly be made that Resolution 59 is such an extraordinary violation of the separation of church and state that Bishop Budde should stay away from this situation. I don’t agree. I think she should reach out to the Government Oversight and Reform Committee and express her desire to come to them to answer any questions they might have.
As Christian practice, and Sean Fuecht used this word in his You Tube video, what Bishop Budde did in her sermon is called intercession.