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  • 2018-12-07 (xsd:date)
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  • Did President Trump Not Recite the Apostles' Creed During President Bush's Funeral? (en)
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  • The Apostles' Creed is a statement of Christian belief commonly recited during services in a number of Christian denominations. The text of the creed varies with translation and denomination, but theEnglish Language Liturgical Consultation version, for example, reads as follows: The sincerity of President Trump's religious beliefs was called into question on 5 December 2018 as many viewers noticed that he apparently did not recite the Apostles' Creed during President George H.W. Bush's funeral at the Washington National Cathedral. Columnist John Ziegler, for instance, noted how weird it was that President Obama, who was often wrongly identified as Muslim, fully recited all the words of that statement of faith, while President Trump, who courted and won support from the Evangelical community, did not: Ziegler was hardly the only one to levy this criticism at President Trump: Similarly, the Washington Post reported on the issue that: While we can't speak the sincerity of President Trump's faith, we can confirm that these criticisms were backed up by video from George H.W. Bush's funeral. President Trump only appeared on screen for a short time during the recitation, but when he did he could be seen standing silently with his hands clasped and his program unopened, while other attendees, including former president Barack Obama, former first lady Michelle Obama, former president Bill Clinton, and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, all held their programs open as they recited the Apostles' Creed from them. Here's a video from C-SPAN of the relevant portion of George H.W. Bush's state funeral: We examined other broadcasts of the funeral to see if they captured President Trump reciting any part of the Apostle's Creed. While we couldn't find video capturing President Trump during the entirety of the creed recitation, we did find video from Time magazine showing him in the same posture as above (silently holding his program at his waist) for about 15 seconds while others around him recited the statement of faith: We can only speak to what the video record shows, however, and not its significance. It's possible that either or both of the Trumps had religious or other personal reasons for declining to participate in that aspect of the service. Indeed, in a Washington Post opinion piece, Patrick Nugent defended President Trump's actions, regardless of what might have motivated them: This wasn't the only criticism levied at President Trump over something he allegedly did (or didn't do) at George H.W. Bush's funeral. Many social media users also accused him of disrespecting the deceased by failing to place his hand over his heart while the former president's casket was carried into Washington National Cathedral. We investigated this rumor, too, and found that the accusation was largely inaccurate. (en)
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