The following is a letter to the editor in The Washington Post by Doug Pagitt, executive director of Vote Common Good:

President Trump used his platform at the National Prayer Breakfast — an event intended to foster national unity around common values — to launch a tirade against Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) [“Becoming Trump is not the way to defeat him,” Nancy Gibbs, op-ed, Feb. 11].

Delivering his remarks just moments after the preceding speaker, Arthur C. Brooks, discussed the importance of Jesus’ teaching of loving your enemies, Mr. Trump flatly rejected that principle, saying, “Arthur, I don’t know if I agree with you.” Instead, he proceeded to lash out at his opponents in the typically un-Christian manner many have grown accustomed to seeing from him.

Degrading political opponents in such an undignified and inappropriate way, when voters are looking for a more substantive discourse around how politicians are guided by their beliefs, does nothing but add gasoline to the fire that is our national politics right now. Voters of faith notice. It’s the latest episode in which Mr. Trump makes it abundantly clear that he is not one of them.

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