I think that President Barack Obama’s inaugural speech was less about soaring rhetoric and more about giving the nation a few kicks in the rear, though only in the nicest way.
Yet the kicks were firm for all of that. While government has work to do, we all need to change our attitude and get going both in work and in service.
I was also pleased to note that he mentioned “non-believers” in his list of groups. That doesn’t happen all that often.
Let’s try to live up to it!
According to OneNewsNow, an organization only slightly less paranoid than WorldNetDaily, Rick Warren is praising President-Elect Obama for inviting Bishop Gene Robinson to pray at the inauguration as well.
After supporting Proposition 8 in California and then accepting the President-Elect’s invitation, it’s possible that nobody will be happy with Rick Warren any more.
They note particularly Robinson’s statement that he will not use the Bible:
Robinson has said he will not use the Bible when praying, and states “I will be careful not to be especially Christian in my prayer.”
This is one of my problems with all this. I would prefer to see many people sincerely praying according to their own traditions and practices than an attempt to have everyone pray generically. More accurately, the whole thing bothers me.
Bruce Alderman has a wonderful suggestion for Bishop Gene Robinson and Rev. Rick Warren:
Personally, what I’d like to see is for Robinson and Warren to sit down and say a prayer together. This issue shouldn’t tear the church apart, regardless of who is right.
If nothing else, we could call it loving enemies and praying for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44). Perhaps it could even be better than that!
MSNBC.com reports that there is a bit of a kerfuffle over whether Rick Warren will use the name of Jesus in his prayer at Barack Obama’s inauguration. At the same time we have a group of atheist and humanist groups suing to prevent any prayer at all at this public event.
I confess to mixed emotions about the public prayer, largely because I think that the event reflects not only the public, but also the person who has been elected to that office, and Barack Obama is a believer. I could quite easily regard the prayer as relating more to him as a person than as something that is intended to reflect the country as a whole. While I may have mixed emotions, I would suspect that the lawsuit is doomed to failure, except in producing publicity, because we still have military chaplains and prayers to open the houses of congress, and the courts have shown no inclination to stop them.
But I have more problem with a public prayer as a Christian than I do as a political matter, something that has only been stirred up and sharpened by discussions with a friend of mine who is a pastor and who gets invited to pray at public events. There are two major points involved. First, for most trinitarian Christians, prayer in the name of Jesus (or in a trinitarian formula in some cases) is the way to pray–it is prayer. Second, just what is it that we expect a pastoral prayer at a public event to accomplish? As my friend has pointed out to me, and I agree, the public bodies over which prayer is offered are not going to actually seek God’s guidance and blessing as a group. They’re going to go right on doing whatever they were going to do anyhow. And it’s difficult to expect a public body that is diverse in beliefs to do so.
So in that case the public prayer becomes, in many ways, an act of idolatry. It is a pretense at worship, but not the reality. A critical part of the Lord’s prayer is “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Show me the public body here in the United States that intends to behave in that particular way. And with acute awareness of my atheist and other non-Christian friends, that is not a prayer that can be prayed collectively by a public body, expected to act in a secular way to govern a diverse body of people.
Were I an elected individual, I could individually pray that God guide me, even though I must express my viewpoint in non-religious terms in public debate. And note here that I can only express my viewpoint in non-religious terms if it is honestly supportable in non-religious terms. That means that I can pray the Lord’s prayer for myself, but that collectively prayed, it becomes an outright lie. Any prayer prayed in the name of Jesus is similarly supposed to be “under the authority of” as well as “in the name of” and thus, in my view, becomes idolatrous if prayed corporately on behalf of those who do not consent.
Given that there will be prayer at the inaugural event, I think the explosion of hostility over the selection of Rick Warren to offer that prayer is at best overdone. President-elect Obama, in my view, thinks he’s secure in his liberal credentials and wishes to reach out to a block of voters. That’s the political view. Thinking of it as a Christian I am much less comfortable, not because I don’t think Rick Warren can pray for, with, and on behalf of Barack Obama, but because I think it’s somewhere between difficult and impossible for him to pray on behalf of the inaugural crowd and certainly on behalf of the nation as a whole.
I understand pastoral prayers in congregations to be collective, that is that the pastor prays both for and on behalf of the people. Those who are more theologically and liturgically oriented than I am may argue this. I don’t see how this can be transplanted to the public square.
Yet we do so constantly in this country. I’m not sure where my conscience would lead me if I were a pastor. My friend doesn’t want to pray at public events (not in church), a position with which I sympathize. The only compromise position I can see is praying in public, but seeing this as praying solely on one’s own behalf, and for the gathered audience. Trouble is, unlike pastoral prayer in which I believe all participate, I think this sounds a great deal like a violation of the principle expressed in Matthew 6:1-6. The prayer becomes a public show, or perhaps a political show.
I like interfaith dialogue, but I like interfaith prayer much less. I prefer the idea that in interfaith dialogue all sides maintain their distinctives honestly and openly, yet celebrate the diversity. In my view too much interfaith dialogue involves homogenization and blandness rather than actual celebration of diversity, combined with robust but respectful discussion and debate.
Readers are free to see this as a modification or even a partial repudiation of my view expressed here, where I considered the invitation solely from the political point of view.
Two blogs I read regularly provided contrasting responses to Barack Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration.
First, Michael L. Westmoreland-White, who speaks from the left, expresses some anger because he sees Warren as someone whose views are opposed to those of many who made Barack Obama’s candidacy possible. As is usual, Dr. Westmoreland-White nuances his position and expresses it gracefully, even saying that some on the left would be willing to go along with the inclusiveness if Warren were giving the benediction, when many will have tuned out, rather than the invocation. I can understand that viewpoint.
On the other end of the spectrum, Drew, guest blogger at Pursuing Holiness, thinks that Warren should refuse to give the invocation, because he is tacitly approving Obama’s “immoral” positions, citing particularly gay marriage, abortion, and even tax policy. To accurately reflect the flavor, let me quote:
1 Corinthians 5:11 doesnt explicitly mention murder or stealing or blatant heresy, but nonetheless Warren should certainly hesitate before tolerating Obamas gross immorality.
It’s not my purpose here to debate these issues, but I should note that I would certainly not make it through Drew’s morality filter, and in fact I don’t think that he has expressed a particularly Christian filter at all. I define “Christian” as one who places one’s trust in Jesus, not as one who takes a particular set of positions on public policy.
Though I’m clearly closer to Dr. Westmoreland-White’s position, my concern with both of these posts is similar in nature. I think we have a strong tendency to propose dialogue largely between groups of people who agree totally.
Considering that the left, not to mention much of the center, has not had a seat at the table for the Bush administration, it is not surprising that many not on the right want to grab hold of the power and exclude the excluders. It is also doubtless difficult to carry on dialogue with those who regard you as grossly immoral, which is the position in which the GLBT community is placed.
At the same time the challenge for Obama is to make whatever changes he can accomplish in Washington last more than one term and even more than two terms. In order to do that, he will need the support of opponents, and he will need to draw in more people. As such, his supporters might consider giving him more room.
But from Warren’s point of view, I think it is important for him to have a voice. I don’t think that offering an invocation indicates support for all the moral positions of the person, group, or event in question.
Dialogue needs to be between people who disagree. Bipartisanship needs to involve more than one party. Obama seems to be interested in both dialogue and bipartisanship. Let’s give him a chance to demonstrate an ability to lead in the midst of a chorus of diverse voices.
