“I don’t recall a single example of Bush as president ever saying, ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christ,’” said Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Christian group Family Research Council. “This is different.”

To Perkins, Obama’s overtly Christian rhetoric is a welcome development from an administration that he largely disagrees with on the issues, though Perkins sees a political motive behind it, as well.

“I applaud that. It gives people a sense of comfort,” Perkins said. “But I think it’s a veneer, a facade that covers over a lot of policies that are anti-Christian.” That includes, in his view, Obama’s stance in favor of abortion rights.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, the executive director of the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, doesn’t like the trend with Obama: “I don’t need to hear politicians tell me how religious they are,” Lynn said. “Obama in a very overt way does what Bush tended to do in a more covert way.”

 

The Rev. Rick Warren, of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., gives the invocation as President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, left, bow their heads during swearing-in ceremonies at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

We are almost done with inauguration week. Almost. The National Prayer Service, a tradition which dates back to 1789, is happening today, but many prayers have been publicly offered this week and a few have generated great discussion even before they were offered.

First it was announced that Rick Warren would provide the invocation at the inauguration itself. Many people were furious at this given Warren’s stance on homosexuality. I was able to hear this prayer (I missed the benediction) and thought that it was OK. The text is here. In an online forum of Episcopal clergy there were many  outraged that Warren concluded his prayer in the name of Jesus and with the Lord’s prayer. (Am I the only one who wondered why Obama did not join in reciting the Lord’s prayer?)

While I do not think it was the most engaging prayer I have ever heard I think it is laughable that we (especially other Christian clergy) should be critical of someone offering a prayer in the form of their religious tradition and convictions. After all, that is who they are and presumably why they were chosen. Criticize a Christian pastor for praying to Jesus? I would no more criticize that than I would a Muslim cleric praying in Arabic to ‘Allah.

Then there was Bishop Gene Robinson whose prayer was on Sunday, before Warren’s but I deal with it hear since he was apparently asked after Warren’s participation was announced (although accounts, including Robinson’s differ on that). His invocation was at the concert given at the Lincoln memorial. The text is here. This apparently was not aired on HBO and MSNBC and there is quite a lot of hot generated about why that happened.

His prayer, as you can imagine was largely hailed as wonderful on the aforementioned list. It was OK and I find nothing objectionable aside from his wishy-washy universalistic opening, “O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will….” It was this inclusiveness of his prayer that has been particularly singled out as being excellent by some. I sense a self-loathing among many Christian clergy that we cannot even pray (or are embarrassed when others do) as Christians.

In all of this discussion about the prayers and the people praying I am reminded of  the true statement that equality is not sameness. I would add that inclusiveness is not universalism. It is about participation and respect, including to one’s own faith.

All of that being said, it is odd that the PIC did not include very many (none that I heard, but I am told there were others) prayers by non-Christians….

(The National Prayer Service has occurred, which has many non-Christians participating in it but was “at its core, Christian to reflect Obama’s personal beliefs.” I have not seen a transcript yet.)

 

Will.I.Am created this video of his song “It’s A New Day” and I have to admit it is catchy. I think we can all agree that we pray for the safety of all today and especially the safety of President-elect Obama and his family. God bless them and God bless America.

 

From a Boston.com article "The mural by artist Ron English on Harrison Avenue."

The NYTimes has a nice oped by HENRY LOUIS GATES Jr. and JOHN STAUFFER, “A Pragmatic Precedent.” In this well written article Gates and Stauffer ask the question in the title of my post.

Much has been written about what Mr. Obama thinks about Lincoln; but not much has been said about what Lincoln would think of Barack Hussein Obama. If his marble statue at the Lincoln Memorial could become flesh and speak, like Galatea, what would the man who is remembered for freeing the slaves say about his first black successor?

They then go on to point out that “Lincoln was thoroughly a man of his times, and while he staunchly opposed slavery — on moral grounds and because it made competition in the marketplace unfair for poor white men — for most of his life he harbored fixed and unfortunate ideas about race.” Lincoln is best known as a pragmatist, and this is the strongest ideological connection between President 16 and 44, who freed the southern slaves so that they might “defeat their former masters.”

Gates and Stauffer briefly explore (it is just an oped after all) the complexity of  Lincoln’s attitudes towards “Negroes” and conclude “one suspects their mutual embrace of economic independence and natural rights, their love and mastery of the English language, their shared desire to leave their mark on history, and their astonishing gift for pragmatic improvisation, would have drawn him to a man so fundamentally similar to himself.”

My brother pointed out that “if Lincoln was ‘very much a  man of his times’ if he
lived now, what would those times have shaped him to be? Perhaps someone more predisposed to equality than not, I would think. Heck, he mighta supported Clinton!” I think he is right, not that Lincoln might have supported Clinton (who knows? maybe) but that we are shaped by those times, as we all are.

And that is the challenge and what makes men like Lincoln and maybe, we shall have to wait and see, Obama so different. We are bound by our times, our culture, our context. We are of necessity the product of our times, so what is it that allows some to transcend their own time? How is it that they have the vision to see through, beyond, and past the present? Gates and Stauffer refer to Frederick Douglass as “a firebrand in the prophetic tradition.” Could it be that prophecy is indeed what is needed, the voice of God unbidden and unbridled?