Obama Inauguration Line-up

Let me join the melee over Obama’s choice to deliver the inaugural invocation…

IC ANNOUNCES INAUGURAL PROGRAM
Line-up Includes Musical Greats Aretha Franklin, Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman

  Inaugural Press Release

Great picks.

Invocation
Dr. Rick Warren, Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA

Say what? Are we doing an SNL inauguration?

Dr. Rick Warren founded Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, in 1980 with one family. Today, it is an evangelical congregation averaging 22,000 weekly attendees, a 120-acre campus, and has more than 300 community ministries to groups such as prisoners, CEOs, addicts, single parents, and those with HIV/AIDS. He also leads the Purpose Driven Network of churches, a global coalition of congregations in 162 countries. TIME magazine named him one of "15 World Leaders Who Mattered Most in 2004," and in 2005 one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World."

Yes, but that’s not all. The Reality-Based Community’s Lesley Friedman Rosenthal asks, “Can’t we have Jeremiah Wright instead?”

Not only is Warren anti-choice and anti-gay, Warren more or less endorsed "taking out" the President of Iran as a Biblical injunction. He's insulted all of mainstream Protestantism by talking about how it's "dying" and calling the Social Gospel "Marxism in Christian clothing." Yes, this is standard-issue white evangelicalism. But it's also nasty, hateful stuff.

  RBC

Change we can believe in.

How about separation of church and state?

This fall [November 2005], in the midst of a series of growing scandals within the Bush administration over repeated unlawful and unethical conduct, Rick Warren of the massive (and renowned) Saddleback Church in California came to the defense of George W. Bush and praised Bush’s (former) choice for Supreme Court justice (Harriet Miers). In the company of Richard Land, James Dobson, and Jay Sekulow, Warren declared "I think it was for this very moment that we had the last election," referring to the 2004 presidential election.

[...]

[Warren’s] endorsement of Miers was yet another indication of the propensity of conservative evangelicals to act as company cheerleaders for the Republican Party

  Bruce Gorley

Now, way back then in 2005, Warren seemed to have a laissez-faire attitude about homosexual marriage, aptly noting that the Bible didn’t seem to be as opposed to homosexuals as today’s Christians are.

Homosexual Marriage. Hmmm … nothing in the Bible about this issue, either. Sure, the Bible does discuss homosexuality, alongside certain other sexual activities. And contrary to scripture, many Christians today consider homosexuality the most evil of all human activities.

In addition, the Bible does talk about marriage. Marriages were arranged; choice and love were irrelevant. Many of the biblical heroes whom God blessed were polygamous. Sexual intercourse, rather than a document, sealed a marriage. Wives had no legal rights.

Despite much ado about “Christian” marriages today, we would be horrified at the thought of doing marriage the actual “biblical” way. Conversely, God’s people in biblical times (although we can only infer indirectly) would likely be horrified at modern Western views of marriage–whether “Christian” or “secular!”

But that doesn’t (at least these days) preclude him from preaching against certain marriages, including the polygamous type of the “biblical heroes”.

WARREN: I'm opposed to redefinition of a 5,000 year definition of marriage. I'm opposed to having a brother and sister being together and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.

BELIEFNET: Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?

WARREN: Oh , I do.

[...]

Sex was God's idea, not ours. Like fire, and many other things God gave us, sex can be used for good, or abused in ways that harm. The Designer of sex has clearly and repeatedly said that he created sex exclusively for husbands and wives in marriage. Whenever God's parameters are violated, it causes broken hearts, broken families, emotional hurt and shame, painful memories, and many other destructive consequences. There would be so STDs in our world if we all played by the rules.

  Beliefnet

Really? No STDs without gays? No broken hearts, broken families, no emotional hurt and shame, no painful memories? Earth calling Rick Warren.

In America, people already have the civil right to live as they wish.

Really? Earth calling Rick Warren.

If God blessed polygamous marriages, who is Rick Warrant to deny them?

Frankly, I don’t think anybody should have the right to marry a child, but the other situations – including sister and brother (maybe they should adopt) – should be nobody else’s business. And call it what you want. In my opinion, the government has no business in the matter of marriages in the first place – it’s a religious rite usurped by the government for government benefit. It belongs appropriately in the spiritual realm of life and doesn’t need the approval or sanctification of anyone or anything beyond the two (or more) consenting adults involved. The civil ramifications - survivor’s rights, hospital visiting rights - should be governed by the wishes of the people involved.

Obama would impress me if he left the invocation off altogether, but I suppose we’re light years away from that.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.