Rick Warren is a bad choice for the Obama Inauguration Invocation. A bad choice because it sends the wrong message, and a bad choice because it is divisive. From his Wikipedia article, the five non negotiable issues of Rick Warren:
- What does each candidate believe about abortion and protecting the lives of unborn children?
- What does each candidate believe about using unborn babies for stem-cell harvesting?
- What does each candidate believe about homosexual marriage?
- What does each candidate believe about human cloning?
- What does each candidate believe about euthanasia—the killing of elderly and invalids?
I think that we can all fairly assume that he is going to be on the Pro-Life, conservative, anti-cloning side of these questions. But this is exactly the problem – the Podium and the Pulpit should not be mixed in such a clear way. Ideally, Obama would have chosen someone non-partisan to do the Invocation, or, less ideally, someone who had views similar to those held by the people who voted for him.
Obama is elevating someone who was an active and ardent supporter of Prop 8. Defenders and apologists for this position claim that it’s an acknowledgment of the fact that people have different views than Obama. And that’s fine, but most people wanted Obama’s views, and this should be reflected.
The US was, unlike Canada, founded on a separation of Church and State. Aren’t there a few people out there that could give the invocation and espouse some truly universalist view’s on religion (the desire for God’s strength to help our new President, or world peace). When you start elevating people who claim that people have no right to their own sexual orientation, there is a problem. Don’t give this man a megaphone.
I wonder if there is a calculated attempt being made to win over more right wing voters, which is fine enough I suppose, although smacks of Patrick Muttart style, Harperian (Harperite? Harperous?) manipulation. Of course, who am I to fault a political strategy that wins, just so long as he doesn’t believe it. (And, from what I can tell, he doesn’t.)
There are better people for this. I like John Piper, who’s organization’s blog is a regular read of mine, particularly when I want a Calvinist perspective on things. He has a more liberal view towards personal pleasure than the rather sexually repressive Catholic Church, which can be read more on in his book, Christian Hedonist. A Catholic would be also be interesting, seeing as how America has been so reticent to elect Catholics (although I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Joe Biden); if Obama were to choose a Catholic (and not the typical drone from the pulpit channeling the pre-Vatican Two religion that I’ve sat through on occasion), Bishop Gerald Kicanas of the diocese of Tucson would be good for a non partisan, exploratory take. For something more politically charged, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton would be a good left wing pick.
But, my point is twofold. Please, try and do your best to recreate the seperation of church and state that has been so damaged by Bush by making sure that the religion you bring into the public sphere is not driving policy in and of itself, as Warren does, most notably on Prop 8. If you must bring politics into it, find a preacher who agrees with you and the people who voted for you – the Christian Right has had its airing for the past eight years, so lets see some of the Christian Left.
