How Now re: Rick Warren

[joew]

When you've heard or read about the invocation, what do you think? How did he do? In retrospect and in light of how he did, what do you think of the decision to invite him?

[booklady]

I wish I could have listened more closely, but what I heard did not sound like anything to get my panties in a wad about.

I voted "good job."

If there was/is controversy, I guess at this point in our nation's history and with the needs we have, I'd say, "get over it." Really, don't we have more important things to do than fight over a prayer?

I live in a place where lots of people hunt and shoot and kill deer. They teach their kids to do it and send pictures of themselves with dead and bloody deer to be published in the newspaper. Myself, I don't hunt. I don't argue with the people who do. They don't hurt me, I don't need to cause a fuss over something that I choose not to participate in.

[doctork]

I'm with bookie, I think he did a good job. It was a little long, but he kept it very general and mostly non-denominational. When he closed with the Lord's Prayer, that was the only time he mentioned "Jesus," the only time he was specifically addressing Christians. He refrained from any fundamentalist code words, but I hope the conservative fundamentalists (20 - 25% of American Christians) felt included.

I thought his reference to the occasion as a "hinge of history" was accurate and memorable. I'll have to check in with some of my very conservative (and in the past, extremely anti-Obama) Christian friends and see what they thought. I'd like to see that particular sort of divisiveness go away.

[gailkate]

I guess no one here has any gay friends or relatives. Today's prayer wasn't the issue; it was fine. The issue was what he's said in the past and never softened. Obama said he wanted to reach out to bring everyone together, but I think it was a mistake to select Warren.

[sailor]

I thought he [Rick Warren] did a good job and I think Obama was brilliant to pick him for the job.

Warren looks like a regular guy to me and when he finished the Lord's prayer I was half expecting him to smile and say "Play Ball" and open a can of beer.

Mike

[doctork]

Jan 21, 2009 0:19:12 GMT -5 gailkate said:

I guess no one here has any gay friends or relatives. Today's prayer wasn't the issue; it was fine. The issue was what he's said in the past and never softened. Obama said he wanted to reach out to bring everyone together, but I think it was a mistake to select Warren.

I'd expect most of us have gay friends and relatives; I know I do.

I wasn't a fan of litmus tests during the Bush administration (Must oppose abortion - check; must donate to Republican Party - check), and I'm no fan now (Must favor abortion, Must express support for gay rights).

America is diverse, and I hope including Warren will bring all of us to the point where we can lose reflex oppositional responses. The gays among my family and friends still support Obama, even if we/they don't support Warren's political stance on Prop 8.

I keep in mind that Warren supported Obama and brought him important recognition at a critical time among a critical audience. I know a number of very red conservative Christians who were prompted to take a second look at Obama, and think of him more favorably, because Pastor Warren invited him to speak at that big convocation last year.

I'll bet most Americans don't remember anything Warren said yesterday, but vividly recall John Lowery, who was much more remarkable.

[gailkate]

I've never been a fan of litmus tests, k, and I am hurt that you dismiss me so.

[gailkate]

Go here to see the prayer offered before the concert on Sunday - by a gay Episcopal bishop. HBO didn't carry it. Besides being much more subsantive, it was truly ecumenical. Warren's prayer was as sectarian as anyone could have feared.



O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

[unclewiggly]

The presidency holds a great deal of symbolic value as the "face" of our nation. Obama's election as President has symbolic value that we as a nation have finally won a large battle over racial bigotry. Those that are still at war for the civil rights for All Americans, can only take Mr Warren at his word. Homophobic. Discriminatory. Exclusionary. Hallelujah! free speech. He and I have that right.
I am the negative vote in Joe W's first poll. When attempting to explain my position after my vote, citing and posting links, well, each time I lost my labor going after those links and gave up.

Allowing an unabashed bigot a prominent place at his inauguration was disappointing.
Perhaps Big O has his eye on the end game. Perhaps. Regardless of motives it sends a negative message.
I wonder how Warren's "gay friends" feel about having their relationships compared to polygamy, incest and pedophilia.
Check out his thinking on Believers, True Believers and non Believers.
As to his prayer-well, it's HIS prayer. Right(no pun) thinking Christians can apply. The rest can go to hell.
{modify} spelling check
and: Warren supported Obama??

[booklady]

Jan 21, 2009 10:23:12 GMT -5 doctork said:

I'll bet most Americans don't remember anything Warren said yesterday, but vividly recall John Lowery, who was much more remarkable.

I remember Warren saying, "You love all the children you created."

[sailor]

Doc-K, I thought Jospeh Lowery's benediction was great! I loved the rhyming part:

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

Aretha Franklin sounded a little raspy and that's too bad, I was hoping she'd just blow everyone away with her performance. I did like her hat and ear rings.

I thought President Obama's speech was a tad too long, my interest started to drift away about 2/3's of the way through. Otherwise it was very good.

Mike

[joew]

I thought it was okay (= good job). I thought he did well to say at the end that he was praying in the name of the one he considers his Savior, which was true, not that "we"[/i] prayed in that name, which would not have been true about non-Christians.

My feeling is that because of lines like tho one bl quoted, it may help diminish some of the antipathy of the right toward gay people. IMO it matters more when someone who is known for opposing homosexual conduct and homosexual marriage says implicitly but clearly that God loves homosexuals, than when one who supports those things says so. So in some small way I think it may help bring us together.

And I loved Lowery's benediction, even though it was a tad long as well. It was certainly moving to have someone who had been a leader in the 60's participate in the ceremony, since one thing that we should all rejoice in, despite policy disagreements, is that this inauguration is in many ways the fulfillment of what they marched and struggled for.

[gailkate]

Cheez, mike, it was only a bit over 18 minutes long.

It's true Warren said what he believed, but then he led the audience in The Lord's Prayer - very comfortable for Christians, but not for everyone else. Here's Obama's unequivocal acceptance of all Americans (the note I wish had been raised in all prayers):
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth...

I said at first that there was no problem with Warren's prayer, but as I've read it closely, I'm less sure. Its failure to recognize other religions, atheists and agnostics is a failure to embrace the whole country. Robinson's prayer is much more loving and inclusive.

And,Joe, I can't see that much in the word all. "My feeling is that because of lines like tho one bl quoted, it may help diminish some of the antipathy of the right toward gay people. IMO it matters more when someone who is known for opposing homosexual conduct and homosexual marriage says implicitly but clearly that God loves homosexuals, than when one who supports those things says so. So in some small way I think it may help bring us together."

I hope you're right, but if Warren's selection was supposed to bridge antipathy, I think he could have done a whole lot more. I'm with UnkW.

So the prayer itself seems narrow for a President whose theme is "we are One." But my objection to the selection of Warren is his very public position on people whose sexual orientation he considers a sinful choice. Here's an excerpt from the editor of beliefnet on why gays can't be members of Saddleback.

But the church clearly does view homosexuality as a "dangerous sin" that needs to be rejected and overcome. A gay person who accepts that view would be welcome but one who accepts himself or herself as normal and healthy would not be welcome as members.

There is, of course, a logical consistency to the Saddleback position: the Bible says homosexuality is sinful, so they can't very well carve a loophole saying we have to toil against sin... except for this one.

But I'm thinking this clarification is not going to make gays feel any better about Saddleback. From a gay perspective, it sounds a bit like they're saying, "All gays may attend but only self-loathing gays may be members."

blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/12/why-gays-arent-allowed-to-be-m.html

I've loved people who died of that self-loathing. I don't need to be told to get over it.

[joew]

gailkate —

I think churches have learned at different paces that homosexuality is not merely a series of decisions to engage in various actions with members of the same sex, but an underlying part of some people's personality.

Regardless of a church's understanding of the morality of the activity, I think all churches' first message to homosexuals should be the same as it is to everybody else: "God loves you eternally, unconditionally, unbreakably." Churches should extend the same respect for conscience to homosexuals as they do to everybody else. Whatever their moral teaching on homosexuality may be, it should be presented as having the same authority as other basic teachings on morality, not as some superdoctrine which is more important than everything else they say.

Unfortunately, topics of current interest are the ones that the churches talk about, in order to present their beliefs; and this can easily lead both church people and outsiders to think that it must be what matters most, because it is what is talked about most. I mean the resurrection of Jesus, justification by faith, love of God and neighbor are far more important as doctrines and moral teachings, but right now, homosexuality is a hotter topic for the general public, so the churches talk about it along with everybody else.

So we have to be clear about the basics: God's love for all, and the role of conscience.

[gailkate]

Thank you, Joe. My understanding of Christian teaching is simple. I don't mean to quibble with you, because your answer is kind and serious. You express the fullness of God's love. But I do not believe in the piety of professed Christians who focus on a hot topic and, to my mind, dishonor the law they claim to follow.
From the Baltimore Catechism.

189. Which are the two great commandments that contain the whole law of God?
The two great commandments that contain the whole law of God are:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength;
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

And one of them, a doctor of the Law, putting him to the test, asked him, "Master, which is the great commandment in the Law?" Jesus said to him, "'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.' This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like it, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:35-40)

[booklady]

gk, it's so weird that you posted that. I was thinking just this morningabout this thread, and the words, "Love God, love your neighbor" came so strongly to mind!

The only person whose behavior we can control is ourselves. I hate all the fingerpointing and the pronouncements about what God thinks about what everybody else is doing.

That said, I wish we did not have to hear about anybody's sex life. These things should not be flaunted by anyone or presented for approval.

[doctork]

Jan 21, 2009 10:51:36 GMT -5 gailkate said:

I've never been a fan of litmus tests, k, and I am hurt that you dismiss me so.

I'm sorry gk, I certainly wasn't meaning to dismiss you as a purveyor of litmus tests.

Among those at Rick Warren's church, and at the other churches who belong to the national evangelical organization that met at his church in 2007, there is no doubt that there was a litmus test to be passed in order to be admitted as a conference speaker. Pastor Warren invited Obama to speak anyway, saying that the members should hear what he had to say and look for what they had in common, not search out differences. Or worse yet, refuse to hear him at all because he might disagree with one of their beliefs. I know a number of conservative evangelicals who opened their minds at that point.

Rick Warren went out on a limb to support Obama and let him be heard at a critical time. So did Ted Kennedy when he came out for Obama January a year ago, snubbing the Clintons who had expected his support for Hilary.

Conversely, I know a number of members of mainstream Protestant denominations and Roman Catholics who oppose abortion on religious grounds, and they have been made to feel unwelcome (in the past, less so now) in the Democratic Party tent because they do not approve of abortion.

There's 300 million of us with diverse views. Whether inviting Rick Warren to give the invocation was divisive or uniting - I don't know, could be seen either way. It was Obama's judgment call, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

[sailor]

Pastor Warren invited Obama to speak anyway, saying that the members should hear what he had to say and look for what they had in common, not search out differences.

Doc-K, thanks for pointing that out. I think that the world needs a healthy dose of that concept.

Mike