Why Rick Warren’s Invocation at Obama’s Inauguration Matters
By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Evangelical megachurch pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life, will deliver the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration next month, the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies announced today.
The selection of Warren, whose Saddleback Church in California was the site of a candidate forum with Obama and Republican presidential nominee John McCain in August, is an early taste of the Democrats' post-election effort to reach evangelical Americans. The effort continues even though Obama's evangelical offensive during the presidential campaign yielded only modest results on Election Day.
White evangelicals supported McCain over the Democratic nominee by 73 percent to 26 percent, which for Obama represented a 4-percentage-point improvement over John Kerry's showing among white evangelicals four years earlier.
Another reason to be mildly surprised by the Warren pick: Many Obama backers felt their man was bamboozled at last summer's candidate summit, when both candidates were supposed to be kept in the dark about the questions Warren would be asking. With Warren sitting down with Obama first, the pastor asserted that McCain was being kept in a "cone of silence" that prevented him from hearing the questions. It turns out that McCain wasn't even in the building and that he might have had an opportunity to catch wind of the questions. Some Obama supporters were pretty sore over it.
And yet, Democratic evangelical outreach marches forward, setting its sights on the movement's biggest players, like Warren.
The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies also announced that Joseph Lowery, who cofounded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr., would deliver the benediction.
Warren and Lowery make for interesting bookends to Obama's inauguration: a reminder of liberals' faith-based past and a promise for what they hope can be a faith-based future.
- Read more by Dan Gilgoff.
- Read more on religion.
Tags: Inauguration | Barack Obama | religion | evangelicals
Tools: 
Share
|
| Comments (148) | Print
Reader Comments
Don't be a hater
Why are non-christians hate the fact that Ptr. Rick Warren was the invited speaker on Pres. Obama's inauguration? Is it because they have never given the chance to expose themselves to in the limelight? Whoever is given the chance, let him have the chance. Stop hating cuz it doesn't make you psychologically healthy.
Rick Warren's prayer rocks!
His prayer is what America needs! :D
Everything he said were beseech by America's forefathers, there's really nothing new or unique about his prayer.America was founded in God, through God.. its only the disobedient people who ruin it. People hate Warren but the truth is THEY HATE GOD! It's as simple as that.
... but why would you hate God to begin with if you dont even know him, if you dont even read his words to know how a loving God he is? TRUE, sinners like you will go to hell, that is why God has given Jesus so you dont have to go to hell... and that is a loving God who provided a solution to your misery... Rick Warren simply prayed that America will become a better country and what is wrong with that?
Warren
It may well be Obama doing a bit of soft shoe. If all goes as I imagine (and hope) he is planning on the "evangelical vote" not hanging with him for too long. When they see his progressive agenda, which I welcome with open arms, they, the evange-voters, may fall back to their normal distortion of the text they worship by and proceed to lose their minds altogether.
advertisement
