WASHINGTON (ABP)—The official events connected to the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States started Jan. 18 with an invocation and ended Jan. 21 with a benediction.
And the religious content of—and religious controversy over—the events between those two bookends encapsulate America's ongoing give-and-take over the role of religion in the nation's political life.
Early in his Jan. 20 inaugural address, Obama alluded to the Bible—the Apostle Paul's words to the church at Corinth—in a call to more civil discourse and more prudent decision-making.
“On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises—the recriminations and worn-out dogmas—that for far too long have strangled our politics,” he said. “We remain a young nation, but, in the words of Scripture, the time has come to ‘set aside childish things.'”
Obama, who is a Christian, also invoked “God's grace” at the end of his speech. But, in praising American diversity, he acknowledged those of minority faiths as well as secular Americans.
“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,” he said.
PHOTO/RNS/ Noah K. Murray/The Star-Ledger
President Barack Obama takes the oath of office to become the 44th president of the United States.
The reference reflected the ecumenical tone of the ceremony and the week's other religious events related to the inauguration.
He began the day—as all presidents have since 1933—with a private prayer service at St. John's Episcopal Church, located on Lafayette Square just across from the White House. Speakers included the church's rector, Luis Leon, as well as prominent evangelical pastors T.D. Jakes and Joel Hunter.
Evangelical mega-celebrity Rick Warren began the swearing-in ceremony itself with an invocation.
Obama—who is well-acquainted with Warren—had inspired some controversy for picking the California pastor because Warren had supported Proposition 8, the successful ballot initiative that revoked same-sex marriage in the nation's most populous state last year.
Warren offered a prayer that was conciliatory in tone and began on an inclusive note. He quoted the Shema, the most common prayer in Judaism, and also alluded to the Islamic formulation of referring to God, or Allah, as “the compassionate and merciful.”
“Almighty God—our Father. Everything we see, and everything we can't see, exists because of you alone. It all comes from you. It all belongs to you. It all exists for your glory. History is your story,” Warren prayed. “The Scripture tells us, ‘Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.' And you are the compassionate and merciful one. And you are loving to everyone you have made.”
He ended on a more explicitly Christian note, closing his prayer “in the name of the one who changed my life” and referring the Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish and English names for Jesus. He then led the two million-plus observers in the Lord's Prayer.
One other prayer delivered at an inaugural event garnered almost as much attention as Warren's. The committee in charge of official inaugural activities picked Gene Robin-son, the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, to deliver the invocation at the Jan. 18 inaugural kick-off concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
“O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will bless us with tears—tears for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS,” Robinson prayed.
He went on to pray for anger at discrimination, discomfort with simplistic political answers and humility, patience and compassion to fight the battles ahead.
Robinson's selection itself was praised by gay-rights groups who had been angered by the Warren pick but panned by those who oppose the Episcopal Church's decision to consecrate him as a bishop despite his sexuality.
Things were less controversial at the Jan. 21 Washington National Cathedral prayer service that officially ended the inaugural ceremonies. Obama and other dignitaries packed the cavernous Gothic cathedral to lift up the new administration in prayer—a tradition that dates back to George Washington.
But Obama put his stamp on the service, asking a larger and more ecumenical group of religious leaders than in the past to speak. Although the order of worship—with hymns such as “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” choral presentations and a homily—followed a traditional Episcopal liturgy, it also featured prayers and readings by an array of Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Hindu leaders.
Among the Christians participating were Otis Moss Jr., who recently retired as pastor of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland, and Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Ga. Moss' son, Otis Moss III is the pastor of Obama's former congregation, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Stanley is the son of Charles Stanley, the former Southern Baptist Convention president and longtime pastor of First Baptist Church of Atlanta.
The service also featured women prominently, including—for the first time in the history of the prayer service—a woman delivering the sermon. Sharon Watkins, president and general minister of the Disciples of Christ, drew on Isaiah 58. In it, the prophet upbraids the ancient Israelites for keeping holy fasts but denying justice to the poor even as they have just returned from a long period of exile.
“Their joy should be great, but things aren't working out just right; their homecoming is more complicated than they expected; not everyone is watching their parade or dancing all night at their arrival,” she said.
When the people ask God why, noting that they have kept up their religious rituals, Watkins noted, “Through the prophet, God answers: What fast? You fast only to quarrel and fight and strike with the fist.
“Is not this the fast that I choose, to loose the bonds of injustice; to share your bread with the hungry and to bring the homeless poor into a house?”
She asked Obama to lead Americans to choose the proper fast.
“In hard financial times, which fast do we chose? The fast that placates our hunkered-down soul, or the fast that reaches out to our brother and sister?” she said.