Let us pray, together

Inaugural invocation and benediction were as stark in contrast as they could be, without breaking the civil peace of the occasion.

Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren made his aggressively Christian evangelical conclusion palatable by opening with clear references to both Judaism and Islam. He then went, wrote Professor of Law Emeritus University of Toledo Howard M. Friedman at Religion Clause, "well beyond the usual half dozen words at the end invoking Jesus. Warren ended his invocation (full text) with:"

I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life, Yeshua, Essa (ph), Jesus, Jesus, who taught us to pray, "Our Father who art in Heaven hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever." Amen.

By thus seeking to fulfill his obligations to President Barack Obama, Warren won the approval of his politically and theologically conservative evangelical Christian constituency.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery's benediction was fiery, poetic and the unmistakable voice of the dean of the civil rights movement (full text).

Yet it was accessible to Christians and non-Christians alike while delighting the left, infuriating the right and apparently leaving almost everyone else inspired.

All without transgressing the bounds of properly practiced civil religion.

The inaugural poem, (text here), perhaps not a prayer, was nonetheless lovely, moving, telling us as it concluded:

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

Helping, we believe, all of us and a new president face what may for a time be an unremitting series of crises we all must overcome.

Toward a dream fulfilled

On August 28, 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have a Dream speech in which he prophesied:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

In his inaugural address today President Barack Hussein Obama, a black man who was elected by a landslide and took office amid overwhelming public approval, called upon an attentive nation to meet the towering adversity we face:

This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet (it)."

America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

In the benediction which followed, the Rev. Joseph Lowery implored God to help Americans make "choices on the side of love, not hate, on the side of inclusion not exclusion, tolerance not intolerance." He concluded with, "Let all who do justice and love mercy say amen and say amen," and from far and wide there came the answering amens.

We have come a long way in our journey toward fulfilling the prophetic dream of 1963.

Rick Warren: Anvil of reconciliation

Frink:

Our first black president-elect, whose campaign was fraught with both false and real issues of religion, has created for his inauguration a faith collage of the culture wars which have racked the nation for four decades.

Together, the voices he has chosen to pray and preach compose the elements of needed and otherwise unlikely dialog toward reconciliation.

Those voices are gay Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson, Southern Baptist megachurch pastor Rick Warren, black United Methodist minister Dr. Joseph E. Lowery and Christian Church president Rev. Sharon Watkins.

Now that the table is set, it is clear that Warren's inclusion created both dramatic contradictions and through them an opportunity for greater reconciliation.

Warren, then will be through his presence and in his two-minute prayer the anvil upon which is forged that reconciliation.

Read it all.