Obama's widely hearalded mention of Hinduism

In his inaugural address, President Barack Obama referred to Christians, Muslims, Jews, and non-believers. As well as Hindus, a mention that was front-page news in the Times of India. Emblematic of a peacemaker?

Vamsee Juluri, Professor of Media Studies, University of San Francisco, wrote:

I think that the global dream that is America has found in Obama the sort of popular 21st century religious sensibility that has been forming unnoticed by the dogmas of fundamentalists and some of their more dogmatic opponents too. A few months ago, this picture appeared of the charms Obama carried in his pocket. One of the figurines he had was of Hanuman, a Hindu God, although this version was probably from Obama's days in Indonesia. The Indian press was happy, but the best interpretation came from right here, a Bay Area writer who said that what Hanuman implies is not just whether we literally believe in "monkey gods" but really the ideal of service. That is the sort of inspiration perhaps we could draw from religion, ours and others; because, like everything else, our beliefs too are being tossed together and tossed around with globalization. What better place than America for everyone to see the best in everyone else, and in their own selves too. Then, and I hope we can, the only "clash of civilizations" we will hear ever about again will be nothing more than the jingle-jangle of all the world's religious trinkets in our great President Barack Obama's pockets.

The rest is here.

Obama’s Mention of ‘Non-Believers’ doesn't herald new secularism

Pete Winn of CNS writes:

Conservative religious leaders say they don’t believe that President Obama intended to signal a new role for secularists and atheists in the post-election world Tuesday, when he mentioned “non-believers” in his inaugural speech.

“We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers,” Obama pointedly said during an oration in bitter winds on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

But the new president may have been playing to the crowd, according to Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Read the rest.

Warrenology (for heaven's sake?)

Warrenology was invoked by Mark Silk of Spiritual Politics yesterday for another run at Rick Warren's inauguration invocation.

He and Dan Gilgoff now agree with us that Pastor Warren's ever so carefully inclusive prayer, wasn't.

Until he actually stood to deliver at the inauguration, a great many of us thought Warren was a contender for the "America's Pastor" role created by the Rev. Billy Graham. As Beliefnet's Steven Waldman explained:

[Graham] pulled it off by using broadly inclusive language. In 1989 he referred just to "God" and in 1993 he declared: "I pray this in the name of the one that's called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace." Note, too, that he used the word "I" rather than "we," which would have assumed all in the audience were Christian.

Warren, says Mark Silk, "wanted to have it both ways--gesturing at inclusivity while sacrificing nothing to exclusivity."

It didn't really work, and one scholar and friend of Warren's has flatly called it "a mistake," although Warren's core audience on the evangelical right seems to have been well-pleased.

What were we to expect of a man given to inspirational references to Hitler youth, confusion of gays with pedophiles (and later denying that), support of condom-burning African regimes and other, similarly interesting views and involvements?

Whatever Warrenologists may conclude about the big guy's intentions and effects, he was never asked to audition for the role as "America's pastor." Not by a president who not only pulled an unprecedented range of American faith traditions into his inaugural festivities, but was also the first to acknowledge nonbelievers.

Ours is a more complex, democratic era than the one the elder Rev. Graham handled so well. Warren has the ambition but not the internal poise and or inclusive breadth of presence required to preside as Graham did.

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.

Anti-aborting Krispy Kreme & the inauguration

The American Life League MySQL server choked on their "abortion donuts" news release. You cannot can now read it here, where they busted a rhetorical gusset over Krispy Kreme's offer of a "free donut of choice" to celebrate "American's sense of pride and freedom of choice on Inauguration Day."

They and others twisted that donut marketeering into an allusion to "freedom of choice," which refers to a legal right to an abortion, and by twisting created reason to take grave offense.

Thus ALL president Judy Brown could write:

The next time you stare down a conveyor belt of slow-moving, hot, sugary glazed donuts at your local Krispy Kreme you just might be supporting President-elect Barack Obama's radical support for abortion on demand – including his sweeping promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act as soon as he steps in the Oval Office, Jan. 20.

Understandable. It's a big anti-abortion/pro-life week. Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry warned recently on National Public Radio that "the pro-life movement is imploding" and should begin "ratcheting up our rhetoric." ALL et al doing their part.

President Bush did his part by proclaiming Jan. 18 Sanctity of Human Life Day. Lest anyone miss the point, his proclamation concludes, "We ... encourage more of our fellow Americans to join our just and noble cause."

The Christian Defense Coalition (CDC) is completing it's Jan. 1-19 campaign of fasting and prayer for President-elect Obama, conducted in part because it is "deeply saddened by his policy choices concerning abortion."

The CDC will be holding an Inauguration pro-life vigil with a series of protest signs along the parade route during the Presidential Inauguration.

The Christian Defense Coalition in New Jersey and others also have plans to demonstrate their views.

Operation Rescue has already decried as unbiblical Rick Warren's role in the inauguration and is holding a variety of events associated with the January 22 anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Dubbing the inauguration "P for Perverse," Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission has recommended that we "pray that God will not rain fire and brimstone down on Washington DC," and if our prayers are heard, it seems some pro-life forces will rise there with donutless effect to Terry's call.

Otherwise, remember to ask your wife not to look back as you leave D.C.

National Prayer Service 'has many mansions'

The National Prayer Service has Many, many mansions, writes Mark Silk at Spiritual Politics.

In addition to Sharon E. Watkins, says the Presidential Inaugural Committee announcement:

The National Prayer Service will include a traditional prayer for civil leaders, a prayer for the nation, a selection by the Washington, D.C.-based Children of the Gospel Children's Choir, and, for the first time, feature a sermon delivered by a woman.

Reverend Samuel T. Lloyd III, Dean of the Washington National Cathedral, will welcome attendees to the event, followed by the invocation of Reverend John Bryon Chane, Episcopal Bishop of Washington.

Reverend Otis Moss Jr., Senior Pastor Emeritus, Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio will provide the opening prayer, followed by a prayer for civil leaders delivered by Reverend Andy Stanley, Senior Pastor, North Point Community Church, Alpharetta, Georgia.

Scripture readings will be provided by Dr. Cynthia Hale, Senior Pastor, Ray of Hope Christian Church, Atlanta, Georgia as well as Archbishop Demetrios, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, New York City, and the Most Reverend Francisco Gonzalez, S.F., Auxiliary Bishop of Washington. Rabbi David Saperstein, Executive Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Washington, D.C., has been asked to deliver a psalm.

Responsive prayers given by six leaders will symbolize America's traditions of religious tolerance and freedom:

• Dr. Ingrid Mattson, President, Islamic Society of North America, Hartford, CT.
• Rev. Suzan Johnson-Cook, Senior Pastor, Bronx Christian Fellowship, New York City.
• Rabbi Jerome Epstein, Director, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, New York City.
• Rev. Carol Wade of the Washington National Cathedral.
• Dr. Uma Mysorekar, President, Hindu Temple Society of North America, New York City.
• Rev. Jim Wallis, President, Sojourners, Washington, D.C.
• Rabbi Haskal Lookstein, Congregation Kehilath Jeshurunm, New York City.
• Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell, Senior Pastor, Windsor Village United Methodist Church, Houston, TX.

The service will conclude with a prayer for the nation delivered by Donald W. Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, D.C., followed by a closing prayer provided by Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori, Presiding Bishop, Episcopal Church USA and a benediction by the Reverend Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, General Secretary of the Reformed Church in America.

Inclusion indeed.

Inauguration = consecration

Inauguration is the consecration of a president-elect as high priest of the the American civil religion, argued sociologist Robert Bellah .

The Floriday Time-Union explained:

Obama will be just another American citizen Tuesday morning. Tuesday night he will be the leader of one of the most powerful nations on earth. In between, he will undergo a status transformation through a rite of initiation.

“There has to be a ritual way of placing the mantle [of authority] on the person” becoming president, [religion scholar Julie] Ingersoll said. “This is how we legitimize them.”

Rites of initiation are rituals that initiate a person or community into a new reality, Ingersoll said. Such ceremonies establish and celebrate the shedding of an older life in favor of a new life and identity.

Usually invisible to us, as Mollie of Get Religion explained recently, our civil religion has fundamental beliefs, values, holidays, and rituals that said parallel or are independent of our chosen, spiritual religions.

Obama's consecration is remarkable for the intense interweaving of both civil religion and spiritual religions, symbolizing a broader transition of allegiance and power that occurred during the election and is being steadily consolidated.

Julian E. Zelize, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, wrote recently about how during the presidential election formerly rock-solid Republican religionists changed allegiance:

Polls show that many religious Americans did not automatically move toward the right. Although most evangelicals refused to budge, younger evangelicals turned out for Obama. Catholics moved back to the Democrats and Jews and mainline Protestants voted for Obama in very high numbers.

Although the prayers and other religious ritual are a brief part of the inauguration, the underlying meaning of the breadth of clergy Obama has chosen to involve is lost on no one.

A waning alliance of the religious and political right led this country to catastrophe, and a new and it is to be greatly hoped reviving set of alliances is being forged and anointed.

Obama's truly 'National' Prayer Service

Representative in the fullest sense, the National Prayer Service which caps inaugural activities on Jan. 21 will, according to the Associated Press, include participation by:

• Conservative Rabbi Jerome Epstein.
• Orthodox Rabbi Haskel Lookstein.
• Reform Rabbi David Saperstein.
• Islamic Society of North America President Ingrid Mattson (head of the nation's largest Muslim group).
• Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington the Most Rev. Donald Wuerl.

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) president Rev. Sharon Watkins, the first woman to head a mainline Protest denomination and an outspoken opponent of the war in Iraq and of torture, will give the sermon.

Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Protestant.

It seems decidedly appropriate, especially when considered in view of the prayers which will precede the Jan. 21 National Cathedral service. Those will be by gay Episcopal bishop, Gene Robinson, Southern Baptist megachurch pastor Rick Warren and black United Methodist minister Dr. Joseph E. Lowery.

Thus the incoming Obama administration finds its religious voice, not shrill or in any way ideologically narrow-minded, but sweepingly inclusive. A living reflection the historic great melting pot of American culture of which we are all so justifiably proud.

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.

Learning to love Rick Warren

Saturday at the annual conference of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Pastor Rick Warren tried to deflect criticism by emphasizing the need for Americans in general to find common ground.

Implying that the media were somehow the cause of the controversy that has erupted around him since he was asked to read the invocation at President-Elect Barack Obama's inauguration, Warren said:

Let me just get this over very quickly. I love Muslims. And for the media's purpose, I happen to love gays and straights.

Wrong, as Juan Cole indicated in his blog about the same gathering:

Warren will read the invocation at President-Elect Barack Obama's inauguration, a choice that angered the gay community. Warren supported Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage (and forcibly divorced or 'de-married' 18,000 gay couples already married in California). Warren also has compared legalizing gay marriage to legalizing incest, pedophilia and polygamy.

Of course Prop. 8's fate is in the hands of the California Supreme Court and Warren, it seems, is very much a man in process.

Warren, for all of his bigotry, still supports something like civil unions for gay couples, and even won over Cole, who wrote:

I came away liking and looking up to Warren. In fact, I wonder whether with some work he could not be gotten to back off some of the hurtful things he has said about gays and rethink his support for Proposition 8.

Cole's detailed account, here, suggests there may be a lot more peace to be made among us. All of us.