Main » 2009»January»30 » What Rick Warren Said The Saddleback pastor's invocation was inevitable, surprising
What Rick Warren Said The Saddleback pastor's invocation was inevitable, surprising
21:31
After a month of controversy, Rick Warren's performance Tuesday at the inauguration of President Barack Obama was like a good short story: in the end, it was both inevitable and surprising. The
first surprise was Warren's evident awkwardness as he stepped up to the
podium, as though his fast public rise over the past four
years—meetings with Bono and Bill Gates, trips to Davos and Aspen—have
transferred upon him none of the polish one expects from world leaders.
Warren is quite genuinely a man who looks and feels more at home at his
megachurch in sunny Southern California, wearing his Hawaiian shirts
and preaching to a crowd drinking Starbucks. The inauguration of the
44th president was exactly the kind of frigid Eastern pageant Warren
spent the early years of his career working against. (Churches, he
said, should not be constrained by traditional songs and liturgy.) As a
result, the pastor of Saddleback Church looked a little like a fish out
of water as he began his invocation: tie askew, hair unkempt. This
dissonance, of course, was the point. Warren is unlike Obama in almost
every way. He is warm where the President is cool, garrulous where the
President is a grammatical perfectionist, religiously conservative
where Obama is progressive. As the proceedings unfolded on television,
Obama's reasons for choosing Warren could not have been more clear.
Warren can strike an empathic, populist chord better than anyone else
in America. Warren has learned some important lessons
about rhetorical caution, however, and inevitably, his prayer aimed to
be inclusive. He started with God, "our father," which was innocuous
enough, and went on to proclaim that "everything we see and everything
we can't see exists because of you alone." Language this neutral could
hardly be offensive to any but the strictest unbelievers. Then, in a
deft and fluid nod to the three great monotheisms, he quoted the Shema,
the most important prayer in Judaism: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our
God, the Lord is One." In the next phrase he praised God as
"compassionate and merciful," the words religious Muslims incant
regularly as they pray. And finally, he spoke of God's as "loving to
everyone"—a reference, of course, to Jesus Christ.
placeAd2(commercialNode,'bigbox',false,'')
Warren's pleas and
exhortations were pregnant with double meanings. He begged God's
forgiveness "when we fight each other" and "when we fail to treat our
fellow human beings and all the Earth with the respect they deserve."
To those engaged in the gaymarriage battle and the related war over
the appropriateness of Warren's appearance on this stage, these lines
will be parsed for meaning. But what was Warren really saying? Was he
asking God's forgiveness for things he has said about homosexual
behavior that have caused offense? Or was he asking God to forgive
those groups who launched such virulent attacks against him? Or was he
doing neither? Was he simply doing what people do when they pray:
expressing gratitude and seeking forgiveness? Warren is savvy; he was
not specific. Finally Warren made the move that was both inevitable and
surprising. He prayed in Jesus's name. Pastors at previous
inaugurations have triggered controversy and lawsuits for explicitly
Christian prayers, and pundits wondered aloud whether—given the tsunami
of press that preceded this prayer—Warren would dare to stake out this
turf. But Warren knows who he is. He is a conservative evangelical.
There's nothing else for him to do. Once again, his phrasing was deft:
he invoked Jesus for himself, not for the millions on the mall or the
billions watching on television. "I humbly ask this," he said, "in the
name of the one who changed my life…Jesus." A good job, and
yet the lingering question remains. Warren's conservative theology
teaches him that there is one path to God, and that is Jesus. So when
he wraps his great big arms around Muslims and Jews (and homosexuals),
does he really believe there's hope for us? Or is he just being nice?
Category: U.S. |
Views: 596 |
Added by: politic
| Rating: 0.0/0 |
After a month of controversy, Rick Warren's performance Tuesday at the inauguration of President Barack Obama was like a good short story: in the end, it was both inevitable and surprising.