Rick Warren, Obama Invocation Choice, Causing First Real Rift With Progressives

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Sam Stein
stein at huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting From DC
December 17, 2008 05:44 PM

Ever since Barack Obama was elected president, the media has been pining
to write a story about liberal dissatisfaction with his transition
efforts. By and large, the meme has been blown out of proportion, as the
press overestimated how divisive Obama's cabinet choices were for
progressives.

The press may now have its conflict moment. And it comes in the form of
the spiritual leader chosen to launch Obama's inauguration.

On Wednesday, the transition team and Joint Congressional Committee on
Inaugural Ceremonies announced that Rick Warren, pastor of the powerful
Saddleback Church, would give the invocation on January 20th. The
selection may not have been incredibly surprising. Obama and Warren are
reportedly close -- Obama praised the Megachurch leader in his second book
"The Audacity of Hope." Warren, meanwhile, hosted a values forum between
Obama and McCain during the general election. Nevertheless, the
announcement is being greeted with deep skepticism in progressive
religious and political circles.

"My blood pressure is really high right now," said Rev. Chuck Currie,
minister at Parkrose Community United Church of Christ in Portland,
Oregon. "Rick Warren does some really good stuff and there are some areas
that I have admired his ability to build bridges between evangelicals and
mainline religious and political figures... but he is also very
established in the religious right and his position on social issues like
gay rights, stem cell research and women's rights are all out of the
mainstream and are very much opposed to the progressive agenda that Obama
ran on. I think that he is very much the wrong person to put on the stage
with the president that day."

Warren does have a rather peculiar relationship with the incoming
president. The two share a general ethos that political differences should
not serve as impediments to progress. On topics like AIDS and poverty
relief, they see eye-to-eye. But Warren's domestic and social agendas are
at odds with Obama's. And for the gay and lesbian community in particular,
the choice is a bitter pill to swallow.

"Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his
affable personality and his church's engagement on issues like AIDS in
Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself
is one of tone rather than substance," read a statement from People For
the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert. "He has repeated the Religious
Right's big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to
silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel
Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose
an abortion."

"Picking Rick Warren to give THE invocation," wrote John Aravosis on
AmericaBlog, "is abominable."

"Let me get right to the point," Joe Solomnese, the president of the Human
Rights Campaign, said in a harsh letter to the president-elect, "Your
invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your
inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans."

Added Rev. Candace Chellew-Hodge, author of the book: "Bulletproof Faith:
A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians": "It is almost
like he wants to poke the progressives with a sharp stick."

Indeed, Chellew-Hodge and others see the move as motivated by politics,
not religion or policy. They offer several explanations in this vein.
Obama has his eye on the evangelical vote (young white evangelicals voted
for Obama at twice the rate for John Kerry); he is charting a path that
isn't at its heart socially or religiously progressive (Chellew-Hodge
noted that Warren recently said same-sex couples deserve equal rights,
though not the right to marriage, a position at least superficially
similar to Obama's). Mainly, however, the argument is that the Warren
choice falls under the president-elect's stated objective of building a
big tent government.

"I can't read the transition team's mind," said Dan Nejfelt, a spokesman
for the group, Faith In Public Life, "but my guess here is that they're
crafting an inauguration meant to appeal to voters who voted against Obama
as well as his supporters."

Indeed, lost in the hubbub about Warren, is the fact that the man tasked
with overseeing the benediction is a icon within progressive politics.
Rev. Joe Lowery, a hero of the civil rights movement and co-founder of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King famously
called out President George W. Bush during Coretta Scott King's funeral.
He also is a supporter of same-sex marriage. But he is not garnering the
same attention as Warren for his inauguration role.

It's vintage Obama, several observers say -- bringing the spectrum of the
religious/political experience together for one event. And yet, it is also
a big source of frustration for progressive leaders, many of whom aren't
interested in legitimizing viewpoints antithetical to their message.

"I think there is probably an actual friendship between the two, and I
admire that because Barack Obama has an ability to be friends with people
he disagrees with, and that is a good quality for a president," said Rev.
Currie. "But I think that he is very much the wrong person to put on the
stage with the president that day. It sends a very wrong message about who
America is and what our aspirations are."

Requests for a comment from the Obama transition team went un-returned.

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********