Obama gets Rick Rolled: Warren to give inaugural invocation

Regretably Obama has chosen mega-church pastor Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation.

Noted religious-right-watcher Sarah Posner writes: "Now it has officially gone too far: Democrats, in their zeal to appear friendly to evangelical voters, have chosen celebrity preacher and best-selling author Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration."

I don't think there should be an inaugural prayer in the first place.

The state shouldn't be aggrandizing Rick Warren. This is exactly the kind of favorite-playing that the separation of church and state is supposed to prevent.

Warren is making a bid for mainstream political legitimacy and Obama has been helping him at every turn in order to score points with evangelical voters. So far, Obama has teamed up with Warren for at least two World AIDS Days, that presidential candidates forum at the Saddleback Church, and now this.

This isn't just an abstract church/state debate. Warren is a powerful player who wants to shape US policy.

Warren is a lobbyist in a pastor's robe--well, actually, in a non-threatening Hawaiian shirt and chinos. By "lobbyist" I mean he takes people's money to advance a worldly political agenda.

As Sarah Posner explains, Warren is a masterful mainstreamer of extreme evangelical dogmas. He has repeatedly described abortion as a "holocaust," directed his followers to vote for the repeal of gay marriage in California, and advocated US government sponsored assassination as a tool to fight "Evil."

Warren gets points with progressives for his campaign against poverty in the developing world. To hear some people talk, you'd think he was the evangelical equivalent of Bono. It's a classic Rick Roll--a bait and switch.

The catch is that Warren's plan to eradicate poverty is inextricably connected to his crusade to convert the heathens of the world to Christianity.

Warren's P.E.A.C.E. network is a significant force in international aid in its own right. He's already convinced Rwanda to declare itself a "Purpose-Driven Nation," no doubt in exchange for considerable tangible aid. According to TIME, Warren said he was "looking for a small country where we could actually work on a national model," and Kagame, impressed by The Purpose-Driven Life, volunteered Rwanda in March."

If the Saddleback Church wants to throw its wealth behind old school medical missionaries, fine.

But as we saw on World AIDS Day, Warren is positioning himself to join forces with USAID abroad and the Office of Faith Based Initiatives at home.

The US has enough trouble with its global brand without confirming suspicions that AIDS prevention is a stalking horse for Christian evangelism.

Giving Warren a platform at the inauguration is a political favor. Everybody knows it. 

If there must be a prayer at the inaugural, why not use the chaplain of the Senate, or one of the other professional religious officiators we already have on the public payroll? It might be a nice honor to bestow on a decorated military chaplain, if one is available.

Giving Warren even more mainstream cred is not just a cost-free nod to evangelicals. It's a boost for someone who actively opposes Obama's agenda and who is eager to influence secular affairs.

If Obama is going to continue playing politics with religion, he should think more carefully about whom he chooses to empower.

Comments

[CW]

I don't think there should be an inaugural prayer in the first place.

'Nuff said really.

[Dabodius]

Indeed, why not have him just declaim the text of Prop. 8 up there?

[Eric Jaffa]

Was there an inaugural prayer for each of Bill Clinton's inaugurations? If so, by whom?

[The Phantom]

Hell.

I was hoping it would have been Reverend Wright.

[yasth]

Was there an inaugural prayer for each of Bill Clinton's inaugurations? If so, by whom?

Rev. Billy Graham did both of clinton's and both bush's first terms (I can't find the 2nd lazily) so this is not the first time a crazy preacher dude has been used. so says here

I honestly wouldn't worry about it, backchatter says it was all because Warren is a bit more liberal on poverty and such not, combined with desire to throw a bone to the evas.

I'm all for eliminating ceremonial deism, but some fights just won't end well.

[help with dissertation]

Blogs are good for every one where we get lots of information for any topics nice job keep it up !!!

[cfrost]

Holy crap, I thought for a moment that the magazine cover was real. It’s a spoof, thank god, but evidently there is a real magazine in the works.

Why exactly we need witch doctors to wave talismans and mumble mumbo-jumbo for public occasions I’ll never know. I hope Obama’s just throwing a bone to the primitive Christian cult freaks and will keep it at that.

[cfrost]

Holy crap, I thought for a moment that the magazine cover was real. It’s a spoof, thank god, but evidently there is a real magazine in the works.

Why exactly we need witch doctors to wave talismans and mumble mumbo-jumbo for public occasions I’ll never know. I hope Obama’s just throwing a bone to the primitive Christian cult freaks and will keep it at that.

[cfrost]

Typepad sucks.

[Maineiac]

I think people should listen carefully to what Obama is saying. He has said no more politics as usual and liberals have taken that to mean he just saying what he has to say to get elected. What if he means it? What if this is not a tossed bone, not a political favor, what if Obama is trying to tell us that we are going to treat our political opponents with respect? All the liberal blogs are simply screaming this man is our opponent, we must oppose him! Obama is saying, yes, that is the point, he is our opponent and we are going to treat him with respect.

The country is in a bad jam. We can go the way of California and have a breakdown with no way forward or we can work together to get us out. You are saying that when Obama says no more politics as usual it is politics as usual. Obama is a leader, he is trying to lead us, but we are too smart to be led.

If your boat is sinking and the only person who has a bucket is a fascist it is not the time for a lecture on the evils of fascism, it's time to start bailing.

[The Phantom]

maineiac

Your first para is spot on.

[togolosh]

I'm not thrilled by Warren's inclusion in the ceremony, but I think it may reflect a strategy on Obama's part of building broad coalitions directed at specific issues, in this case AIDS and poverty. Warren represents a wing of the religious right that is much more engaged with solving real world problems than the past generation of leaders. They are comprehensively wrong on a host of issues, but where they are right it makes sense to work with them.

The alternative approach of taking a hostile stance runs the risk of facilitating their anti-progressive coalition building. The next two to four years are going to be critical in shaping the next wave of conservatism. With Paul Weyrich gone there is a void at the top of Movement Conservatism and the recent spanking of the GOP has placed additional stress on the movement. Obama's choices will impact the direction of the restructuring. If he chooses a stance of uniform hostility he will make their coalition building much, much easier.

[Stoic]

You mean we got "rolled" or, I think the correct term is "punked" by Team Obama. We mock the MSM for claiming the election was a triumph of the "Center/Right" but that's what the Obama administration is shaping up to be. Suck on it, liberals.

[Alon Levy]

Togolosh, the problem with that approach is that Obama's successors might have to take Warren's religious agenda seriously. There's a double precedent for that in the Republican Party: Nixon brought in the racists, who shared his opposition to movement liberalism, and Reagan brought in the Evangelicals, who were turned off by Carter's pro-choice stance. Neither President ever intended to give the extreme right too much of a voice, and yet both ensured the Republican Party would depend on it.

[The Phantom]

Nixon, the guy who brought us the wonderful gift of affirmative action, "brought in the racists"?

[Uncle Kvetch]

When you consider that Warren has cheerfully propagated the patently bullshit claim about Proposition 8 and churches' right to "free speech," it's hard to see this selection as anything other than a very conscious and deliberate message to the LGBT community and progressives more generally. It's been clear for awhile that Obama is a dyed-in-the-wool Clintonite, and here we have a true Sister Souljah moment.

Oh well. Lip service and benign neglect will always be preferable to overt hostility, but it would be nice if those weren't consistently the only choices we get.

[The Phantom]

I never heard any complaints when the black church was overtly ( and positively ) political for many years.

No complaints then, no complaints with Warren now. Lets be consistent.

[Cass]

I can never see Warren in those Hawaiian shirts without thinking of Ricky Gervais from "The Office". Warren's social skills are of course far, far in advance of David Brent's, but they share the same voracious egotism and hunger for attention, power, or whatever else is on the menu. If I was forced at gunpoint to sit through someone's sermon, I think I'd much prefer some old-fashioned authoritarian raving on the subject of infant damnation than Rick Warren fairly screaming at me through his presentation what a regular guy he is, and how can I not help but like him, and want to join his family?

Perhaps Obama is just taking a page from Roosevelt, who was told by social conservatives of his own day that the New Deal might be O.K., but he'd face all-out war on anything he put before Congress if he tried to mess with segregation in the South. This is why politicians of any stripe have to be different from you and me.

[Alon Levy]

Yes: based on Kevin Phillips' advice, Nixon began a Southern strategy based on coded racial messages. He ignored the racists while in office, but ensured they remain a viable political force in the future.

[parse]

I never heard any complaints when the black church was overtly ( and positively ) political for many years.

No complaints then, no complaints with Warren now. Lets be consistent.

Phantom, have you considered the possibility that the criticism of Warren is not that he as political positions, but what those particular positions are? That would be inconsistent with a failure to criticize black churches that took different positions.

[parse]

Excuse me, that wouldn't be inconsistent. . .

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

I don't think the government should play favorites among religious leaders. Choosing one preacher or one denomination over another to "send a message" to a political constituency (evangelical voters) is inappropriate.

Like I said, I don't think there should be official prayers at the inauguration, and if there must be a prayer, the officiant should be someone who is already a public servant, such as a military chaplain.

Over and above the church/state issues, which apply to all colors and creeds equally, the Warren pick is objectionable because Obama is helping Rick Warren build what I regard as an evil empire. It's short-sighted because Warren's political agenda is opposed to much of Obama's agenda.

Giving Warren legitimacy and mainstream acceptance increases his already considerable real-world power. It's neither in Obama's interest, nor the interests of the country, to make this guy more powerful because he's a bigot who literally wants to take over the world for Christ (peacefully, while helping people, but still...).

[Sophie]

I'm not thrilled by Warren's inclusion in the ceremony, but I think it may reflect a strategy on Obama's part of building broad coalitions directed at specific issues, in this case AIDS and poverty.

In that case, invite Sir Elton John or President William J. Clinton, who have each done way more for the cause, without marginalizing other human beings in the process. Sorry, Obama blew it on this one. Unless his goal was to take attention away from the Chicago scandals. Then this was brilliantly calculated.

[Devon]

I think this article is reading too into fucking nothing. Sure Rick Warren gets ahead with a crowd he already dominates, and Obama gets to appeal to a crowd he has little stock in.

In the end, it's one goddamn ceremony. Sure, blah blah blah it should be entirely secular but fuck, accept that it's not there YET. (yet being the key word)

The American public will be like "Rick who?" by the time the broadcast is over, so don't cream your jeans over this one.