Keeping the faith: New president, shift in faith leader

The new presidential worship leader is too Christian for the critics.  I challenge them to find a replacement that is more invested in secularism.

HBO showed the presidential inauguration live but refused to air the traditional prayer.

Well, America, you can have seperation of church and state or freedom of the press.  Take your pick because evidently people are too angry to let you have both.

Dr. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. and author of the best seller “The Purpose Driven Life” gave the invocation at Tuesday’s inauguration.

Warren’s huge national appeal and theology that sits on the border between religion and secular trends made him a likely choice in the months leading up to the swearing in, but Obama has been criticized for his choice.

Warren’s participation is symbolic of the changing of the guard from the old White House ways to the new generation of leadership. For decades Southern Baptist Billy Graham served as the executive “spiritual adviser,” but at the ripe old age of 90 it seems it’s time for a shift.

Obama and Warren have a lot in common.  As National Public Radio pointed out recently, the president’s post-racial, post-generational ideals mirror the reverend’s post-denominational image.  Warren’s teachings center on what he calls the five “Global Goliaths” (spiritual emptiness, egocentric leadership, extreme poverty, pandemic disease and illiteracy and poor education), broadly highlighting world affairs that Obama is bound to address.  Warren calls himself a pastor, a global strategist, a theologian and a philanthropist.

Criticism of Obama’s choice in Warren has been based on the pastor’s conservatism on gay rights and abortion issues. Warren spoke in favor of Proposition 8 recently, and is known to hold some traditional Christian values that Obama’s campaign steered away from.

But Warren has plenty of supporters- like the 25 million people who have bought his book, making it the best selling hardback in U.S. history and the more than 400 thousand pastors in 162 countries that are part of the Purpose Driven Network of Churches.

Midway through his campaign Obama was invited to speak at Saddleback Church.  He commented on the opportunity in light of his and Warren’s ideological differences.  “Nevertheless, I had an opportunity to speak,” he said. “And that dialogue, I think, is part of what my campaign is all about: that we’re not going to agree on every single issue, but what we have to do is be able to create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans.”

Warren is actually one of the most moderate Christians out there- if he wasn’t he would never have such vast appeal.  His books don’t sell because they are works of theological genius.  They’re really quite the opposite.

“The Purpose Driven Life” is one of the least religious books imaginable. It falls under the vague new genre called “Christian living,” which is little more than an excuse to sell run of the mill self help books to innocent God-seekers.

Not only is Warren’s Christianity not all that hard-core, his career depends on its appeal to secularism.

Perhaps we would rather a rabbi, an imam, a pundit or satanic cult leader bless the new presidency.  You know, someone who exemplifies the respect for diversity we seem so excited about lately and doesn’t, God forbid, subscribe to conservative social ideals.

What we really meant when we said liberals and conservatives would be brought together by this administration was…

If the American people still want a ceremonial prayer, which I would bet they do considering the stink they made about Obama’s little Islam rumor, they should probably stop complaining and accept this gesture of moderation.

Warren won’t be knocking the socks off any theology buffs any time soon, so we can all rest easy knowing the White House remains a safe distance from the grasp of theocracy.

Amen to that.