Scotty McLennan

By Scotty McLennan 

Who speaks in the name of God? By what authority? How can we know? In January we went through a presidential inauguration with a number of people presuming to speak in the name of God in invocations, benedictions and prayers. In the process, they used many of the phrases we would expect from true prophets. Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, was the first to speak when he delivered the invocation for the kickoff inaugural event on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial two days before Barack Obama was sworn in. He began by asking, “O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will bless us with tears -- for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die a day from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS. Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people” (1).

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, the civil rights leader, in his benediction after Barack Obama was sworn into office, stated that God is able and willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor or the least of these and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.” Then he asked God “to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right.”

Both Bishop Robinson and Rev. Lowery received some criticism, though, from people wondering if they were really speaking in the name of God, or only in the name of their own interests (2). But the most criticism was leveled at the Rev. Rick Warren, who delivered the invocation on Inauguration Day. For instead of praying to “God of our many understandings,” as did Bishop Robinson, he specifically prayed in the name of Jesus, and then asked everyone to join him in the great Christian prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. How different the Inaugural Prayer Service was the next day at the National Cathedral, when there were prayers not only by Protestant, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians, but also by Jews, a Muslim and a Hindu (3).

Warren also has called homosexuality unequivocally wrong and compared gay relationships to incest and pedophilia. He has called abortion a “holocaust” and described U.S. power as a divine instrument for punishing evildoers. Understandably, many on the Christian left, not to mention on the secular left and from other traditions, were deeply disturbed by Obama’s choosing him to deliver the inaugural prayer (4).

But there have been some contrary voices on the left that we might want to listen to before Rick Warren is too easily labeled a false prophet. Singer Melissa Etheridge, an openly lesbian activist, met Rick Warren at a conference last year, where they had a warm conversation and Warren asked for her autograph on her album. She said, “He entered the room with open arms and an open heart,” and “didn’t sound like a gay hater.” He claimed to believe in equal rights for all and “struggled with Proposition 8 because he didn’t want to see marriage redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman.” He also told her that he regretted his choice of words when he mentioned incest and pedophilia in a discussion of broadening the definition of marriage (5).

In December, Warren addressed the 20-year old Muslim Public Affairs Council. He was seen to be frank, open and cooperative, first saying, “We don’t have to see eye to eye to walk hand in hand, and you can disagree without being disagreeable.” He went on to ask to “actively and directly cooperate with mosques” to “combat the five global illnesses of spiritual emptiness, corrupt leadership, disease pandemics, dire poverty and illiteracy.” Bishop Gene Robinson has explained that he has “a lot of respect for Rick Warren” because of his compassionate response to AIDS worldwide and his commitment to eliminating poverty (6). It’s also to be noted that in his inaugural prayer, Warren intentionally used a phrase from Muslim devotion when he called God “the compassionate and merciful one” (7).

It turns out that Rick Warren shares Barack Obama’s desire to end the demonizing effects of the culture wars that pit right against left, religiously and politically. Warren put his own relationship with many Christian conservatives at risk by asking Obama to speak at his church both before and after he became a presidential candidate. Warren has called for “a new day of civil discourse” in America. So, flawed as he is (and as many prophets have been), the Rev. Rick Warren may be a new prophet of exactly what’s needed today: crossing partisan lines to build a new sense of community despite disagreement. He’s already learned and changed himself through civil discourse with those who disagree with him (8). Like the prophet inside the king’s court, he’s been challenging his own Southern Baptist denomination by calling for bridge-building. On the other side of the stream, he’s inspired the top official for the gay-oriented Metropolitan Community Churches, Nancy Wilson, to say about him, “We may come from different theological perspectives, yet we share a common biblical commitment to caring radically about poverty, violence and the nurture of our Earth” (9). Liberal Christians in particular need to be careful not to close their ears entirely to Conservative Christians.

It’s not easy for most of us to recognize authentic prophets. And Rick Warren or Joseph Lowery or Gene Robinson may or may not be one of them. But as Moses has reminded us, in the words of God, “Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable” (10). Let us have the ears to hear (11).

Notes

(1) Mike Allen, “Gay Bishop to Open Inaugural Weekend,” Politico (1/12/09) www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17340.html

(2) See, for example: Dan Amira, “Rick Warren and Joseph Lowery Yesterday: Offensive or A-Okay?” New York Magazine (January 21, 2009), http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/01/rick_warren_and_joseph_lowery_yesterday_offensive_of_a-okay.html; Michael Sean Winters, “Bishop Robinson and the Inauguration,” America: The National Catholic Weekly (January 13, 2009) www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=D045E6D1-1438-5036-4F8182312D4DB2D0

(3) Program, Inaugural Prayer Service (January 21, 2009), www.nationalcathedral.org/presidents/service.html

(4) “Prayer and Conversation,” Christian Century (January 27, 2009), p. 7.

(5) John Dart, “Obama, Warren Defy Culture War,” Christian Century (January 27, 2009), p. 13.

(6) Ibid., pp. 12-13.

(7) Rachel Zoll, “Inaugural Prayers Aim for a More Diverse America,” Associated Press and Yahoo! News (January 20, 2009). http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090121/ap_on_go_pr_wh/inauguration_religion

(8) “Prayer and Conversation,” p. 7.

(9) Dart, “Obama, Warren,” p. 12.

(10) Deuteronomy 18: 19.

(11) See Mark 4:9,23; 8:18; Luke 8:8; 14:35.