President-elect Obama has decided to have Rick Warren perform the invocation at his presidential inauguration in January. Warren, the pastor of the Saddleback megachurch in California, is well-known for his conservative views, falling sharply in line with the traditional evangelical stance on 'social issues,' but is touted as something of a centrist because he believes that global warming may actually be a problem. On pretty much everything else, he's a run-of-the-mill conservative evangelical: Right to Life, anti-gay marriage, etc.
The debate surrounding Obama's decision, though, has been interesting. People on the left are angry because of Warren's position on gay marriage and California's recent Proposition 8. On the right, Warren is being criticized for accepting the invitation at all. Obama apologists like E.J. Dionne at the Post have been hailing the move as the kind of conciliatory, centrist politics that will keep Obama afloat.
But as far as I can tell, no one in mainstream media has asked the question of why Warren is going to be there at all. In years past, no one appearss to have asked why Billy Graham was there either. Why are these men here to invoke the blessing of their (presumably, Christian) god on a presidency- a presidency of a country filled with Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and atheists? Does Warren represent all their religious views, or the lack of them?
But there's a larger issue beyond respect for pluralism or the gay rights movement. Why is a religious leader anywhere near the podium? Why does a pastor have to be around to 'invoke' the divine and legitimize a president through prayer, however symbolic? The last time I checked, the only legitimation a democratically elected government needed is the consent of the governed. People who would urge me to "lighten up, dude, it's just a prayer" miss the power that religious symbolism can have in perpetuating the insidious intermingling of Church and State.
Democratic states should invoke the blessings of their citizens, not of a parochial divine.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
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