Prayer smackdown: Warren versus Robinson
Monday, January 12, 2009
By Bryan Cones
Comments (9)
God may end up feeling a bit confused on January 20, when prayers galore for the new president will rise like incense from a variety of sources. President-elect Obama chose Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren to offer the inaugural prayer, much to the consternation of the prez-elect's gay and lesbian supporters: Warren was an outspoken proponent of Proposition 8, which outlawed same-gender marriage in California. Others have expressed concern that Warren will pray in the name of Jesus--as one would expect an evangelical to--and so offend everyone except the Christians. And then there are evangelicals who think Warren is an EINO--evangelical in name only--evidenced by his support of Obama, and they don't want Warren speaking for them. And, hey, why not a Catholic? Or a lay person? How about a woman?
At least interest group will be happier today, however, as openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire will be giving the invocation at an inaugural event at the Lincoln Memorial, according to the Concord Monitor, although Robinson says he doesn't think the selection is because of the flack Obama has gotten over Warren. (Yeah, right.) That's one unhappy group down, 100 to go.
I have a solution to the problem: No prayers at official inaugural events! You'd think a prayer at a federal swearing in would be unconstitutional. Besides, I'd love to meet the person who can write a totally "inclusive" prayer. But even from a religious perspective: Why would any minister want to appear co-opted by the politician du jour?
Posted in: In preview mode
Prayers at Inauguration Unconstitutional
By Jerry (not verified) on Monday, January 12, 2009Bryan,
What is the basis for your statement?
From George Washington's inaugural address to FDR' fireside chats, our presidents' discussions are dripping in religious speech>
Inaugural ceremony
By Bryan Cones on Monday, January 12, 2009I'm only talking about the inaugural ceremony itself. They can pray before dinner at every privately funded inaugural ball, they can have a prayer service at any church, synagogue, or mosque. Just not at the taxpayer-funded official inauguration ceremony.
I'm not really sure it's unconstitutional, but I do think it's foolish for ministers to appear to "sign on" to any particular politician's agenda. I think it's better for religion to keep at a difference.
Politicized prayer banning people from public life
By Jerry (not verified) on Tuesday, January 13, 2009So you at least acknowledge you are really not sure that prayer at taxpayer funded events are unconstitutional, but we should not have them.
Unlike you, I would not edit George Washington's inaugural speech and the Gettysburg Address expunge it of all references to God and religion because they were taxpayer funded events. In my opinion, secular societies expunging God can not sustain themselves as demonstrated by the demographic implosion of secular Europe. While this is not utopia, I think we are a better people because God was not banned from those taxpayer funded events.
I agree with you that it is foolish for ministers to appear to sign on to any particular politician's agenda. The problem is not prayer, but politicized prayer. Attached is a link of a criticism of highly politicized prayer at the Democratic National Convention. The commentator loathes that some people have to politicize everything including prayer.
Unlike the prayer at the Democratic Convention, Rick Warren's background makes it clear he will not use the Inauguration prayer to run down a list of his political agenda or appear to sign off on President-Elect Obama's agenda. This controversy is from the left who want to shut up anyone who disagrees with them. How Shocking! Someone actually doesn't agree with the minority left opinion that marriage should be redefined to include same sex couples! They must be banned from public life!
The second purpose of the "controversy" is for the media to generate propaganda in furtherence of the left's goal to impose same sex marriage through the courts. Do you think if the situation was that conservative activists were protesting the use of a minister supporting same sex marriage and abortion they would be given even half the press and the adjective "controversial" would be placed in front of the minister's name? Pro-life marches on the Washington Mall with over 100,000 people are either completely ignored by the media or given a passing reference with the reporting spun favorably to "pro-choice" "reproductive rights" activists.
Politicized prayer
By Bryan Cones on Tuesday, January 13, 2009I guess I'd argue that any prayer given at the inauguration of the victor of a partisan contest is by nature "politicized prayer."
But my actual concern is for the integrity of religion. Gene Robinson says he may invoke "the God of our many understandings." What on earth is that? What you'll end up with is a prayer to nothing about nothing, devoid of truly religious content save some bland reference to a single divine being. (And that's not Trinitarian, and thus not truly Christian anyway.)
Why not let each religious group offer their own prayer service, with the president free to attend any or none of them.
As for "religious" content in speeches, many invoke Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural as a prime example the kind of speech you're talking about. I've got nothing against that--but a prayer is a religious act, not just religious content, which I think is different.
God of Many Understandings
By Jerry (not verified) on Tuesday, January 13, 2009I'm relieved you have a critical word on something Gene Robinson said.
Your comment:
"What you'll end up with is a prayer to nothing about nothing, devoid of truly religious content save some bland reference to a single divine being. (And that's not Trinitarian, and thus not truly Christian anyway.)"
I think this is what is called a straw man argument. Except for a few fringe people just about everyone supporting prayer in the public life are fine with a general reference to God without specifying the Trinity.
Some may just see it a fluff, but I think there is a benefit to publicaly acknowledging God praying that the God help President Obama lead with prudence and wisdom. I think it's a stretch to argue a prayer such as that is politicized simply because it was made at an official event.
In regards to your concern regarding the integrity of religion, I'm not aware of any harm to our Catholic faith over 200 years because Catholic priests have led prayers in ceremonies without a sign of the cross. Having an official non-denominational prayer led by a man of the cloth has the benefits of gaining the graces asking to for God's help, joining people of various faiths for that they have in common, and making a public statement of the importance religious institutions have in our society, without establishment of religion.
The lines between prayer and the address become unclear anyway when the address contains a prayer such as "God Bless America" or this prayer in George Washington's inaugural address:
"... it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes: and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to his charge. "
I conjecture the "integrity of religion" argument used by the religious left, although sincerely made, reflects what I believe is their grounding more in politics than religion. The religious left seems to shape religion in the mold for modern liberalism rather than the other way around. Thus the natural thought process and drive is to create a religion based argument, however sincerely, that ultimately meets the standards of modern liberalism: banning religion in public life.
The religious left has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams. Anyone who predicted 50 years ago that major Christian and Jewish denominations would consecrate same sex marriage, and claim the Bible teaches that homosexual bonds are good would be deemed certifiably nuts. How did it get to the point the religious left would used religion based arguments in favor of same sex marriage? Not because the religious left was trying to do harm, but because their primary grounding is modern liberalism rather than religion.
I honestly don't know if the editors of U.S. Catholic support consecrating same-sex marriages. If so, I guess you see it is just a a coincidence that modern liberalism's support of same-sex marriage preceding any teaching by Christianity or Judaism.
Read the Fathers
By Timothy (not verified) on Tuesday, January 13, 2009Greetings,
To be clear, worship of God is never to be kept different from the Public Square. In fact, the Capital itself acted as the legislature and a church until well after the Civil War.
It is only that the State cannot tell the People how to worship that is prohibited in the First Amendment. That is it. All else is penumbra, which has been refuted, but Americans are under the control of an elite liberal ideology that is being diffused even right here and you are not even aware of it. But the Constitution is a good read… itself.
A taxpayer’s contribution to the Treasury ought to give him the right to persuade the State not to worship God at such a pivotal time as inaugurating our new president, our new leader, but that same taxpayer does not have the right not to give his hard earned money to that what can be reasonably argued goes against almost all religious expressions in the U.S.A., abortion?
What is the really the violation of the First Amendment? We certainty have misrepresented what the Founding Fathers, and our not too distant ancestors, understood America clearly to be by her own documents.
We used to live by them. Not change them to suit a particular history in which we find ourselves, one that we want to make according to what we think is true for us now. That, of course, is relativism. Read the Fathers. Let them inform you, especially if you would appeal to them.
Timothy+
The problem of universals
By Timothy (not verified) on Monday, January 12, 2009Greetings,
Yeah right is right!
However, prayer has occurred at each presidential inauguration.
Moreover, our Constitution is actually framed to protect religion from the State and not the State from religion.
There just is nothing in the Constitution to substantiate what living interpreters would now have us believe--- and as gleaned from Lincoln’s separation from church and state comments to boot, which of course have no actual constitutional context.
The words "separation from church and state", or even the concepts that the words define, are not even in the Constitution nor was President Lincoln even referring to the Constitution in his speech. It is all so silly, along intellectual grounds that is.
But, of course, we have been living with that “different type” of contexualism, the relativism or nominalism type, for years now.
That is the type that would manipulate a penumbra in the Due Clause Statement of the Fourteenth Amendment to be there out of thin air.
A penumbra that they say confirms that the Fathers, indeed, did intend to end what otherwise would have been there: LIFE.
But, of course, the Fathers never intended to have privacy mean or justify abortion. That is why all claims to the Constitution seem silly to me.
We have made the Constitution what the actual words say it is not. As the beloved Father Neuhaus might say(may he rest in peace), where the truth is not lived it will eventaully be proscribed.
I recommend that all who read this go to the Heritage Foundation (http://www.heritage.org/) and obtain your copy of the Constitution. Please read it.
However, it will probably make you mad if you are the type who reads words by the actual words themselves. The problem of universals, huh?
Timothy+
Correction
By Timothy (not verified) on Monday, January 12, 2009Correction: In 1947, in the case Everson v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court declared, "The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach." The "separation of church and state" phrase which they invoked, and which has today become so familiar, was taken from an exchange of letters between President Thomas Jefferson and the Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut, shortly after Jefferson became President.
See: http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=123
Timothy+
Jefferson
By Jerry (not verified) on Tuesday, January 13, 2009You beat me to the correction. The Jefferson letter, written as an offficial function of Vice-President, is filled with religious references and natural law arguments.
It's ironic that an excerpt from a letter filled with religious references has been used by some on the left who argue it is unconstitutional for a politician to mention religion in his official functions.
U.S. Catholic insists on a civil and respectful dialogue on our website, following our Comment policy. Comments should be charitable, on topic, and brief. U.S. Catholic reserves the right to delete comments deemed inappropriate. Links are not allowed and comments with them will be moderated or deleted. We encourage you to choose your words wisely.
