Here is the shorthand.  Pastor Rick Warren is doing the opening prayer at the inauguration because he is highly successful in his field, and very influential with a highly reliable voting block.  His “inconvenient truths” around progressive moral issues can be overlooked for these reasons.  The fact that his vocation is religion is incidental.

If Jesus were here today he would not be invited to pray at this historic public event since only a few poor, infirm, hated IRS agents, small town politicians and prostitutes would know him.  Christ would get the nod along with Warren.  Why am I making such a huge distinction between Jesus and Christ?  Because they are two different people.

In Evangelical Christianity there is a very compelling pietistic view of Jesus that goes like this.

“Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty and then for three years was an itinerant preacher. He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never traveled more than two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He never did one of those things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself. 

“While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed on a cross between two thieves. While he was dying his executors gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth - His coat. When he was dead, He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. 

“Nineteen long centuries have come and gone and today He is the centerpiece of the human race and the leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever were built, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.”   

The only problem with this perspective is that it doesn’t match the evidence.  The odds are low that we would have never heard of Jesus had he not morphed into Christ, becoming the standard bearer for the Roman Empire.

Michael White, Professor of Classics and Director of the Religious Studies Program with the University of Texas at Austin writes, 

The transformation of Christianity over the first 300 years of its existence is really a profound one. What started out as a Messianic claimant or a political rebel, a victim of the Pax Romana, by the time of the conversion of Constantine becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire.  What is originally a movement oppressed by Caesar because it’s a competitor, eventually becomes a cult of the Lord Christ, by the time we get to the late first and early second century. With the conversion of Constantine, however, it becomes an imperial religion.  Now, Jesus had been transformed into the Lord Christ of Heaven and Constantine, the emperor, ruled in his name.

Shaye I.D. Cohen, Samuel Ungerleider Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies Brown University crystalizes this reality with a telling and chilling illustration.

There’s a beautiful mosaic in Ravenna, a city in northern Italy, which I routinely show my classes. It’s of a beautiful, very handsome, well muscled, beardless man. He’s dressed in a Roman officer’s uniform. He’s stepping on the head of a lion, and he’s holding a standard. The standard says in Latin, “I am the way. The truth. And the life.” Usually my students can’t read Latin and I say, “Who’s this a picture of?”  They guess, “The Roman Emperor.” But it’s not. It’s a picture of Jesus.

One of the primary ways a person gets noticed on the grand stage of the American Empire is to breakthrough in the media whether they have accomplished a damn thing or not.  Need I say more than “Joe the Plumber?”  He is “writing” a book, which I am chagrined to admit is being published in my hometown of Austin, Texas.  If you hear reports of Barbara Jordan’s ghost haunting us, you will know why.

Obama is not Bush and Warren is not Brownie.  Rick Warren has accomplished much and serves many hurting people with seemingly humility.  Obama is drawn to people like Warren.  When he was writing his book, “The Audacity of Hope” he asked Warren to review his chapter on religion.  The dialogue forged a friendship between the two based on common ground while not denying their disagreements. 

Pastor Warren’s book “The Purpose Driven Life” has sold 40 million copies, six times as many as Obama’s three books combined. He has called attention to hunger and illiteracy and is credited with expanding the evangelical agenda beyond such issues as abortion and gay rights, even though he sticks to his Southern Baptist roots in opposing them.

Warren is often called “America’s most influential spiritual leader.” He founded Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, which is now one of the largest and best-known churches in the world.  Calling him a “spiritual entrepreneur,” Forbes magazine said, “If Warren’s ministry was a business it would be compared with Dell, Google, or Starbucks in impact.” Rick and Kay Warren give away 90 percent of the profits from their books to charitable causes, including their global P.E.A.C.E. plan and Acts of Mercy, which services those infected with and affected by AIDS. 

Christ and Warren are alike in that they have risen to world wide prominence; Christ through the State, Warren via media.  Consequently, they are embraced by those who have something to gain from them.  Obama has benefitted from both Christ and Pastor Warren.  He often invokes Christian themes, language and imagery - America’s state religion.  His association with Warren grants him enough familiarity with the Evangelical sub culture to buy some support.

Like other progressives I object to Warren being given this platform for the same reasons that are reverberating around the net.  But, I do get why Obama not only chose him for the invocation but will continue to cultivate a connection with the Pastor.

In defending his choices Obama emphasized that Joseph Lowery, a founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, will give the benediction and has “deeply contrasting views to Warren on a whole host of issues.” 

When is the last time a liberal religious Minister produced any body of work that resonated with 40 million people worldwide in more than 50 languages? How many progressive Ministers preach to churches a tenth the size of Saddleback’s 20,000?  Has a liberal Minister EVER hosted a forum for the presidential candidates?

We can bitch and protest about Pastor Warren’s tribal moral stances, and make a righteous case about why he shouldn’t have been given this Inaugural honor.  But, If liberal Ministers want to move up in the the prayer giving pecking order, these are good questions to begin asking ourselves.

WHAT'S NEXT?

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