Obama-Warren Invocation Madness: Why the Big Fuss?

It's the story that just won't go away. When I first heard about the controversy surrounding president-elect Obama's selection of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration, I didn't think it was a big deal. After all, isn't that what mega-church pastors do best: pray in front of big crowds? Sure, I can understand why gay rights activists who had supported Obama's campaign felt somewhat betrayed since Warren was a big backer of California's Proposition 8 victory, but beyond that, I figured this was a flash-in-the-pan political tidbit that would simmer down over time. Surely there are more urgent priorities for the country than re-stoking the culture war's flames on the eve of 2009. Or so I thought.

Now that we're two weeks into invocation-gate, a slew of opinion pieces have been printed on the pages of publications like Time magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times as well as popular websites like Slate.com where just yesterday, Christopher Hitchens offered a predictably angry secularist rant, calling Rick Warren names like "religious nutbag" and "the huckster of Saddleback." But it's not just familiar atheists who are slinging mud at this pastor. According to David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), a whole bunch of pro-lifers are mad at Warren as well. Meanwhile, equally vocal left-leaning interest groups and gay rights activists are just as angry with Obama. It appears that I underestimated how much people still want to keep jabbering about the Obama-Warren connection, as if this event somehow means these two men think exactly alike on hot-buttons like abortion and gay marriage.

Nothing could be further from the truth, but those on the extreme ends of both left and right thrive on anything that will add fuel to the polarization between "us" and "them." After all, the world of politics is so much easier to explain in hard and fast categories of black and white, good and evil. Pro-life pastors aren't supposed to publicly pray for pro-choice politicians, who in turn are not supposed to be on speaking terms with anyone who is "intolerant" of gays. Liberals must have assumed Obama was only talking to conservatives when he gave all of those lofty campaign speeches about moving beyond our partisan differences. For conservatives, it was a lot easier to paint Obama as the enemy when his Reverend of choice was named Wright and not Warren.

Theologically speaking, I consider myself an evangelical Christian, but I'm not a huge fan of Rick Warren per se. I have qualms with his "purpose-driven" sloganization of the Christian faith and market-based approach that sees church growth in terms of customer satisfaction and and pastors as CEOs. And while I'm not sure if agree with his controversial comments on the subject of homosexuality (it's hard to say anything NOT controversial on the topic these days), it really doesn't bother me that he was Obama's choice for the task. As Sarah Pulliam of Christianity Today aptly pointed out, where was all this ruckus when Joel Hunter, a pro-life, anti-gay marriage mega-church pastor prayed with Obama on Election Day as well as at the Democratic National Convention four months ago? How come no one was calling Obama a "traitor" back then? And while he has strongly supported GLBT rights as much as any other Democrat who ran for president in 2008, isn't Obama's official position on gay marriage that he opposes it?

Just as our new president might turn out to be more moderate than some evangelicals fear, perhaps Rev. Warren is not as right-wing as Arianna Huffington's band of liberal bloggers would like to think. Contrary to the prevailing stereotypes held by those on the outside looking in, we evangelicals are a politically diverse bunch that include not just household names like Billy Graham and Sarah Palin, but also respected scholars like Mark Noll and Richard Mouw, as well as a new generation of writers like Donald Miller and Shane Claiborne. We don't all vote the same way or think exactly alike. For a group that has often been associated with the likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Tim LaHaye and Ted Haggard, you could do a lot worse in choosing a spokesperson than Rick Warren, who again, contrary to popular perception, is actually one of the least politically partisan of those who fit the category of "evangelical celebrity." Despite his strong support of Prop 8, Warren is not a card-carrying member of the religious right. During the campaign season, he hosted both Obama and John McCain at his church, but he never endorsed either one or gave any indication of who he voted for. That fact that people from both parties have suspected Warren of voting for the "other" side is evidence of his non-partisanship.

Much to the frustration of culture warriors on both ends of the spectrum, neither Obama nor Warren seems interested in continuing the practice of using abortion or gay marriage as litmus test issues. If either of them did, there's no way we'd ever see them sharing a stage, much less the U.S. Capitol's steps on January 20th. Beyond the hot buttons, there is a broader set of issues including global poverty, climate change, AIDS and genocide on which they agree. While I would not likely choose Warren as my pastor or favorite author by any means, he's a more than adequate choice to pray at the inauguration. How many mega-church pastors do you know who reverse tithe, giving away 90% while keeping 10%?

So let's all take a collective breath and chillax because Warren's invocation is not an endorsement of the incoming president's entire package of policy positions and Obama's selection of Warren is not an endorsement of everything the pastor believes. If we could just agree on that much, it would be a good place to start.