It’s Lent, so naturally I’m thinking about Barack Obama. Well, specifically, about his inauguration. You remember, don’t you—the day that hope became sight?
I don’t want to be overdramatic, but it now seems obvious to me that President Obama’s inauguration explains just about everything that’s wrong with Christian churches in America.
And really, this has little to do with Obama and everything to do with his choice for the inaugural invocation, “America’s Pastor” Rick Warren.
The day after the prayer in question was uttered, I declaimed at length on the Chronicles website about Rick Warren’s syncretism. The god to whom he prayed had a dash of Christian, a sprinkle of Muslim, and a schtick’l of Jewish. The Word Who became flesh was referred to simply as the “one who changed my life,” and that one was called by Hebrew, Arabic, Mexican, and English names, in that order.
A number of Christian critics of the prayer agreed with me, at least up to a point. But, said they, at least he ended it on a distinctively Christian note! Yes, it is true, Warren closed the inaugural invocation by leading the citizens of earth in the Lord’s Prayer, “Yeshua, Isa, Hey-zeus, Jesus, who taught us to pray, ‘Our Father . . . ’”
And that’s...