We All Make Mistakes, Mr. President

We all make mistakes. President-elect Obama seems not to make too many. Inviting Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation is a mistake. It is a political mistake which willpolarize not unite. It it is one thing to invite Rick Warren to be a guest and another to give the invocation. Jesus often sat with folks he didn’t agree with, but it was Jesus who prayed, not the Pharisee, not the tax collector. So, Mr. President, let Rick join the crowd at the podium, dance with him at the party afterward, invite him to have lunch at the White House, but don’t let him pray over you or, much less, over us.
It is a political mistake to invite Rick Warren to give a prayer at the inauguration because it will divide, not unite. That is what is politically wrong with Evangelicals. They divide, they polarize, they accuse and they do not unite.
Mr. Presdient, in this case you have met the enemy and it is you and/or your advisors. This could be your first “McCain choosing Palin” kind of mistake: it sounded good when you thought of it, but when it actually took place, the result was not so helpful.
But, the worse mistake for those of us who have an interest in Theology is that Rick Warren gets God wrong, misunderstands Jesus and, thus, insults believers. Jeremiah Wright gets God right (it is not a pun). The American public, especially the good ole boy evangelicals who run the GOP might not think so, but that is because they get God wrong. Jeremiah, the Old Testament prophet, was rejected by the King and King’s priests exactly because he had a message that called the nation to repentance, not self glory. Jeremiah Wright, in what I have heard of him, does the same. It is the word of God that interests Jeremiah, not the approval of the “silent majority”.
Rick Warren dilutes God for the sake of book sales, reducing God to being the source of our “purpose” in life. The God whose love is shown in its depth exactly for its special concern for the poor, for justice, for peace, for human understanding, for those who are marginated by society and cast out and made weak is not to be found in Rick’s theology. His God will save your soul for a quick prayer at the altar, but will not ask you to love the one you hate or sacrifice for the sake of justice for the other.
Let me state it another way. If the purpose of an invocation is to call down or ask for a blessing upon our new president and the nation he will serve that can really “save” us from the current trouble, the God Rick prays to cannot give this blessing because the God he will pray to is not Almighty God who heard the cry of his people and delivered them from slavery, but rather God in the pocket of political ideologues who pander to self absorbed Americans who want individual salvation (exemption from problems) with no social responsibility. The problem with Rick is that he get’s God wrong and we don't need more false gods showering blessings upon us. We all make mistakes, Mr. President. When we make mistakes the best thing to do is to confess them and change our ways and I hope you do.