Obama's selection of Warren is a masterstroke
I am no admirer of the Rev. Rick Warren, whose emphatically American but dubiously Christian The Purpose-Driven Life turns a book written "that (we) might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing (we) might have life through his name" (John 20:31)into a book of rules, regulations, and "biblical principles" to which we can never measure up. At best, Warren's book is an invitation to a pharisaical preoccupation with the Law, and the self-delusion that we can meet its demands; at worst, it takes the focus off Christ and puts it precisely where Paul labored so long and so eloquently in his epistles to convince us it does not belong: our striving to "make a good showing in the flesh."
It is God's working in our lives, in coordination with our gratitude for His grace, which "drives" the Christian life and achieves its purpose, not our own, legalistic strivings to do the work of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity for Him.
Nevertheless, P-EOTUS's decision to have Rev. Warren deliver the invocation at his inauguration was a stroke of genius. Whatever else might be said about Rick Warren, his popularity among "evangelicals" combine with his pro-life and anti-gay "marriage" views make his selection a clear and eloquent reaching out on the part of the left-of-center president-elect to those who disagree with him.
But just as clearly, Mr. Obama's constituency wants no part of the national reconciliation which the selection of Warren is meant to begin. Gay rights groups and the left generally have condemned Warren's selection in emphatic terms, and have even called into question P-EOTUS's allegiance to the leftist causes he espoused as a candidate.
Not to fear. His support will be there when it counts. And in the meantime, Mr. Obama gets credit- deservedly, I might add- for a gesture toward a reconciliation which the bigotry and hatred and spite of his constituency will never countenance.
This will be an administration which will- like most liberal administrations- be driven more by symbolism than by substance. But whatever my reservations about Warren's theology, this particular gesture is one for which the president-elect deserves credit.
Not that his followers will ever allow it to mean anything more substantial.
ADDENDUM: But some of his followers have larger hearts- and minds- than others.
While I disagree as much with Lee Stranahan's assertion over at The Huffington Post that what Rev. Warren- who, for all his heterodoxy, nevertheless stands firmly within the context of historical, biblical Christianity- and the largely-apostate Rev. Joseph Lowery is more important than what divides them, I nevertheless commend his otherwise throughly admirable thoughts on the subject to you.
HT: Real Clear Politics
It is God's working in our lives, in coordination with our gratitude for His grace, which "drives" the Christian life and achieves its purpose, not our own, legalistic strivings to do the work of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity for Him.
Nevertheless, P-EOTUS's decision to have Rev. Warren deliver the invocation at his inauguration was a stroke of genius. Whatever else might be said about Rick Warren, his popularity among "evangelicals" combine with his pro-life and anti-gay "marriage" views make his selection a clear and eloquent reaching out on the part of the left-of-center president-elect to those who disagree with him.
But just as clearly, Mr. Obama's constituency wants no part of the national reconciliation which the selection of Warren is meant to begin. Gay rights groups and the left generally have condemned Warren's selection in emphatic terms, and have even called into question P-EOTUS's allegiance to the leftist causes he espoused as a candidate.
Not to fear. His support will be there when it counts. And in the meantime, Mr. Obama gets credit- deservedly, I might add- for a gesture toward a reconciliation which the bigotry and hatred and spite of his constituency will never countenance.
This will be an administration which will- like most liberal administrations- be driven more by symbolism than by substance. But whatever my reservations about Warren's theology, this particular gesture is one for which the president-elect deserves credit.
Not that his followers will ever allow it to mean anything more substantial.
ADDENDUM: But some of his followers have larger hearts- and minds- than others.
While I disagree as much with Lee Stranahan's assertion over at The Huffington Post that what Rev. Warren- who, for all his heterodoxy, nevertheless stands firmly within the context of historical, biblical Christianity- and the largely-apostate Rev. Joseph Lowery is more important than what divides them, I nevertheless commend his otherwise throughly admirable thoughts on the subject to you.
HT: Real Clear Politics
Comments