Last Warren
After all the kerfluffle about Rick Warren delivering the invocation at the inaugural today, I have to say I'm pleased with one thing (in the larger context of disliking the practice of "official" prayer in general): While generally advocating service and civility in the prayer, he quite carefully avoided almost all explicit reference to the Christian faith. His only biblical quotations were from the Old Testament (and that a passage that includes language highly significant to Muslims, apparently), along with the non-confrontational "Lord's Prayer." And he not only refrained from using the honorific "Christ" in referring to Jesus, but he referred to the Christian prophet by his names as spoken in multiple tongues (interestingly, starting with the original Aramaic "Yeshua") and only characterized him as the person who changed his (i.e., Warren's) life, not as the "savior" or "redeemer" of all mankind. Pretty significant language from an Evangelical, actually. Not a terribly inspiring ecumenical prayer, but this sort of nuance reflects why Obama had him there in the first place. Doesn't make his politics more palatable, but if more prominent Evangelicals can follow his lead in not demanding preeminence for the Christian faith over all mankind, it'll be a good step forward.