Those two inaugural pray-ers

http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/2009/01/16/those-two-inuagural-pray-ers/#more-6329

[Anglican Mainstream] 16 Jan 2009--Barack Obama is proving himself to be an able politician in his honeymoon period, at least on the religious front. Having invited the world-famous, mega- church pastor, Rick Warren, to deliver the Inaugural Invocation he has now also invited an equally controversial figure, that of the Bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson, to open another inaugural event with prayer.

The religious left’s complaint against Warren was that he strongly opposed gay marriages. The religious right’s complaint against Bishop Robinson is that he is engaged in a gay ‘marriage’. Bishop Robinson himself was one of the bitterest critics of Warren’s selection. He told the New York Times, “It was like a slap in the face,” adding that “the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I know.”

In contrast there has been silence from Rick Warren over the selection of Bishop Robinson. Perhaps this is because he knows that the Bishop is taking part in a secondary event — a concert — rather than the inauguration itself. Perhaps also Warren is a much more reconciling figure, by both temperament and action, than Robinson himself is.