The president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention and a Greenwood pastor who serves as a trustee for the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) have weighed in on Barack Obama’s invitation to conservative pastor Rick Warren to pray at the president-elect’s inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20.
Obama’s choice of Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, the Southern Baptist-affiliated megachurch in Orange County, Calif., has angered homosexual activists. Warren endorsed California’s Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that amended the state constitution to define marriage as being the union of a man and woman. Voters passed Prop. 8 in November, 52-48 percent.
Hal Lane
Rudy GraySCBC president Rudy Gray, pastor of Utica Baptist Church in Seneca, said he believes the invitation to deliver the invocation at Obama’s inauguration represents a “God-given opportunity” for Warren to pray as a “Bible-believing Christian.”
Gray said he doesn’t think Warren has compromised his “principles or moral values” by agreeing to participate in the inauguration ceremony.
Hal Lane, pastor of West Side Baptist Church in Greenwood and an ERLC trustee, said he feels “conflicted” about Warren praying at the inauguration.
“On the positive side, I am encouraged that the president-elect would choose someone who disagrees with him on critical moral issues. It is my hope that it signals a willingness on his part to listen to voices that disagree with his stated positions.
“On the negative side, I am concerned that the acceptance by Rick Warren may signal to some that important moral issues can be set aside for unity.”
Gray and Lane both said they are concerned about the incoming president’s legislative agenda.
“I am much more concerned about our new president and Congress enacting some type of hate-crimes law, granting more freedom for abortions, or developing policies that promote the gay and lesbian movement,” said Gray.
Lane’s comments echoed those made by Gray. “More important than the selection of the person to give the inaugural prayer,” Lane said, “will be the policies made by the incoming administration regarding the rights of unborn children and the sanctity of traditional marriage. That’s something we should all pray about.”
Gray said all Christians should “pray for the president and all who are in authority over us,” but added that “we should also pray for Rick Warren, asking God to give him the clarity of voice and precision of thought that will honor Jesus Christ and reflect biblical Christianity at this worldwide event.”
The controversy erupted four months after Warren hosted an August presidential forum with Obama and Republican nominee John McCain. The event was widely praised, with some commentators saying it was more informative than the three presidential debates.
Richard Land, president of ERLC, applauded Obama for choosing Warren.
“I’m encouraged that President-elect Obama would select Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration,” Land said. “First, it is a signal that President-elect Obama is going to employ a big-tent philosophy in his administration’s approach to people who may disagree with them on some issues, but not others. His selection of Rick Warren indicates that people who disagree with the president-elect on sanctity of life issues are not automatically persona non grata at the White House in an Obama administration. It also indicates that the president-elect is not buying the radical homosexual activists’ argument that anyone who opposes them on the gay marriage issue should be ostracized as a bigot.”
On Dec. 4 Warren responded to the heated rhetoric about his support for Prop. 8 by telling Wall Street Journal columnist Steven Waldman that, both historically and by God’s design, marriage is between a man and a woman.
“God, who always acts out of love and does what is best for us, thought up sex. Sex was God’s idea, not ours,” Warren told Waldman in an interview posted on Beliefnet.com. “Like fire, and many other things God gave us, sex can be used for good, or abused in ways that harm. The Designer of sex has clearly and repeatedly said that he created sex exclusively for husbands and wives in marriage.
“Whenever God’s parameters are violated, it causes broken hearts, broken families, emotional hurt and shame, painful memories, and many other destructive consequences,” Warren added.
Government should neither interfere in people’s lives nor attempt to redefine the divinely created institution of marriage, Warren said.
“If anyone, whether unfaithful spouses, or unmarried couples, or homosexuals or anyone else, thinks they are smarter than God and chooses to disobey God’s sexual instructions, it is not the U.S. government’s role to take away their choice,” Warren told Waldman. “But neither is it the government’s role to classify just any ‘loving’ relationship as a marriage. A committed boyfriend-girlfriend relationship is not a marriage. Two lovers living together is not a marriage. Incest is not marriage. A domestic partnership, or even a civil union, is still not marriage.” – with BP reports