Tensions over the place of religion in America play out in presidential inaugural

There may be no clearer reflection of this moment in American religious life than the tensions surrounding prayers at President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Efforts by the Presidential Inaugural Committee to bridge the conservative-liberal divide by including an evangelical failed. Atlanta preacher Louie Giglio, known for his work to end human trafficking, withdrew from giving the benediction after the liberal group ThinkProgress found a sermon he gave in the 1990s, condemning gay relationships.

Meanwhile, the first lay person has been asked to give the invocation, at a time when the number of Americans with no formal religious ties has hit a high around 20 percent. The prayer will be delivered by Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights hero Medgar Evers. The ceremony Monday falls on the federal holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Christian conservatives are asking what these choices say about their place in broader society. Does their absence from the inaugural podium mean they’re being pushed out of public life?

A headline on PewSitter.com, which posts news of interest to conservative Roman Catholics, read, “Obama to Use Civil Rights Activist and Not Clergy” for his inaugural invocation. Gabe Lyons, a young Christian thinker known for his pioneering Q conferences on evangelicalism, argued Giglio had been bullied off the stage by an “extreme minority” of activists.

“As gays come out of the closet, are Christians meant to swap and go hide back in closets of their own?” Lyons asked on his blog. “This zero-sum game is the most un-American of games.”

The inaugural prayers are far from the only religious content of events surrounding the public swearing-in. Evangelicals will participate in, or offer prayers at, other ceremonies, including the interfaith service Obama is scheduled to attend Tuesday morning at the Washington National Cathedral. Still, the inauguration is center stage, giving special significance to those on the podium.

Addie Whisenant, a spokeswoman for the Presidential Inaugural Committee, said last week that the person who would replace Giglio will hold beliefs that “reflect this administration’s vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans.” The benediction will be offered by the Rev. Luis Leon, a liberal pastor at St. John’s Episcopal Church, across from the White House.

Eboo Patel, founder of Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based national group that builds interreligious cooperation, said those who disagree with Obama have a chance to be heard in many other public arenas.

“This is a president who has made gay rights part of his agenda, so it would make sense to me that he wouldn’t want somebody on the podium with him who doesn’t reflect that,” said Patel, who has been an adviser to the president’s faith-based partnership office.

But Darrell Bock, a New Testament scholar at the evangelical Dallas Theological Seminary, argued the inaugural is supposed to unite Americans across partisan lines after an election.  “The problem here is if we’re going to celebrate the diversity of America, which is what the inaugural representatives claim they’re doing, we shouldn’t have a litmus test applied to participants if it’s also being recognized they are contributing in other ways to society,” Bock said.

Originally posted here.