"Obama and Warren are reportedly close -- Obama praised Warren in "Audacity of Hope"

[BigBearJohn]

On Wednesday, the transition team and Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies announced that Rick Warren, pastor of the powerful Saddleback Church, would give the invocation on January 20th. The selection may not have been incredibly surprising. Obama and Warren are reportedly close -- Obama praised the Megachurch leader in his second book "The Audacity of Hope." Warren, meanwhile, hosted a values forum between Obama and McCain during the general election. Nevertheless, the announcement is being greeted with deep skepticism in progressive religious and political circles.

"My blood pressure is really high right now," said Rev. Chuck Currie, minister at Parkrose Community United Church of Christ in Portland, Oregon. "Rick Warren does some really good stuff and there are some areas that I have admired his ability to build bridges between evangelicals and mainline religious and political figures... but he is also very established in the religious right and his position on social issues like gay rights, stem cell research and women's rights are all out of the mainstream and are very much opposed to the progressive agenda that Obama ran on. I think that he is very much the wrong person to put on the stage with the president that day."

Added Rev. Candace Chellew-Hodge, author of the book: "Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians": "It is almost like he wants to poke the progressives with a sharp stick."

"I think there is probably an actual friendship between the two, and I admire that because Barack Obama has an ability to be friends with people he disagrees with, and that is a good quality for a president," said Rev. Currie. "But I think that he is very much the wrong person to put on the stage with the president that day. It sends a very wrong message about who America is and what our aspirations are."

SOURCE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/17/rick-warren-obama-invocat_n_151877.html

[Bravehammer]

1. BFF

[RichGirl]

9. This is shocking....

...Obama is friends with someone who has different views than he does!!!!! Geez people....if this is a surprise to you, then you simply have not listened to a word he has said.

The fact is, that most people did listen, they heard...and that's why he won by a landslide and continues to get high approval ratings.

If he had promised to do all the things that progressives are expecting him to do now, he wouldn't have gotten the votes, we would be complaining about president-elect McCain.

In his 2004 speech and continuously since then, he has said...we are not blue states or red state, we are the UNITED States. Guess what...HE MEANT IT. When he said that he wants to bring everyone together...he meant it. He made that promise and is keeping it.

[lapfog_1]

13. This isn't exactly "bringing everyone together"

or haven't you been reading DU for the last 12 hours or so?

Just the opposite.

[lapfog_1]

2. This is what I've been saying all night to the apologists.

Obama isn't "reaching out in post-partisanship" to the evangelicals.

This choice wasn't foisted on him by a committee.

Obama is friends with this bigot. And he chose him to appear at the inauguration.

I can handle him being friends with someone like that, but he didn't have to go the extra step and put him up on the platform for his inauguration. An inauguration made possible by folks like me and the thousands of others who are offended by such a choice.

[BigBearJohn]

3. I remember how offended some people were when Obama spoke before Warren's church.

He is friends with the guy. Plain and simple.
He looks at Warren and probably sees a guy
who is working to fight AIDS in Africa. That's
an issue that resonates with Obama. He probably
overlooks Warren's flaws.

[lapfog_1]

4. Unlike Bush, Obama is known to be a pretty smart person.

Kinda hard to overlook those "flaws".

He can't fall back on the "I'm too stupid" excuse. Won't fly.

[Hippo_Tron]

5. "The Audacity of Hope" is Obama's political manifesto

And he spends a great deal of time talking about his spirituality. If I were a gambling man I'd say that much of what he wrote in that book on the subject of faith is total crap. I just highly doubt that a grown man who was raised without religion just all of a sudden finds god like Obama did. More likely than not he knew he was going to go into politics some day and that unfortunately in this country you have to be religious in order to be taken seriously in politics.

That probably doesn't make anything better from your perspectives and I know some people here will flame me for calling Obama a liar but I just seriously doubt that the man is nearly as religious as he portrays himself to be. Obama is a politician and politicians lie. Obama lies remarkably less than most politicians, though, and thus I take what I can get.

[mwei924]

6. I never buy into politician's claims "faith". Obama especially because no one close to him ...

..is really religious at all. His parents, grandparents, and I'd say even Michelle don't seem religious at all.

I don't buy George Bush's so-called faith either. He was just bored drunk 40 year-old who needed a new hobby.

Don't even get me started on John McCain; that guy was the biggest fake "religious" person ever.

[Hippo_Tron]

7. Bush is questionable as to whether he really believes the shit

McCain doesn't believe almost any of it which was obvious during the campaign. Palin, on the other hand, is a certified nutjob.

[RichGirl]

11. There is nothing more vague and subjective, than religion.

You can say I believe in the bible...but, what do you actually believe? EVERYTHING in the bible is based on interpretation. So, do you believe it literally, if so, what part of it. The bible says that people who work on Sunday's should be stoned to death...who believes that??? Do you believe there was a man named Jesus who died for your sins, or do you believe in the archetype or symbolism of this man. Some studies today say that religion was built around science. For example, We know that we are not solid but made up of cells, atoms, molecules, etc. Thousands of years ago they didn't have the language for science so what did they call these particles...dust. Man was made of dust...which is true.

Bottom line is that you can't judge someone else's faith because you can't define it.

Oprah was called the anti-Christ when she did the web class with Eckhart Tolle around his book "A New Earth". He quotes Jesus many times in the book, but his interpretation does not fit the Christian one. I would bet that Obama has read that book and that his views are much closer to that than to Rick Warren's.

[lapfog_1]

8. If you are correct and his proffered piety is simply a put on.

Then his friendship with someone like Warren is even more inexplicable.

Unless it's "professional courtesy". (why sharks don't eat lawyers)

And, while I hate this, I'm not ready to go there yet.

I think that they are "friends" who see in each other someone that needs to be rescued from their own beliefs. Like a ex-smoker and a ex-alcoholic finding each other. Each believes that what they have overcome and the WAY THEY OVERCAME it is the quintessential experience of life (not their lives, but of LIFE). Each wants to convince the other of their own epiphany. And they relate so well because of a shared struggle.

[dansolo]

12. Especially since Warren punked him in the Saddleback forum

Warren apparently values the friendship a lot less than Obama. I don't understand why Warren should be given any more credibility.

[davidpdx]

10. I don't know Chuck personally, but I've commented on his blog

he's a good guy, just don't call him Chuckles. He doesn't like that.