Obama inauguration: What do Wright and Robinson have to do with it?
Yesterday, the Rev. Kathy McCallie, pastor of Church of the Open Arms, joined me in the OPUBCO video studio to discuss prayer at the inauguration with another local pastor, the Rev. Paul Blair, pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond.
I promised McCallie that I would try to find some information about the prayer offered by V. Gene Robinson (pictured at right), the Episcopal Church USA’s first openly gay bishop, who was asked to offer a prayer at the inauguration kick-off concert on Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial.
The Religion News Service sent out excerpts of his prayer, which I share here:
Robinson prayed that Americans may be “blessed” with anger at discrimination and with “freedom from mere tolerance.” Robinson also prayed that God would help Obama “to remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.”
“Please, God, keep him safe,” Robinson prayed for Obama. “We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking far too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe.
“Hold him in the palm of your hand — that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.“’
Meanwhile, who doesn’t remember the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former preacher at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ? Obama ended up denouncing some of Wright’s imflammatory comments and ultimately severed ties with Wright during his candidacy for president.
Well Wright was in Washington D.C. where he preached at a chapel service at the historically black college Howard University.
According to the Religion News Service, Wright told those gathered at the service that he sees Obama’s inauguration as a sign of God’s providence and the fruit of “the faith of Rosa Parks and the blood of Martin Luther King Jr.”
“The Lord stepped into a scrawny black kid’s ability,” Wright, who is now pastor emeritus of Trinity, said in his sermon. “The Lord stepped into his story and gave him a new attitude. The scrawny kid with the big ears said. `Yes we can. I got a new attitude.“’
Both Robinson and Wright have been controversial for various reasons and yet they have had their say in D.C.
Stay tuned for commentary on Rick Warren and his invocation prayer …
Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
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