(RNS) A presidential inauguration is by tradition the grandest ritual of America’s civil religion, but President Obama took the oath of office on Monday (Jan. 21) in a ceremony that was explicit in joining theology to the nation’s destiny and setting out a biblical vision of equality that includes race, gender, class, and, most controversially, sexual orientation.
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama attend a church service at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. RNS photo by Pete Souza/The White House. *Note: This image is not available to download.
Obama’s speech, his second inaugural address, repeatedly cited civic and religious doctrines — namely the God-given equality extolled by the “founding creed” of the Declaration of Independence — to essentially reconsecrate the country to the common good and to the dignity of each person.
It was a faith-infused event that recognized both the original sins as well as the later atonements of America’s history, especially on race, which was front and center as the nation’s first African-American president took the oath on the holiday commemorating the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
And Obama and other speakers vividly traced the nation’s tortuous path from slavery to civil rights — from the Emancipation Proclamation 150 years ago to the March on Washington 50 years ago, the latter presided over by King.
Yet Obama also declared that this tumultuous past was not an occasion for despair; rather, he said, it should inspire Americans to renew a joint pilgrimage that would never be finished but must always be carried forward as each generation adapts to new challenges, whether on the economy or identity.
“For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts,” Obama told hundreds of thousands of cheering onlookers gathered on a chilly day on the Mall in front of the Capitol.
“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law,” he added, “for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”
The president also included immigrants and the working classes in his vision of a future American equality. But his inclusion of gay rights was especially pointed in that the first pastor he chose to deliver the day’s benediction — the Rev. Louie Giglio, a prominent evangelical — was forced to step aside earlier this month after anti-gay remarks he made in the 1990s surfaced.
Giglio was replaced by the Rev. Luis Leon, rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church across Lafayette Square from the White House.
The Episcopal Church as a denomination welcomes gay clergy and couples, and in his closing prayer on Monday, Leon asked that God allow Americans to see each other as a reflection of the divine image, “whether brown, black or white, male or female, first generation or immigrant American, or daughter of the American Revolution, gay or straight, rich or poor.”
Preceding Leon was another Latino, and a gay man, poet Richard Blanco, whose presence further underscored the shifts in public acceptance of gays and lesbians as well as the president’s increasing embrace of gay equality.
Americans, the president said, “have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.”
That theme of renewed unity — spiritual and communal, crossing the many divides in U.S. society — was perhaps the central thread of this inauguration. It was a theme grounded in the national struggle for civil rights, a history that was everywhere present.
Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers and the chairman emeritus of the NAACP, has been chosen to give the invocation at President Obama’s second inauguration. RNS photo courtesy J. Van Evers.
This image available for Web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.
“As we sing the words of belief, ‘this is my country,’ let us act upon the meaning that everyone is included,” Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who was killed by a white supremacist in 1963, said in her prayer to start the inauguration.
Evers-Williams, Obama and the other speakers framed that history in a way that evoked the nation’s past while setting out a new agenda for the future.
They refuted the bitter polarization that has gripped national politics by deploying the language and cadence of Scripture, of Christian anthems and national hymns, and not surprisingly a reference by the president to the most famous second inaugural address, that of Abraham Lincoln, one of Obama’s heroes.
“If you had any doubt that we are in the middle of a Fourth Great Awakening, you just missed one of the greatest inauguration speeches in American history,” Diana Butler Bass, a historian of American religion, wrote on Facebook as she watched the speech.
The religious language and symbols of the day could also be read as a direct rejoinder to the president’s die-hard opponents, many of whom insist that he is not a Christian and that he does not believe in America’s divine mantle.
Obama instead embraced American exceptionalism and repeatedly cited God’s will. The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and icons of popular culture performed. “American Idol” star Kelly Clarkson sang “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” and Beyonce the national anthem.
The other traditional elements of a presidential inauguration were also on display: Obama swore on historic Bibles used by King and Abraham Lincoln, and of course used the phrase “So help me God” at the conclusion of the oath of office, a later and unofficial addition.
The Obamas began the day in church on Monday — after attending services, as did Vice President Biden — on Sunday, and the religious ceremonies were to continue on Tuesday with a prayer service at Washington National Cathedral, led by Methodist preacher Adam Hamilton.
The Rev. Adam Hamilton addresses the congregation during the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection Sunday evening service on July 15, 2012 in Leawood, Kan. RNS photo by Sally Morrow
Yet the events were hardly a celebration of national or spiritual triumphalism. There was a profound awareness of the challenges overcome, yes, but also the obstacles — and internal divisions — to be faced if the country is to move forward.
In perhaps the most important, and little-noted, passage in his speech, Obama invoked the kind of Christian realism that was a hallmark of one of his favorite theologians, Reinhold Niebuhr. It is a theology that the president views as the kind of approach that should inspire leaders to reason together and act, however flawed the process or results may be.
“We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate,” Obama said toward the end of his address.
“We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect. We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial, and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years and 40 years and 400 years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.”
DSB/AMB END GIBSON
17 Comments
Sunday Roundup: Monday Edition « God is Sometimes Great
[...] we celebrate Martin Luther King, a man whose views, far from being that of mainstream America, are more in line with modern socialists and leftist radicals. King’s compassionate yet [...]
H. E. Baber
I hate to use the word “exploit” but I hope that the Episcopal Church and other mainline denominations, and liberal religious believers, can exploit this event to send the message that religion isn’t inherently socially conservative, politically conservative, anti-gay, anti-science or anti anything decent, reasonable people affirm.
For 3 decades now the Religious Right has captured the media and persuaded Americans that Evangelicalism was the industry standard for religion. I was very p.o.’d at the last inauguration when Obama featured Rick Warren. The assumption and the whole Obama team’s “People of Faith” rhetoric seemed to be that there were Our People, secular liberals, and the Other, those remote People of Faith who clung to guns and religion, and that mainline Protestants, and other educated, liberal religious believers were a dying breed, too few to be worth counting for political purposes.
Mari
Excellent point! For too long, the “religious right” has had a very loud voice in politics. Its about time that those of us, who are Liberal Christians speak out.
meifumado
How about we try something completely different?
Do away with the fairytale that is religion.
We do not need a book to tell us whats wrong or right.
A good person is still a good person with or without religion.
David
Without a faith basis, a society will degenerate into anarchy. Anyone who has had a child knows that evil and disobedience is a natural tendency. One of the first words a baby learns from the parents is “no” because they do things that are wrong. Left to himself without guidance, a baby would never mature.
jmac
For the most part, liberal Christians already treat the book as full of fairy tales, taking what they like, dismissing what they don’t like. I find the whole concept of liberal Christian very confusing? Do you believe the Bible or not? If the Bible is wrong about sex or marriage or anything else, why do you think it is right about anything?
Seems to me that those who want to use religion for politics, on the left especially, and on the right, too often are creating a god in their own image to justify their imposition on people. At least the far right who say they accept the book as it is written have more integrity than claiming a book that says things they don’t believe.
JDM
What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter. What sorrow for those who are wise in their own eyes and think themselves so clever.
Isaiah 5:20-21
For this reason God gave them up to passions of dishonor; for even their females exchanged the natural use for that which is contrary to nature, and likewise also the males, having left the natural use of the female, were inflamed by their lust for one another, males with males, committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was fitting for their error. (Romans 1)
A Religious Vision — you could call it that.
A Biblical vision — that is a real stretch… only if you toss out key relevant sections of the Bible. Come on… lets be honest here. Even secular-humanists don’t try to say the Bible says something it doesn’t say, and it doesn’t say something it does.
Belief Blog's Morning Speed Read for Tuesday, January 22, 2013 – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs
[...] Religion News Service: Obama extols a biblical vision of equality for all in second inaugural A presidential inauguration is by tradition the grandest ritual of America’s civil religion, but President Obama took the oath of office on Monday (Jan. 21) in a ceremony that was explicit in joining theology to the nation’s destiny and setting out a biblical vision of equality that includes race, gender, class, and, most controversially, sexual orientation. [...]
Obama joins theology and biblical vision to national destiny | God Discussion
[...] is, by far, not the first to conjoin his faith with his role as President. According to a story filed by the Religion News Service, his references to his faith and the bible were made in [...]
Mike in Wisconsin
President Obama’s inaugural speech was wonderful. Whether it was religious or political or a little of both, it was the most ethical and hopeful public address I’ve ever heard from an American politician.
Stephen Fox
Proud to be a fellow Furman grad, David. Great writeup. Marshall Frady would be proud of you and proud to have been there yesterday.
I was on NPR for about a minute Thursday, called in to make a comment with Taylor Branch and Isabel Wikerson.
Loved your Quote from Butler Ross; And Myrlie Evers is a Saint; One Righteous Black Woman that chokes me up every time she utters a word….Oh, if it hasnit crossed your radar, get a copy of Paul Harvey’s Moses Jesus and the Trickster. And next time in the company of Evers, even President Obama get word to him as well. Mercer President Underwood is not wrong about this one!!
Stephen Fox
Forgot the main reason I was making a comment. I posted a link to your article on Furman’s Public Facebook wall. Wish I coulda heard your lecture there last year.
Randy
You have a strange definition of the word “all”. It doesn’t mean “gay”. I am gay, but there’s very little people who are good without gods to like in the Inaugural, and in particular Leon’s boldly bigoted benediction.
At Obama inauguration, not all religion is biblical
[...] or mentions religion outside of the historical significance of the Bibles that were used. Of course the RNS does but the mainstream media? Ghost [...]
David Gibson
Article authorStephen, great to hear from a fellow Paladin … And to hear Marshall Frady’s name invoked!
Stephen Fox
Had a brief email exchange with former FU Prez David Shi last week. He had just reread Frady’s Penguin bio of King. Great Testament. Hope you have a copy…..Will email you soon but while I’m thinking about it saw today on UVA Charles Marsh’s Facebook wall he will send soon latest draft of his bio on Bonhoeffer to Knopf. You will want to be on lookout for that one; most likely crossed your radar some time ago. Marsh has fascinating look at Bonhoeffer’s trip through Alabama in the Spring of 31, something that caught Duke Chaplain and recent North Bama UMC Bishop Willimon’s eye in his remembrance of his 7 year stay in the state, The Bishop.
CONNECTIONS News – 01/27/2013 « CONNECTIONS
[...] Obama’s speech, his second inaugural address, repeatedly cited civic and religious doctrines — namely the God-given equality extolled by the “founding creed” of the Declaration of Independence — to essentially reconsecrate the country to the common good and to the dignity of each person…. Read this in full at http://www.religionnews.com/2013/01/21/obama-extols-a-biblical-vision-of-equality-for-all-in-second-… [...]