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Rick Warren, Aretha Franklin usher in Obama presidency
The news is out on all the high profile names who will be part of Barack Obama’s swearing in ceremony Jan. 20.
Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in California who moderated a debate between Barack Obama and John McCain during the presidential campaign, will give the inaugural invocation. Another pastor and civil rights leader Rev. Joseph Lowery will deliver the benediction.
Aretha Franklin will perform. John Williams, who is famous for scores in movies like Star Wars, is composing a piece for the ceremony that Itzhak Perlman, famed violinist, and Yo-Yo Ma, famed cellist, will perform.
Justice John Paul Stevens will swear Joe Biden in as vice president. Chief Justice John Roberts will swear Obama in as president.
Meanwhile, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is lobbying for hip hop star Kanye West to perform at an inauguration party he is throwing the Sunday night before the inauguration.
Maybe the hip hop group Black-Eyed Peas, who did the viral music video “Yes We Can,” will get invited to some party or another. How to accomodate all the celebrities?
back to top30 Comments to “Rick Warren, Aretha Franklin usher in Obama presidency”
Maybe Rick Warren will write another book called The Purpose Driven President.
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Bianca, you’re on a roll today!
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The news piece says that “The benediction will be led by Reverend Dr. Joseph E. Lowery.” Who is Joseph Lowery?
Below is a small excerpt from CNN transcript – Aired March 18, 2008
BROWN: Digging deeper now, I’m joined by longtime civil rights activist and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Reverend Joseph Lowery.
Reverend Lowery, thanks for joining us.
REVEREND JOSEPH LOWERY, CO-FOUNDER, SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE: My pleasure. My pleasure.
BROWN: By now, we have all heard Reverend Wright’s more controversial comments, that the United States brought the September 11 attacks upon itself, that Hillary Clinton has an advantage over Obama because she’s white.
But you have called Reverend Wright a scholar, a profound thinker, an electrifying preacher. Now, Obama today called his comments divisive. Do you agree? Are they divisive?
LOWERY: Well, they certainly separate us from the people who are not from the community of faith and who do not subscribe to prophetic preaching. There are hundreds and hundreds of preachers in black churches across this country who may not use identical language, but they have a common theology with Jeremiah Wright. They’re in the prophetic stream.
The prophets of old, the Jeremiahs, the Amos, and they spoke angrily and sometimes with cruel phrases and words, to the rulers and kings of their day. That’s who they were talking to on behalf of the poor and oppressed of their day.
The black church has been a place where black people take their sorrow, their travail and their longing for hope and for deliverance. They expect the preacher and thank the preacher and say, “Amen, hallelujah,” to the preacher, who takes their burden to the Lord. And then they join in a movement to help bring new order and a new day into being. That’s prophetic preaching, and it’s traditionally the black church.
BROWN: So are Wright’s controversial statements something that’s commonly heard in black churches?
LOWERY: No question about it. The gospel itself, Jesus called some folks in his day a generation of vipers, because they were cross- cutting, undercutting the message of faith and the message of hope and the message of love.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0803/18/acd.01.html
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2 – Yeah – imagine how I’d be without a bad cold!
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Bianca
Sure hope you feel better soon –
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Thank you!
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#2 Drab dull Elmer Fudd-like Lowery had the misfortune of succeeding the charismatic Nobel Prize recipient MLK as head of the civil rights movemt at the very time when that movement had been able to (but did not of course) declare “Mission Accomplished!” after LBJ signed into law the various civil rights laws.
Joseph Lowery’s 15 minutes of fame were up a good while ago. Ditto Vernon Jordan and a host of other civil rights leaders who outlived their movement’s urgency.
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I like what little I’ve seen of Rick Warren, but I get suspicious when a prominent Christian starts to angle for political clout. Is Warren positioning himself to be the next Archbishop of America (ala Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell)? I sure hope not.
America is a constitutional democratic republic. It needs critically engaged citizens, not dutiful worshipers doing obeisance to the king who was anointed by their priests. Eight years of that has been plenty enough.
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Victoria.
I hope you understand explode on the air is a metaphor — nothing is more amusing than to watch Bill O’Reilly turn red, sputter, sweat profusely, swear profusely etc all because the world doesn’t revolve around his precepts.
We only have to review what was said about the USA after 9-11 from those who supposedly were our friends –
Such as “We are all Americans now”??
Messages of solidarity and indignation came from Libya and Syria as well as from Germany and Israel; flowers and funeral wreaths piled up in front of American Embassies from London to Beijing; flags flew at half-staff across Europe; in Iran, a candlelight vigil expressed sympathy. “Any remnants of neutrality thinking, of our traditional balancing act, have gone out of the window now,” a Swedish political scientist told Reuters. “There has not been the faintest shadow of doubt, not a trace of hesitation of where we stand, nowhere in Sweden.” Le Monde’s front-page editorial was headlined NOUS SOMMES TOUS AMÉRICAINS, and Italy’s Corriere della Sera echoed, “We are all Americans. The distance from the United States no longer exists because we, our values, are also in the crosshairs of evil minds.” In Brussels, the ambassadors of the nineteen members of NATO invoked, for the first time in the alliance’s fifty-two-year history, Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, affirming that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all” and pledging action, “including the use of armed force.”
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/09/11/060911ta_talk_hertzberg
I think you confuse the world’s reaction to the elective war in Iraq with the large amount of world support the US received in 2001.
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__________________Who would have ever guessed_________________
Gay leaders furious with Obama
By BEN SMITH & NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON 12/17/08
“Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans,” the president of Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solomonese, wrote Obama Wednesday. “[W]e feel a deep level of disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination.”
___________________Another excerpt from article_________________
“His presence on the inauguration stand is a slap in the faces of the millions of GLBT voters who so enthusiastically supported him,” Naff wrote, referring to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. “This tone-deafness to our concerns must not be tolerated. We have just endured eight years of endless assaults on our dignity and equality from a president beholden to bigoted conservative Christians. The election was supposed to have ended that era. It appears otherwise.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16693.html
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Its funny that folks equate Rick Warren with some type of PC, watered-down mush Gospel. Folks, look past the Hawaiian shirts and Birkenstock sandals. Have you read interviews he’s done? On the big HBIs that seem to be such a lightning rod, RW is very much in keeping with generally-accepted orthodox (lower case O there) Biblical interpretation and teaching re: abortion, homosexuality, divorce, adultery etc.
He may have deviated from the script (strayed off the reservation) somewhat by also addressing matters the Church At Large has seen fit to glance over, but he very much presents and preaches the Gospel. Tactics and techniques can and will be modified but he is as they say these days still very much “on message”
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HRW, the Europeans were reluctant to act against Saddam and that’s understandable: a large restive non-assimilated Muslim population would surely have ignited France or Germany had those countries actively participated in enforcing the UN’s mandates. And German and French firms had billions in contracts with the Saddam regime. Those were lost when he was booted out
Do you know anyone with boots on the ground in Afghanistan? The Euro NATO contingent of troops is no massive deploymt. And of those Euro nations who DID send forces, they have clauses and restrictions on where/how they may be used. German forces are school crossing guards in the peaceful areas while US and Brit forces are still shooting it out with Taliban in them thar hills. Which isnt bad really since the humanitarian stuff HAS to be done and by NATO troops doing those we can send our men to do the real heavy lifting. It just seems nutty that some Euro units can’t be out before sunup or can’t fight if the weather conditions aren’t perfect
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Sawgunner, you neglected to mention the apparently repulsive Canadians in Afghanistan, who are working in areas much more dangerous than either the Americans or the Brits.
And as much as he tries to paint himself otherwise, Rick Warren is no friend of LGBT Americans. But really, what’s another slap in the face?
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14 – Sawgunner, in having looked at his purpose books, I can see your point. I certainly pray he’s saved, but just misguided on a lot. But what bothers me about Warren is his CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) membership and associations and his globalistic leanings, not to mention Seeker-Friendly church mentality. Like Billy Graham and other preachers today (including a lot of reformed preachers who I won’t mention here) he’s an inclusivist, and I don’t think that if one is orthodox starting out that way, he can remain orthodox for long without some serious restructuring – which of course would require giving up a whole lot materially and fame-wise. Orthodox preachers are not loved, but hated. And they aren’t popular like Warren.
I must admit, however, I am picky about preachers.
I don’t like a preacher unless he can walk armed into a city council meeting and hear the words (in between all the Roberts Rules schtick) “Reverend, comest thou peaceably?”
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18, 19 – LOL. Please stop! LOL
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#13 – yes he does keep to the Dobson party line on many issues, including same-sex marriage. In fact, I hear his next book will be titled:
“The Prejudice Driven Life”
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#16 Bianca, if it makes you feel better, I’ll be happy to “hate” Rick Warren for ya.
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When I heard about the homosexuals being in a stir about the Warren role, I wondered how soon the President-elect would throw RW under the bus.
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I’m wondering if Obama isn’t going to let Rick Warren drive the bus, which will not be stopping to pick up homosexuals.
Some genius in the Transition realized that putting homosexuals “in a stir” as Mark Roth puts it, is just the thing to gain the respect of him and his demographic.
Obama doesn’t need Washiington lobbyists in his administration, he already knows how to play.
The only silver lining I can see in this dismal mistake is that both Obama and Warren will be embarrassed and diminished for this. An anti-Warren demonstration in the inauguration audience would serve them both right.
Obama needs to explain how is view of gay policies differs from Warrens. Unfortunately, I don’t think their views differ much at all.
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Rick Warren is a definite improvement over Jeremiah Wright.
There is hope!
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I’ve written to Dr. Joseph E. Lowery to ask him not to step on the same platform with Rev. Rick Warren. I don’t expect Obama to support marriage equality, but I can’t bear to see civil rights being relegated to an afterthought.
Obama may have been well-intentioned, and maybe not, but progressives shouldn’t reinforce his mistakes.
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definite improvement over Jeremiah Wright.
Dear Jesus,
Please cleanse Barack of Jeremiah Wright and help make him purpose-driven . . . with right purposes. Help Barack drive abortion over the cliff. Oh yeah, help him jump out of the car at the last minute, like in East of Eden, dear Lord. Save him to drive gay marriage into the ditch!
In conclusion, God BLESS America. I mean, those parts of America that you won’t damn.
In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
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So what should homosexuals do? The gay marching band, the only out org or person to be invited to have a role in the inauguration, let alone in the administration, has a big decision to make. It has only two choices. Either, cancel, or do something outrageous along the lines of a wardrobe malfunction at the very moment in the performance when the center-right is just getting into camp. Perhaps a naughty twirling routine with batons entitled, “The Definition of Marriage.”
The audience at the capitol has a different challenge. The protest de jour, throwing shoes, or flip-flops for Pastor Rick, will no longer seem au courant. I suggest that during the invocation the audience chants, “We have a dream.”
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John Denney (#23):
As well as “change you can believe in” (audaciously, I suppose).
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Sawgunner
HRW, the Europeans were reluctant to act against Saddam and that’s understandable: a large restive non-assimilated Muslim population would surely have ignited France or Germany had those countries actively participated in enforcing the UN’s mandates.
Highly doubtful — Saddamm was a secular Arab, if European Muslims had an opinion it was most frequently expressed as a pox on both houses.
And German and French firms had billions in contracts with the Saddam regime. Those were lost when he was booted out
Much closer to the truth.
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Sawgunner
Do you know anyone with boots on the ground in Afghanistan? The Euro NATO contingent of troops is no massive deployment. And of those Euro nations who DID send forces, they have clauses and restrictions on where/how they may be used. German forces are school crossing guards in the peaceful areas while US and Brit forces are still shooting it out with Taliban in them thar hills.
As Duncan mentioned in the next post, Canadians are fighting in them thar hills. They’ve been in Kandahar for over 2 years doing most of the heavy lifting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Forces_casualties_in_Afghanistan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada’s_role_in_the_invasion_of_Afghanistan
You might also note that the Danes and Dutch are also involved in the south. The UK and the US are not the only ones involved in Afghanistan.
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One of the links doesn’t work
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%27s_role_in_Afghanistan
And a link to the latest to die
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/12/14/afghanistan-canadians.html
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