Prayers at Obama’s inauguration

Rick Warren’s prayer at Barack Obama’s inauguration seemed excellent. I could certainly say “Amen”. Al Mohler has written a more extensive prayer for this most important and powerful man—full of thanks, yet also asking for him to be sensitive in areas where he seems weak from a Christian point of view (e.g. on preventing abortion and defending marriage).

By sad contrast, here’s the prayer of openly practising homosexual Bishop Gene Robinson who was at the Lincoln Memorial at the start of the inauguration celebrations. There’s much in his sentiment I agree with—praying for the President’s safety, praying for him as the father of two young girls, praying for us to remember that he’s not the messiah, praying for us to be generous and to be concerned for those suffering in poverty, and so on. But his prayer totally failed to mention the name of Jesus, or even anything specifically Christian about God (well, he promised he would not pray a Christian prayer). Instead, he addressed his request to the “God of our many understandings“. This is simply astonishing for a leader in the church of God.

His prayer also made the claim that every religion’s god judges people by how they treat the most vulnerable. These are noble sentiments, but

1. I am not sure his claim is true. For a start, one major wing of Buddhism doesn’t appear to have any traditional idea of God, but rather denies God’s existence, and Hindiusm’s teaching of karma seems traditionally to have encouraged people of higher castes not to be consistently compassionate to people of lower castes because, in their suffering, karma means they are allegedly getting their just desserts for wrongs in a previous incarnation.
2. Even if my brief summary that challenges this claim that every religion is the same here is incorrect, Robinson’s prayer tends towards the popular idea that all religions are really the same at heart. But this glosses over massive differences and contradictions (one God versus many; is Jesus God in the flesh or not, and did Jesus die on the cross or not? etc.), alongside some matters held in common, at least, to some religions.

Robinson’s prayer also presumed that all discrimination is always wrong—specifically mentioning gay and lesbian people, alongside women and people of colour. (Notably, the former involve lifestyle choices; the latter is something entirely beyond one’s control). Discrimination is always wrong if there is an unjust or illegitimate reason for it. But there are sometimes legitimate reasons for discrimination.

For example, we discriminate against young people—not allowing them to vote, buy cigarettes or alcohol, and so on before a certain age—because of our views about their vulnerabilities due to the intellectual, emotional and social development levels typical at those younger ages. In a different way, we discriminate against prisoners, denying some categories of prisoner the right to vote. I could go on to illustrate my point that there are some circumstances where we do discriminate for a variety of legitimate reasons.

Many have also argued it is legitimate to discriminate against people who do not meet the traditional definition of eligibility for marriage—a definition outlined in the Bible from the first pages (Genesis 1-2) and upheld by Jesus (Mark 10:1-10), but also held pretty consistently across cultures down through the ages. This definition involves one man and one woman for life, thereby giving the possibility of conceiving children in a stable environment with two parents, one of each gender.

For other situations, I would argue it is quite legitimate to discriminate by preventing ineligible people from being married. For example, we do not permit a man to marry two women (bigamy) or one underage girl just because he wants to. Discrimination regarding marriage is especially appropriate where conception of a child is not even possible for the whole category. And so we should not permit same-sex marriages either, which lack the basic component of the two genders. One might possibly argue that committed same-sex partners should have some similar rights in property and inheritance matters as other committed partnerships (which they now have in most cases), but it’s still not a marriage.

In conclusion, Robinson’s prayer is wrong to privilege a “warm embrace of our differences“ and “an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger“ over “mere tolerance“. There are some matters where diversity might be a fact, but we should not be forced to say it is good. Mere tolerance is actually far better than applauding immorality, for tolerance says that we do not agree with you, but we will defend your legitimate freedoms and rights as a person to express your religious and other beliefs and so on lawfully. Tolerance says we will love our enemies even though we cannot approve their behaviour.

This is obviously not a footnoted ethics essay, but I hope you will consider it food for thought.