If The First Words At The Inauguration Are "Love Is The Morning And The Evening Star," Run!

According to Wikipedia, Richard D. (Rick) Warren earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from California Baptist University in Riverside, his Master of Divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX, and his Doctor of Ministry degree from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. According to Warren, his call to full-time ministry came as a 19-year-old student at California Baptist when, in November 1973, Warren and a friend skipped out on classes and drove 350 miles to hear W(ally).A(mos). Criswell preach at the Jack Tar Hotel, in San Francisco. Rick Warren stood in line to shake hands with Criswell (pastor of First Baptist Church in downtown Dallas, TX) afterward.

“When my turn finally arrived, something unexpected happened. Criswell looked at me with kind, loving eyes and said, quite emphatically, “Young man, I feel led to lay hands on you and pray for you!” He placed his hands on my head and prayed: “Father, I ask that you give this young preacher a double portion of your Spirit. May the church he pastors grow to twice the size of the Dallas church. Bless him greatly, O Lord.”

Verily, Warren's (nondenominational) Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA (the most densely populated city in Orange County) is a megachurch with 22,000 worshipers at its Sunday services. In 2007, First Baptist Church of Dallas, TX was nowhere to be found (Saddleback Church was 4th.) in the 100 Largest U.S. Churches (Outreach Magazine, 2007). Ol' Criswell was passing the torch of evangelism and didn't even know it at the time. Or, if one accepts Warren's porpoise-driven account, the old fella with white hair and his standard white suit was divinely inspired. If the Saddlebags preacher shows up at the inauguration in a white suit channeling Elmer Gantry about love bein' a mornin' and an evenin' star, verily run — don't walk — for the nearest exit. If this is (fair & balanced) impiety, so be it.

[x Huffington Post]
"We Call on You Lord": Leaked Rick Warren Invocation
By Linda Hirschman

(NOTE: Copies of what seemed to be a draft of an inaugural invocation by Pastor Rick Warren arrived in the fax machines of several prominent journalists this morning. This site does not vouch for the authenticity of the draft, although each of the statements does conform to material in Pastor Warren's speeches, interviews, or on his websites.)

O Lord, as we come together on this historic and solemn occasion to inaugurate a president and vice president. We pray, O Lord, for President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joseph Biden, to whom You have entrusted leadership of this nation at this moment in history.

We pray for their advisors and supporters, particularly their Jewish advisors and supporters, who will surely roast in hell if they do not abandon their refusal to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. Pray for the conversion of Obama chief advisor David Axelrod and his economic wise man Larry Summers, his early supporters Lester Crown and his campaign finance chair Penny Pritzker, for, as the Bible says, there will be a day when there will be a great revival of faith in God through Jesus among the Jewish people. (Romans 11). Obviously, this is a day that we, as believers in Christ, want to pray for! Let the light of Christian salvation come to the Jewish Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel and his family, some of whom survived the German effort to bring them to Christian truth in the last generation.

May all efforts to stop homosexuals from violating the ancient humanitarian institution of marriage succeed as did your will in California in the last election. Attend particularly, O lord, to President Obama's environmental chief Nancy Sutley, and to the man who has worked essentially without sleep for three months to save the American economy from total collapse, Representative Barney Frank. Use the government to bring an end to acts as bad as incest, pedophilia and polygamy, by stamping out homosexuality among the homosexuals, a people evolutionarily unfit, that we may truly become one nation before God. May the First Amendment to the Constitution protect all who want to compare homosexual sex to incest, pedophilia and polygamy from the arrows of hate speech accusations shot by the politically correct.

Change the hearts of the new administration's pro-choice advisors and supporters, including the Justices of the Supreme Court who stand here today with us: Holocaust denier Anthony Kennedy, holocaust denier Ruth Bader Ginzburg, holocaust denier David Souter, holocaust denier Stephen Breyer, and holocaust denier John Paul Stevens, who is about to swear in the Vice-President, in that abortion is a holocaust and the eighteen million or so women who have committed abortion in the thirty-five years since 1973 are thus no better than Nazis.

Bless the women, who have chosen to follow their ambitions into public life, but change the hearts, Lord, of Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton, Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano, United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis from independent lives of their own to submission to their husbands, if any, for I love the King James Version's rendition of Ephesians 5:22 "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands" and of course "Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ if God." 1 Corinthians 11:3. These women have chosen to participate in the public life of the community. Enlighten them as to the requirement that women not speak in church, saving any questions they have about their common life to ask their husbands as they return home.

Now, O Lord, despite the plain language of the Constitution that created this great nation, we dedicate this presidential inaugural ceremony to You. May this be the beginning of a new dawn for America as we humble ourselves before You and acknowledge You alone as our Lord, our Savior and our Redeemer. We pray this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[After college (Cornell University, B.A. with honors) and law school (University of Chicago, J.D.), Linda Hirschman practiced labor law for fifteen years. By 1988, Hirschman decided to move on to teaching and went back to get a PhD in philosophy, while she taught. After receiving a Ph.D. (University of Illinois at Chicago) in 1994, she accepted appointment to the Allen/Berenson Chair in Philosophy and Women’s Studies at Brandeis University. In 2002, Hirschman "took a vow of poverty" and became a freelance writer. Hirschman has written two books: Hard Bargains: The Politics of Sex with legal historian Jane Larson (1998) and A Woman’s Guide to Law School (1999), as well as many articles, scholarly and popular.]

Copyright © 2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

Get the Google Reader at no cost from Google. Click on this link to go on a tour of the Google Reader. If you read a lot of blogs, load Reader with your regular sites, then check them all on one page. The Reader's share function lets you publicize your favorite posts.