IN THEORY:

What are your thoughts on President-elect Barack Obama’s invitation to Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the Jan. 20 inauguration?

Remember a few months ago when I mentioned being frustrated by the polarization in our country? This is a prime example. If I only prayed with people that were just like me, I would be a hermit. Praise God we can pray with people who disagree with us, because God does disagree with us and more than we are prepared to talk about. Which raises an interesting point — if we can only pray with people who agree with us and God doesn’t agree with us, then what does that say about our prayers? Jesus addressed this, but that is a whole different column.

Ric Olsen

Lead pastor, The Beacon

As a United Church of Christ pastor, I have to admit that I was disappointed in the president-elect’s choice of Rick Warren as the pastor to lead the invocation at the inauguration.

I had hoped that despite his understandable parting from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama would have kept his allegiance to the UCC. I would have preferred that he choose the Rev. John Thomas, UCC president and general minister.

Or even veering from the UCC, I would have loved to see the presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katherine Jefferts Schori, lead the opening prayer.

However, the choice of Rick Warren is a slap in the face for progressive and mainline churches — not to mention the gay community and allies! Those of us who worked our hearts out to defeat Proposition 8 feel betrayed.

We had hoped that if not a liberal, at least a centrist would have opened the inauguration. I can understand Obama’s desire to build bridges, but he burned bridges with some of his most hopeful supporters. Perhaps he could have chosen a young female UCC pastor from the OC?

The Rev. Sarah Halverson

Fairview Community Church

Costa Mesa

Our government is supposed to be secular, so there shouldn’t even be a religious invocation at the inauguration.

But if there is going to be a religious invocation, it should be done by a preacher who reasonably represents the principles and morals of the incoming administration, not someone like Rick Warren. The idea that mollycoddling evangelicals helps to build bridges is absurd.

Evangelicals, by definition, are people who have decided to never compromise on their biblical beliefs, whether such beliefs make sense in the current world or not.

Warren has compared gay marriage to incest and pedophilia; he compared women who have abortions to Nazis; he stated that Jews will burn in hell; and he said men must make the decisions for the family.

That hardly seems a proper background for Obama’s inauguration.

It almost seems as if Obama, by choosing Warren, were flipping the finger at those who elected him!

Jerry Parks

Member, Humanist Assn. of Orange County