Maybe this shouldn’t come as a shock but controversial gay Bishop Gene Robinson says the name of Jesus will NOT be in his prayer this Sunday at the kickoff Inaugural prayer. Instead he’s going to pray to the “god of our understandings.” Huh?
My analysis is below, but first read the Robinson transcription below from NPR.
Robinson: I have actually read back over the inaugural prayers of the last 30 or 40 years and frankly I’ve been shocked at how aggressively Christian they are. And my intention is not to invoke the name of Jesus but to make this a prayer for Christians and non-Christians alike. Although I hold the scripture to be the word of God, those scriptures are holy to me and Jews and Christians, but to many other faith traditions they have their own sacred texts. And so rather than insert that and really exclude them from the prayer by doing so, I want this to be a prayer to the god of our many understandings and a prayer that all people of faith can join me in.
NPR Host: The god of many understandings?
Robinson: “Yes. I was treated for alcoholism three years ago and grateful to be sober today. And one of the things that I’ve learned in 12 step programs is this phrase, ‘the god of my understanding’. It allows people to pray to a God of really many understandings. And let’s face it, each one of us has a different understanding of God. No one of us can fully understand God or else God wouldn’t be God.”
NPR Host: I’m not sure that a God of many understandings has been invoked at an inauguration before?
Robinson: Well, I’ve done a lot of things for the first time in my life and I will be proud to do this one.
The audio is here.
Look, The Brody File gets it. The fact that an Episcopal pastor would take this approach to a prayer shouldn’t really shock anyone. But the fact that President-Elect Obama and his team are giving a major platform to a gay bishop who is going to avoid saying Jesus and instead pray to a “God of our understandings” can be seen as a slap in the face to millions of Evangelical Christians.
Some may say all this "watered down approach" to the Gospel will end up just confusing people about the true nature of who God is and why he came to this Earth. But will there by any outrage? Is there any?
I’ll post your comments. Leave them here.