First Woman Chosen For Obama Inaugural Prayer Service

Minister chosen for inaugural prayer service

WASHINGTON - The Rev. Sharon Watkins, pastor of a Protestant denomination with about 700,000 members in the United States and Canada, will deliver the sermon at the National Prayer Service that caps the inauguration activities of Barack Obama.

Watkins will be the first woman to give the sermon at the traditional event, to be held Jan. 21 at the National Cathedral in Washington.

In a statement from the Presidential Inaugural Committee, Watkins called her selection an honor. "I hope that my message will call us to believe in something bigger than ourselves and remind us to reach out to all of our neighbors to build communities of possibility," she said.

http://ph.news.yahoo.com/ap/20090112/twl-obama-prayer-service-1be00ca.html

It's been evolving a lot in the last decade. Most of my friends at church are ministers, male & female. Besides, I'm glad to see Obama's not inclusive as these repugs have been for the last gazillion years.

This is not a Rick Warren thread! Why does every single thread about the inauguration have to be turned into a Rick Warren thread?

feel better :sarcasm:

Just how many prayers are there going to be at this thing? Is there going to be an hour of praying and one minute of oath-taking?

but I don't think people realize the inauguration is actually a three day event, starting on Sunday, January 18 and ending on Tuesday, January 20.

I mean, fine, it's a giddy and thrilling event and it means that people will be addressing and expressing deep, deep things, but just how much preachifying is there going to be? After a certain point the inference that we are Godly, and only the Godly are us will be well made in the hubbub.

Are there more? I don't want to totally rain on peoples' parades either, but if EVERY event is to have some kind of sanctified expression that God approves and is being properly sucked up to, at some point it's more than just an inference that the government itself agrees that there definitely is a God and that worship should have a place in the very heart of our political system.

Religion doesn't play fair; Christianity expressly expects its adherents to go out and convert the heathens. With each additional display of state-sanctioned religion, it becomes more and more rooted in our assumptions that this is OK. It isn't. These will all be used as precedent for further encroachments, and now that there seems to be no check whatsoever on this way of thinking between the parties, it could get much worse in a hurry.

Must EVERYTHING have a public religious endorsement?