Obama and Lincoln's Bible

I was intrigued by the news this week that President -Elect Obama will be placing his hand upon, and be sworn in at his inauguration ceremony with, the very same Bible that President Abraham Lincoln used at his first inauguration. I would be even more pleased to find that he might actually be opening that same Bible or another reasonable facsimile, to study and govern from it, as Lincoln often did (read the Gettysburg address and his second inaugural acceptance speech).

In one related and encouraging development, Obama has decided to stick by his political guns and permit California megachurch pastor and author Rick Warren ("Purpose Driven-Life" and "The Purpose of Christmas"), to give an invocation at the inauguration in Washington. Warren has been rhetorically branded and deep-fried by homosexual activists and their partnering leftist media-elites (e.g. CNN, NBC and its cable affiliates) for his "intolerance" of same-sex marriage, by supporting and leading the charge to have Prop. 8 passed in the Golden State, which codifies (at least temporarily) marriage as hetrosexual only.

Fortunately, by keeping Warren's prayer time at the podium, Obama seems to at have at least implicitly returned the definition of tolerance to its intended meaning, which is; "the act or capacity of enduring; endurance:resisting." Today, an opponent of homosexual rights, is called an intolerant "homphobe,"which couldn't be farther from the truth. I'm not aware of too many Christians who are afraid of, or are cowering from homosexuals, while not permitting them to live and speak freely at the same time. The meaning of tolerance has changed to reflect a morally relativistic cultural influence, that says all worldviews and opinions are equally valid, and to hold exclusively to one, is a sign of intolerance, bias or bigotry, regardless of how true that view might be.

There is great danger in that view however, and it is up to Kingdom citizens to communicate that truth. As Dorothy Sayers observed, "In the world it is called tolerance, but in hell it is called despair -" the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die." We should then welcome the President-Elect's apparent attempt to balance the scales of tolerance and truth, if even in something as innocuous as an inagural invocation.