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SADDLEBACK PASTOR
Rick Warren to Give Inauguration Invocation
Evangelical mega-pastor Rick Warren has been selected to give the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration next month, inaugural organizers announced Wednesday.
Warren, a best-selling author and the founder of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., hosted a presidential forum at his church this summer at which he questioned Obama and Sen. John McCain, the GOP presidential nominee, on a variety of faith-related issues.
Warren has been credited with helping to broaden evangelicals' focus beyond such social issues as gay rights and abortion to include global warming, poverty and the AIDS epidemic. He drew criticism from many evangelicals when he invited Obama to his conference on AIDS in 2006.
But he has earned the ire of liberals with his opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and stem-cell research -- stances that are well in line with his faith as a Southern Baptist preacher.
On Wednesday, gay-rights bloggers were already criticizing the choice of Warren as invocation pastor, citing his vocal support of California's Proposition 8, a ballot measure banning same-sex marriage in the state that was approved by California voters last month.
-- Jacqueline L. Salmon
