Obama picks Rick Warren for inaugural invocation

[gambit]

I was mostly scratching my head when I heard it. I understand not getting into a furor over Prop 8, but Obama certainly could've picked someone who was less in the spot light. But I've also heard this has angered conservatives as well, so yay?

But to give Warren his due, here's some bits from his Wikipedia file.

Warren has worked to shift the evangelical movement away from a narrow focus on social issues, such as abortion and gay marriage, to a broader social agenda. His five-point plan for global action calls for church-led efforts to tackle global poverty and disease, including the spread of HIV/AIDS, and to support literacy and education efforts around the world. In February 2006, he signed a statement backing a major initiative to combat global warming, thus breaking with some of the U.S.'s high-profile evangelical leaders, such as James Dobson, who had opposed such a move.

But also...

In 2005, during the Terri Schiavo controversy, Warren called Michael Schiavo's decision to remove Terri's feeding tube "an atrocity worthy of Nazism" and suggested that Michael wanted Terri to die because, if she regained consciousness, she might have "something to say that he didn‘t want said".

So I like his efforts to combat poverty, disease, and global warming, but I could do without his crazy stuff. What I sense is Obama wants to build support amongst evangelicals for his social programs. Politically, this is a very good move for him, and I hope it translates into real results.