Dr. Black who just gave the invocation at the luncheon, he is welcome to come read the telephone book to me anytime. just sayin.

Thank you, Connie. That is what I wanted to say much clearer and more to the point than I said it.

Seriously. Was he also the one doing the "please, take your seats" beforehand? Because I was all, okay, I'll sit down.

I am not a fan of Warren and didn't really care about his prayer one way or the other, but I think if one is expecting a Christian minister of any denomination who is asked to say a prayer at in inauguration for a President who also happens to be Christian to not mention Jesus is expecting too much.

Yeah. When he was asked a few weeks ago whether he's mention Jesus, one of his assistants responded with something like, "He's a Christian and will pray as a Christian."

I don't really know too much about Warren other than his books and the couple of quotes that have been around lately. I wasn't terribly impressed with his invocation -- like some others have said, he just didn't seem all that charismatic.

Presbyterian Health Services Rio Rancho Family Health Center in Rio Rancho, New Mexico,

Holy crap - if Frisco hadn't been born at home, that's where we would have gone for maternity care!

Okay, I think it's time I had my own inaugural luncheon. Yay for watch-n-post.

Dr. Black who just gave the invocation at the luncheon, he is welcome to come read the telephone book to me anytime. just sayin.

Yeah, I was like "given the discussion in B.org, I should perhaps be paying attention to what he is saying, but...I can only pay attention to how he is saying it. Because YUM"

I am not a fan of Warren and didn't really care about his prayer one way or the other, but I think if one is expecting a Christian minister of any denomination who is asked to say a prayer at in inauguration for a President who also happens to be Christian to not mention Jesus is expecting too much.

Yeah. When he was asked a few weeks ago whether he's mention Jesus, one of his assistants responded with something like, "He's a Christian and will pray as a Christian."

Eh. It's probably stating the obvious, but not all Christians pray in the same way/have the same content. Like the prayer by Billy Graham that was posted earlier -- some refer to God and Jesus in broad terms. Others mention Jesus every other sentence.

So, whatev. Excessive Jesus-y-ness makes me, personally, uncomfortable, but I also wasn't surprised that a Christian pastor would include Jesus in his prayer.

(Also, I totally agree with the people who expected Warren to be a better speaker, considering that he's pastor of a 20,000-member church.)

I should clarify that I didn't find Warren to be offensive, but the heavily Christian and God-focused intro does make me feel uncomfortable and excluded. It's not a religious ceremony, and it's inappropriate. [To clarify the clarification, I'm meaning the invocation/benediction thing as part of the inaug itself, which is a different argument]. His speech on the merits, past the first dozen lines or so, was fine, if not terribly impressive.

I'll also cop to giving Lowery a lot more slack than Warren (on the religious focus, not on the racist stuff because I don't think that's what happened) because Lowery the man brings a lot different baggage for me than Warren the man, and because the speech itself was such an homage to the history of how we got here, and the people who led the way, rather than a "this is all god's doing and in god's hands and for god's purposes" kind of thing.

So we do we think any executive orders will actually come down today?