Clergy controversy dissipates at inauguration

WASHINGTON—A diverse, six-person clergy team successfully delivered the invocation and benediction with Scripture reading and prayers at Friday’s presidential inauguration.

“I thought everybody knocked it out of the park,” said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, a network of more than 40,000 evangelical congregations in the United States.

Rodriguez, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York; Paula White, a Florida-based televangelist; Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse; Rabbi Marvin Hier; and Bishop Wayne T. Jackson all participated in the event. Rodriguez, White, Graham, and Jackson each invoked the name of Jesus, an act that has raised the ire of atheists at previous inaugurations.

President Donald Trump’s selection of White, a friend and religious adviser, stirred controversy among some evangelicals, who lamented the way her participation could help mainstream the prosperity gospel—the concept that professing faith in Christ brings wealth and health. Critics also accused her of “throwing out doctrines like the Trinity.”

White, seemingly mindful of the controversy, delivered a prayer that had prosperity overtones but mostly adhered to Christian orthodoxy. She asked God to give Trump and Vice President Mike Pence wisdom, grace, and “strength to stand for what is honorable and right in your sight.” She cited Proverbs 21, acknowledged leaders’ hearts are in God’s hands, and closed in the name of “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

“Her prayer was amazing,” Rodriguez told me after the ceremony. “She elevated Christ, she affirmed the Trinity, and she spoke for unity.”

Rodriguez, a conservative who publicly criticized Trump’s immigration rhetoric during the campaign, said he was surprised to receive an invitation to read a passage of Scripture as part of the invocation. Rodriguez said no one told him what to read, and after praying about it, he chose Matthew 5:3-11, 14-16.

“It’s a message of hope,” said Rodriguez. “I wanted Congress, America, and 1 billion people around the world to understand that the only power on the planet that can heal the broken is God.”

Rodriguez became the first Latino evangelical, the first Puerto Rican, and the first Assemblies of God pastor to participate in a presidential inauguration.

“My knees were trembling,” he said. “I understand I was there by the grace of God alone.”

Dolan focused his remarks on the various kinds of wisdom Trump would need for his new job.

Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, quoted Psalms 15:1-2 and 126:5, while offering a blessing on Trump and the country.

Before reading Scripture as part of the benediction, Graham noted rain is a sign of blessing in the Bible and that it started to rain when Trump stepped to the podium to deliver his inaugural address.

“It’s my prayer that God will bless you, your family, your administration, and may he bless America,” Graham said. He then read 1 Timothy 2:1-6.

Jackson, an African-American pastor from Detroit, delivered the final prayer of the benediction, asking for a blessing on Trump and unity for the nation: “Let us be healed by the power of your love, and united by the bond of your Spirit.”

Before the inauguration ceremony, Trump heard from another evangelical leader during a private worship service at St. John’s Episcopal Church, located near the White House. The Rev. Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas and a Trump supporter, compared the incoming president to the prophet Nehemiah in a sermon titled “When God Chooses a Leader.”