With God on his side?

• Author: Nielsen, Niels C.
• Position: American Thought - The state of religion in America and President Barack Obama's inauguration

PRES. BARACK OBAMA'S first term of office expired on Jan. 20, 2013. In order to meet the constitutional deadline, he took his new oath as chief executive in a small private ceremony at the White House. The next day, in the presence of a massive crowd at the Capitol, he would swear on two Bibles, one of which had belonged to Pres. Abraham Lincoln and the other to civil fights pioneer Martin Luther King Jr.

Three special religious events celebrated the inauguration. Traditionally, on the day after the inaugural address and parade, a prayer service is held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. This year, Pres. Obama and Vice Pres. Joe Biden attended. They sat quietly in the front row as a muezzin recited the Muslim call to prayer. An African-American gospel choir performed. Episcopal Bishop Katherine Jeffers offered a prayer: "Make us who come from many nations, with many different languages, a united people." So, type one was an interfaith, ecumenical, worship service to honor the beginning of Obama's second term.

On the day of the inauguration itself, early Monday morning, a prayer breakfast was held at the Willard Continental Hotel. The guest speaker was Susan Johnson Cook, whom Pres. Obama had appointed Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom in May 2011. Bishop Randolph Gurley of the Tabernacle Church in the nation's capital explained: "Susan will address issues of tolerance, unity, faith, and religious freedoms that are at risk at this time.... We in the church have got to break that spirit of disharmony." This prayer breakfast embodied the evangelical and interracial voice on the occasion--type two.

Also, another presidential inaugural prayer breakfast was held at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel on Monday morning. Speakers included the Messianic rabbi, Jonathan Cain, who claims that signs of the apocalypse are encrypted in Pres. Obama's communications. Also included as honored guests were Southern Baptist minister Pat Robertson and Rep. Michele Bachman (R.-Minn.). This was type three, the fundamentalist (anti-Obama) breakfast.

How much did these three events overlap or conflict ideologically? How much did they reflect the contemporary religious belief in the country--ecumenical, evangelical, and fundamentalist? A number of Obama's White House predecessors have been classified in each category.

There was another very different type of tradition also present amid the ceremonies: Monday, Jan. 21, Inauguration Day, was a Federal holiday in honor of King's birthday; if King had lived into the present, he...