WASHINGTON (RNS)—President-elect Barack Obama’s choice of megachurch Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration shows one man reaching out and the other reaching new heights.

The choice demonstrates that Warren is the next Billy Graham, succeeding the evangelist who prayed at many previous Republican and Democratic inaugurations, according to some evangelicals. Other observers say it shows Obama is serious about evangelical outreach.

“Aside from the chief justice, Billy Graham was the mainstay at the inauguration,” said Michael Lindsay, a sociologist at Rice University in Houston. “This is sort of seeing ... the baton being passed in a very significant way.”

Obama outreach to evangelicals 

Dan Gilgoff, religion correspondent for U.S. News & World Report and author of its God & Country blog, said it is significant Obama chose someone so closely tied to the Bush administration, just weeks after Warren honored President Bush with an award.

And it shows Obama is willing to sideline questions about how Warren treated the then-candidate at a forum at his Saddleback Church during the presidential campaign. Some Obama supporters argued the forum was tilted to favor the Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain.

“Despite all this, the fact that Obama still went with him I think shows that ... the Obama administration is really committed to evangelical outreach,” Gilgoff said.

But many prominent supporters of gay rights aren’t happy to see Warren given the spotlight.

“In honoring Mr. Warren, the president-elect confers legitimacy on attitudes that are deeply contrary to the all-inclusive love of God,” said Episcopal Bishop John Chane of Washington. “He is courting the powerful at the expense of the marginalized, and in doing so, he stands the gospel on its head.”

Criticism over gay marriage stand 

Leaders of gay rights organizations have asked Obama to drop Warren and, in at least one case, declined an invitation to the inauguration because the pastor vocally supported Proposition 8, the ballot measure that banned gay marriage in California.

Warren, like Obama, has made attempts to reach out to politicians of both parties, inviting liberals and conservatives to discuss public policy at Saddleback. While he has taken strong stands against abortion and same-sex marriage, Warren has led efforts to combat poverty, illiteracy and AIDS in Africa.

“He’s a very magnanimous guy, who every time he comes to Washington meets with Democrats and Republicans,” said Michael Cromartie, director of the Evangelical Studies Program at the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center.

“He’s a post-partisan pastor who, in light of Billy Graham’s failing health, has sort of become American’s new symbolic pastor.”

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