Unlike the vast majority of my fellow-Americans, I don’t believe morning dawned in America with the inauguration of Barack Obama. I’m afraid it will take much more than a president with exceptional rhetorical skills and the collective wishful thinking of the American electorate to pull our country out of its present precarious predicament, a predicament owed in no small part to the profaning of our culture and the abandoning of our Judeo-Christian ethic. Although it is Barack Obama rather than George W. Bush who occupies the Oval Office today, the threat of Islamic terrorism is not the lest bit diminished, our economic crisis is none the better, and the most dangerous place for a baby in America is still in the womb of its mother.

Rather than the pomp and circumstance or the gaiety and galas of the Obama Inauguration, I found myself interested in the Inaugural Prayer. Like in first century Jerusalem, the one thing intolerable in twenty-first century America is a Christian who dares to speak the name of “Jesus” in public (Acts 4:5-31; 5:28, 40-42; 9:13-16, 21; 15:26; 21:13; 26:9-11). Would Rick Warren dare to do the intolerable, I wondered. Would he dare to incite the ire of today’s politically correct crowd by biblically and unabashedly praying in “Jesus name” (John 14:13-14; 16:23-24)?

Rather than ending his prayer with the generic “in your name,” which Warren has used before and which allows others to substitute the name of their particular deity for the deity of the one praying the prayer, Warren opted to close his Inaugural Prayer with these words: “I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life, Yeshua, Isa, Jesus [Spanish pronunciation], Jesus, who taught us to pray: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’"

At first glance, it appears that Warren bucked political correctness and bravely went where few contemporary Christians are willing to go; namely, outside the camp to Christ where the disgrace of our Savior is borne and our personal reputation sacrificed (Hebrews 13:11-14). Upon closer scrutiny, however, Warren is found to have never really left the camp, but to have remained safely within the comfortable confines of compromise.

One of the names for Jesus in which Warren prayed his Inaugural Prayer is “Isa.” Although the Arabic for Jesus is “Yesu,” Mohammed refers to Jesus as “Isa” throughout the Koran. When forced to flee Mecca for Medina because of the preaching of his new religion, Mohammed suddenly found himself in a city that was founded and populated predominantly by Jews. The Jews of Medina, who viewed Jesus Christ as a phony Messiah, ridiculed Him by calling Him “Esau,” after the rejected brother of Jacob, who swapped his birthright and lost his blessing. Mohammed picked up this derogatory name for Jesus, translated it into Arabic as “Isa,” and used it throughout the Koran when referring to Christ.

According to the Koran, “Isa” is like Adam, a mere man created by Allah from the dust. Furthermore, he is nothing more than a servant of Allah, whom Allah can destroy anytime he takes a notion to. Therefore, anyone professing “Isa” to be God or the Son of God is under the curse of Allah and will be “forbidden entrance into paradise and cast into the fire of hell.”

It was the Apostle Paul who warned us about false prophets who preach “another Jesus” (2 Corinthians 11:4). Muslims preach “another Jesus,” one who the Koran says only appeared to die on the cross for the sins of the world. In the Middle Ages, Martin of Tours taught believers to distinguished the real Jesus from all others by asking, “Where are the nail-prints?” If there are no nail-prints, it is not the real Jesus, but a counterfeit Christ.

One cannot help but wonder why Rick Warren prayed His Inaugural Prayer in the name of the nail-scarred Jesus who changed his life, as well as in the name of Islam’s counterfeit Christ, who has no nail-prints. Granted, Rick may have merely intended to include the “Arabic” name for Jesus in the closing of his prayer so as not to offend Muslim Americans. Yet, I’m afraid his attempt at praying a non-offensive prayer ended up being most offensive to the One to whom he prayed.

Try as we may, loyalty to our Lord leaves us no way around His solemn warning—“And you shall be hated of all men [and of all nations] for my name’s sake” (Matthew 10:22; 24:9; Mark 13:13; Luke 21:17). The true church of Jesus Christ has no other alternative but to unapologetically profess and to unabashedly proclaim the name of Jesus. No matter the cost or consequence to ourselves, we must never deny the name of the only One who can set before us an open door to the treasure house of God (Revelation 3:7-8). 

Don Walton