Replacing Louis Giglio: IRD’s Helpful Benediction List

on January 11, 2013
Atlanta-based Pastor Louis Giglio of Passion City Church recently was announced -- and withdrawn -- as the clergyman to offer a benediction at the Presidential Inauguration.
Atlanta-based Pastor Louis Giglio of Passion City Church recently was announced — and withdrawn — as the clergyman to offer a benediction at the Presidential Inauguration.

Following the announcement and subsequent withdrawal of Evangelical pastor and Anti-Trafficking crusader Louie Giglio to offer a closing prayer at the Presidential Inauguration, several liberal groups have helpfully offered their own suggestions to replace Giglio. The lists, mostly featuring liberal clergy from rapidly declining Oldline denominations, seem to miss the point: according to Addie Whisenant, the Presidential Inauguration Committee spokesperson, “Pastor Giglio was asked to deliver the benediction in large part for his leadership in combating human trafficking around the world.”

Giglio was selected by the inaugural committee to close the ceremony not just because he was a clergyman (indeed, the services will be opened by a laywoman) but because he was responsible for a movement that had successfully inspired tens of thousands of young adults. Giglio’s most recent Passion conference drew 60,000 to the Georgia Dome, and reportedly over 170,000 watched online. Similarly, 2009’s Inaugural invocation by southern California Pastor Rick Warren was a nod to Warren’s leadership on combating HIV/AIDS in Africa.

The replacement names suggested – such as Washington National Cathedral Dean Gary R. Hall, or United Methodist Bishop Minerva Carcaño – would probably struggle to round up 1,000 young adults in their own jurisdictions for an event, let alone the numbers Giglio represented. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation also posted their own list of 10 candidates, including Jay Bakker, son of former televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and Rachel Held Evans, an author and blogger who refers to herself as an Evangelical, mostly for promotional reasons rather than theological.

These liberal groups seem to have little interest in locating a replacement that meets with the inaugural committee’s stated interest in combating human trafficking, or finding a young adult that represents a broad Evangelical movement doing good things. Because those criteria have gone out the window, IRD offers these replacements that would apparently meet with their new goal of unlimited affirmation:

1)      Amy Delong: after her slap-on-the-wrist conviction for performing a same-sex wedding against her church’s discipline, the United Methodist clergywoman has been drawn to the spotlight like a moth to flame. Sure, she doesn’t even pastor a church, but DeLong would fully satisfy the LGBT crowd, and she could even wear a rainbow stole.

2)      Bishop John Shelby Spong: long since retired from the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, which he effectively demolished by 40 percent during his tenure, the retired Episcopal Bishop will affirm anyone – except Christians holding orthodox “fundamentalist” beliefs. Since Spong now maintains that people can’t really know anything about God (who he now regards as a dispassionate distant force, rather than a knowable person) he can adjust his view of the deity to whatever cultural whims prevail at the moment.

3)      Father Alberto Cutie: The Roman Catholic priest famously jettisoned his chastity vows on the beaches of Miami, only to be photographed by Mexican paparazzi. Cutie suddenly jumped to the Episcopal Church in a press conference before even renouncing his orders to his Roman Catholic Archbishop — he would be a great choice. Fully on-board with Episcopal Church mores, Cuban-born Cutie would also earn some diversity points – something none of our other inaugural clergy candidates could.

4)      Bishop Gene Robinson: Well, why not? Robinson already offered a prayer that 2009 Inaugural planners quickly inserted before the Inaugural concert that year in a sort of mea culpa for selecting Rick Warren to give the Inaugural benediction. Plus, as Robinson regularly name-drops, the president and the now-retired homosexual bishop have already met to briefly converse about what it is like to be “the first” at something.

5)      Anybody Wiccan: Louie Giglio got into trouble after a 1995 sermon basically quoted directly from the Bible. Since Christians, Jews and Muslims all draw from the Abrahamic tradition that declines to affirm homosexual practices, that rules them out entirely. Pagan groups, however, would be more than happy to wave a stick of driftwood over the Inaugural ceremony and announce the blessing of – well, nature, or something – over the first family.

6)      Someone from the United Church of Christ: Just kidding. No one knows what the UCC even is anymore, and despite the President’s former membership in a UCC congregation, the only time “Barack Obama” and “UCC” have gone together in the same sentence, “Rev. Jeremiah Wright” has immediately followed.

What are your suggestions to replace Louie Giglio and satisfy the intolerant Left at the same time? The comments section awaits!

Follow Jeff Walton on Twitter @JeffreyHWalton

  1. Comment by J S Lang on January 11, 2013 at 1:54 pm

    Well, isn’t it obvious?

    The great Franky Schaeffer himself. He’d give ’em a rant they’d long remember.

  2. Comment by Sara Anderson on January 14, 2013 at 10:25 am

    I had the same suggestion. Get Franky to do it. He hates everybody!

  3. Comment by Donnie on January 11, 2013 at 2:08 pm

    Why doesn’t Obama just call on his own overinflated ego to do it? That’s the only god he believes in!

  4. Comment by Mark on January 11, 2013 at 2:17 pm

    Marcus Borg? John Dominic Crossan? Jim Winkler? Father Michael Pfleger?

  5. Pingback by The Church Is Not A Business, Jeffery Walton – @TheIRD | Notes from the Pastor's Office on January 11, 2013 at 4:30 pm

    […] Walton typed-up a pretty catty article in response.  The purpose was to make facetious suggestions as to who should replace Pastor Giglio during the ceremony.  With the last line of his post, he […]

  6. Pingback by Replacing Louis Giglio: IRD’s Helpful Benediction List « Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans on January 12, 2013 at 11:10 pm

    […] offers these replacements that would apparently meet with their new goal of unlimited affirmation: Read here Read also:  Bullied on the President’s Stage by Gabe […]

  7. Comment by dover1952 on January 13, 2013 at 2:05 am

    Here in the Knoxville area, we once had a local T.V. comedian by the name of Louie Gideo. He used to talk about local merchants and contractors being in “bidsness.”

  8. Comment by rhema on January 13, 2013 at 7:54 am

    A fitting nomination: Bishop Mark Hanson of the ELCA, whose “we all worship the same God” shibboleth should ingratiate him with the Pres.

    [from Exposing the ELCA] “. . .So The Lutheran magazine tells its readers that we worship the same god as the Muslims. The ELCA’s Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson has said the same thing in a letter to Muslims saying ‘(t)he one God whom we worship is a God not only of judgment, but of mercy and peace.'”

  9. Comment by J P Logan on January 13, 2013 at 11:35 am

    I did a search on Google Images for Amy DeLong and all I found were pictures of some guy with short blond hair.

  10. Comment by Ben Welliver on January 13, 2013 at 4:30 pm

    I don’t know how to break this to you, but that is her. Or were you just being snide?

  11. Comment by Eric Lytle on January 13, 2013 at 2:36 pm

    I vote for Frank Schaeffer too. Much as the libs would love a gay or lesbian clergy-activist, nothing tickles the left like an ex-Christian in high dudgeon. But if Schaeffer isn’t available (and I bet he is – he’d show up if there was a camera at the South Pole), how about Brian McLaren? He could bring his “son-in-law” along.

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