Wednesday 24 December 2008

Person of the Year


Time Magazine chooses a Person of the Year every year. The 2008 choice is Barack Obama.

I think you can make a good case for the President -Elect being Person of the Year. It is a remarkable achievement for an African-American to become president considering that segregation was still the practice in some states in fairly recent history.

It is also a remarkable testimony to American democracy and its capacity for self-renewal and the willingness of its electorate to show itself a world leader in its choice of president. Many European nations look down their noses at America and its people, but I can't think of a single state in Europe - Britain included - where a non-white would have had a ghost of a chance of becoming president or prime minister. Well done America.

You might have read that Rick Warren has been asked to pray at Obama's inauguration. I'm sure he has good political reasons for inviting Warren to pray on such a big occasion. In doing so, he has upset some of his own supporters who dislike Warren's stances on marriage and abortion.

Perhaps Obama is showing himself a leader who wants to be president for all Americans, not just his own supporters. He can only be commended for that. Let's pray that God will give Rick Warren wisdom on this occasion and whenever he has opportunity to talk to the new president.

The Seattle Times has a write up on the choice of Warren to pray at Obama's inauguration.

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