The president who swept to victory by mobilizing his conservative Christian base used his inauguration yesterday to signal that his administration was well aware that when it came to religion, the United States was diverse and divided.
The tone was set in the opening invocation by the Rev. Luis Leon, an Episcopalian whose church, the landmark St. John's Episcopal Church on Lafayette Square, across the avenue from the White House, favors blessing same-sex unions. Father Leon, a Cuban-American, thanked God for fashioning one nation out of "a multitude of peoples of many ethnic, religious and language backgrounds."
In his speech, President Bush, a Methodist, made a reference to religious pluralism when he said the nation was sustained "by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran and the varied faiths of our people." The phrase encompasses Jews, Christians and Muslims by alluding to the Ten Commandments, the preaching of Jesus and Islamic scripture.
The Rev. Max L. Stackhouse, professor of theology and public life at Princeton Theological Seminary, said of Mr. Bush's speech, "It's a little echo of the remark by President Eisenhower when he said, 'Our nation is founded on faith, and I don't care which faith it is.' "
Mr. Bush's first inauguration in 2001 sparked accusations of religious sectarianism when the two clergymen who blessed the event prayed in the name of Jesus. This time, the president chose Father Leon to replace one of those clergymen, the Rev. Franklin Graham, who was filling in for his father, the Rev. Billy Graham, who was ill in 2001.
The other clergyman from the first inaugural appeared once more, the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, an African-American pastor in Houston and pastor of what is said to be the nation's largest United Methodist church, Windsor Village. He is a friend and spiritual adviser to the president from his days as governor of Texas and an early supporter of his initiative to give religious groups more of a role in the delivery of social services.
Mr. Caldwell closed his benediction yesterday by saying, "Respecting persons of all faiths, I humbly submit this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."
Edith L. Blumhofer, a professor of history and the director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., an evangelical institution, said it was the second time she had heard Mr. Caldwell precede a prayer with a reference to his respect for people of all faiths, and added, "I think that's probably an attempt to address the objections."
In his choice of pastors, Mr. Bush chose an African-American and a Latino, constituencies that the Republican Party is courting. Father Leon arrived in Miami in 1961 at age 11 in a "Peter Pan flight" that brought Cuban children to the United States and left their parents behind. Mr. Bush attends services at his church.
Father Leon said in an interview this week that he wanted to "offer a broad prayer as inclusive as I can make it." He called the inauguration a celebration of the American character, adding that part of that American character is the breadth of "our understanding of religious freedom, so it's probably a good time to honor that."
The choice of clergy members in Mr. Bush's inaugurations has been less inclusive than even in inaugurations more than 40 years ago, Professor Blumhofer said. The Nixon and Eisenhower inaugurations featured a "parade of faiths," she said, with prayers from Protestant, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Jewish clergy members and a performance by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Mr. Bush's innovation has been including Islam, Professor Blumhofer said. Even in his first inaugural speech, he included mosques in a list of religious organizations that serve the poor.