A religious occasion

I’d call what we watched on television earlier a religious ceremony – I suppose it might have been the biggest in history. In a sense it was rather like an church wedding – a religious ceremony with such an important secular function that one is apt to be a bit surprised when the vicar starts referring to God. The pastor who said the inaugural prayers, Rick Warren, was like an unexpectedly charismatic vicar at a wedding, refusing to be a mere holy prop. This ‘religious bit’ isn’t ceremonial background, his big voice insisted. There was no retreat behind antique religious language, as you get in our grand occasions of state. There was plainness, directness, sincerity – a shocking lack of shame about public religion.

Obama fumbled his big lines like a bridegroom, bless him. But his speech was very fine.