Pass The Peace To Them And Risk Death

The Obamas worshiped at St. John's Episcopal Church today, too.

Which Denomination Will Obama Rescue?

Washington's churches are elbowing each other to have the Obamas as parishioners. The unchurched may assume this is because they are to be the President, First Lady, and their children. Pastors, especially those in the struggling mainline denominations, will tell you it's because they're breathing.

Historian Gary Scott Smith on the Presidency and the pews:

Roosevelt served as the senior warden of St. James Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, New York the entire time he was president and devoted a significant amount of time and energy to this position. Nevertheless, he only worshipped about once a month, usually at St. John's Episcopal Church, known as the "church of the presidents," because many of the early chief executives beginning with James Madison worshipped there. Roosevelt claimed it was difficult to worship God with so many people staring at him. "I can do almost everything in the 'Goldfish Bowl' of the president's life," he declared, "but I'll be hanged if I can say my prayers in it."

Where Did We Put Those Newcomer Cards?

The Washington Post's Sally Quinn says the church-shopping Obamas should go Episcopal -- specifically Washington National Cathedral, because of its inclusiveness:

The first black bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, John Walker, presided there. Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first female presiding bishop in the Episcopal Church, was inducted there. And Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson of the Diocese of New Hampshire was the first openly gay bishop in Christendom.

"We are a place that welcomes people of all faiths and no faith," says [Cathedral Dean the Very Rev. Sam] Lloyd, echoing Barack Obama's words of two years ago. "Whatever we once were," Obama said then, "we're no longer just a Christian nation. At least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation and a Buddhist nation and a Hindu nation and a nation of nonbelievers."