In a rousing three-hour gospel service, 1,400 worshippers praised Gov. Jennifer Granholm as a leader anointed by God to lead the state into a new era of justice and prosperity.
At an inaugural prayer service, preachers compared her to the biblical heroine Esther, a Persian queen who saved her fellow Jews from slaughter.
Granholm may be God’s instrument to help save the state from unemployment, poorly funded schools and other evils, ministers said in the packed service at Renaissance Church of God in Christ, 1001 33rd St. SE.
"Governor, I don’t believe it was an accident. I believe it was the providence of God that you as a modern-day Esther were called to the throne at a time like this," said Bishop Nathaniel Wells II, head of the Church of God in Christ denomination in West Michigan.
The Rev. William Wyne, of Battle Creek, said she may even be a "modern-day Mary of Nazareth, who will give birth to a fresh vision, a fresh hope, a fresh renewal for all people in Michigan."
Granholm afterward shied from the biblical comparisons but asserted faith is part of the solution for Michigan’s ills.
"I know the Esther thing is a metaphor," said Granholm, a Catholic. "But the bottom line is, we’re all in this together, and I think it’s important to set this term on a spiritual foundation."
In the second of three inaugural prayer services marking her re-election, Granholm joined more than 75 clergy at the Southeast Side church pastored by the Rev. Dennis McMurray. He said several hundred worshippers had to be turned away from the service filled with hand-clapping gospel songs and passionate prayers.
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After a closing ceremony in which she was anointed with oil, Granholm said the state works with faith communities on everything from lower-cost prescription drugs to prisoner re-entry programs.
Last week, Dom pointed us to this analysis of a similar event in Boston, and the Globe’s coverage of it. From the second link:
Startled media observers believe that a sudden and intense religious revival may be sweeping through the Boston Globe newsroom. Evidence shows a complete turn-about in the Globe’s reporting of meetings between clergymen and high state officials.
In a startling reversal, the Boston Globe yesterday published an account (ominously entitled ‘Answered Prayer’) of a church meeting between the Massachusetts Governor-elect and a large number of Christian activists and clergymen, some of whom even reportedly oppose same-sex marriage.
Yet in a major departure from their past reporting on the religious inclinations of Massachusetts governors, the Globe’s account is as full of praise as the choir loft. The Globe article also whitewashed over a lack of diversity among those at the meeting. Without skepticism or any note of an impending threat to separation of church and state, Globe reporter Michael Paulsen detailed events that in the recent past would have provoked the Globe newsroom to cynicism or multi-part special reports. But today these behaviors are reported by the newsroom as a blessing. Examples:
They sang. They prayed. They danced at their seats, and they shouted to heaven…"We are here to celebrate the election of one of our own," [said] Bishop Gilbert Thompson…the ministers gathered around the governor-elect, and, eyes closed and heads bowed, placed their hands on his shoulders, a symbolic laying on of hands with which the clergy called on God to bless and strengthen him…"Divine providence has brought you to this point and to this time." [said one Baptist pastor]
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