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There is a temptation to regard Obama’s inauguration as the end of a forty year “wilderness” experience, but symbolism and symmetry can only take us so far. We, as citizens, are going to need to hold Obama accountable.

In a series of short essays, special to Religion Dispatches, religious historians, philosophers, and ethicists celebrate Obama’s place in American history while heeding Dr. King’s continued prophetic challenge for our nation.

King’s reputation and influence suffered in the four years after his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Even Obama, who rides high on a tide of popularity, is not immune to the vagaries of history.

If King could have conceived of this day, with the coincidence of a holiday in his honor and the swearing-in of the first president of African descent, he would surely have marveled. And then he would have set us all to work.

In the journey toward white comprehension of the legacy of racism, consciousness comes slowly. But now is the time for the hard work, the time for what Dr. King called “creative action.”

We no longer have the focus of the civil rights movement or of the great leaders of that time, but we are called, nonetheless, to change our world.

Barack Obama has proven himself a keen thinker, a good organizer, and a person with a moral sensibility that bends toward justice. But what happens to a community organizer from Chicago when he becomes president?

Rev. Richard John Neuhaus broke with the Left and helped, throughout his influential career, to broker allegiances between conservative Protestants and Roman Catholics—especially around hot-button issues like stem-cell research, abortion, and gay marriage.

Perry Moore, ardent Christian and author of Hero, believes that the time has come for the younger generation to supplant the older generation of bigots.

A professor of biology gets clergy on board in the fight against those who would teach biblical creationism in America’s schools, showing that science does not always lead to atheism. Sorry, Dawkins.