President Bush made history by being the first president to use the word "mosque" in an inaugural address. But some who watched last weekend's swearing-in ceremony thought the preachers who joined him on the platform spoiled this interfaith leap.

They did so, critics said, by concluding their prayers in the name of "Jesus, the Christ" rather than making a universal reference to God. "We pray this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit," the Rev. Franklin Graham, a nondenominational evangelist, said in closing his invocation. "We respectfully submit this humble prayer in the name that's above all other names, Jesus, the Christ," the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, a United Methodist, said in concluding the ceremony. "Let all who agree say, 'Amen.'"

The Rev. Barry Lynn, a United Church of Christ minister and executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, called the inaugural prayers "inappropriate and insensitive." He noted that Graham's invocation also asked God to give the president and his advisers "the courage to say no to all that is contrary to Your statutes and holy law." Graham was thereby placing God's law above the country's, Lynn said. "In a secular society, that is wrong," he said, adding that Attorney General-designate John D. Ashcroft promised during his Senate confirmation hearings to uphold laws that might conflict with his personal beliefs.

Lynn's greatest concern was for Caldwell's prayer. "It was an astonishing benediction that is highly exclusionary," he said. "It's as if he has created a two-tiered system for Americans: those able to say amen – Christians – and those who can't."

Elliott Abrams, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and head of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, said he doesn't believe clergy should "keep their faith hidden" at public events. And asking Christians to omit any reference to Jesus, he said, "is a rather large demand." But he termed "unfortunate" Caldwell's phrase asking those who agreed that Jesus's name is above all to say "amen." It put non-Christians in the public position of either voicing agreement with a belief they didn't accept or appearing to reject the cooperative spirit of the occasion, said Abrams, a former assistant attorney general and author of "Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America."

Caldwell, in an interview this week from his office in Houston, said it was not his "intent or desire to exclude or offend anyone" and apologized if he had done so. "I was invited by a Christian to offer a prayer," he said. "And as a Christian who revels in the right to express his religious freedom, I chose to pray in that name I always pray in. "If I had to do it over again, I probably would not say, 'All who agree, say Amen,' " he said. "Additionally, I probably would not say 'Jesus, the name that's above all other names.' That truly could be interpreted as inflammatory or offensive."

But Caldwell said he always ends his prayers by acknowledging Jesus and will continue to do so. He made an exception once, when praying at a meeting of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organization.

Graham, on a crusade in Honduras this week, could not be reached for comment. But he told The Washington Post days before the ceremony that he would likely end his prayer the way he always does, in church or in public. "I always pray in the name of Jesus Christ," he said. "I'm a minister of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who I am. What I am."

James Hutson, director of the manuscript division at the Library of Congress and a student of inaugural ceremonies, said his ears "pricked up" when he heard Caldwell's "amen" call. "I was not offended by it. I was wondering whether some of the listeners might be." Hutson, author of "Religion and the Founding of the American Republic" and curator of a 1998 Library of Congress exhibit of the same name, said swearing-in prayers date back only about half a century. Most likely, he said, they were introduced in 1945 at the fourth inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Hutson noted that Bush, a Methodist who spoke openly of his Christian faith during the presidential campaign, followed the tradition of most of his 42 predecessors by invoking the deity in general terms, and not Christian ones, in his inaugural address. "I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity," the president said. "I know this is in our reach because we are guided by a power larger than ourselves who creates us equal in His image."

Hutson and others say Bush is the first president to refer to Islam in an inaugural speech. "Some needs are so deep they will only respond to a mentor's touch or a pastor's prayer," Bush said. "Church and charity, synagogue and mosque lend our communities their humanity, and they will have an honored place in our plans and in our laws."

Bush has made interfaith cooperation a priority in promoting his "faith-based initiative," one of the first items on his agenda as president. Next week, he is expected to outline his plan for empowering organizations to administer social programs and to appoint a White House liaison to direct the effort.

Imam Hassan Qazwini, director of the Islamic Center of America in Detroit, praised the benediction as being "very spiritual, beautiful and [using] conciliatory language." He said he and other Muslims were not surprised or upset by the Christian endings to Graham's and Caldwell's prayers. "We understand that our nation is predominantly Christian," said Qazwini, one of many religious leaders who met with Bush in Austin last month to discuss the proposed faith-based initiative. "But it is not only Christian."

What he'd really like to see, Qazwini said, is representatives of the three major monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – offering prayers at the next inauguration.

Samuel Karff, a rabbi from Houston who gave the benediction at Bush's second inauguration as governor of Texas, believes that clergy invited to pray at public events have to "be true to their conscience."

But there are ways for people of different faiths to "affirm what we share and limit ourselves to what we share" so that no one feels left out, said Karff, who helped lead the National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral on Sunday. He suggested the use of "language that means different things to those who hear it," such as "in Your name we pray" or "in the Lord's name we pray."

It's a practice followed each day by the chaplains of the Senate and House of Representatives. The morning of the inauguration, the Rev. Daniel P. Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest, opened the House session with a prayer that ended: "May You choose us as Your peaceful and powerful instrument in this world because we choose You to be our Lord and God now and forever. Amen." That afternoon, the Rev. Lloyd Ogilvie, an evangelical Presbyterian, prayed at the opening of the Senate. He asked "Almighty God" to give the new president and vice president the "power to lead wisely, the guidance to know and follow Your will." Ogilvie concluded with, "May it be so now, Lord. Amen."