But Will It Topple Obama?
Jeremiah Wright Delivers the Knockout Punch
By MIKE WHITNEY
Reverend Jeremiah Wright appeared on PBS Bill Moyers Journal on Friday night and delivered a knockout punch to the bully-boys in the corporate media. Wright showed that he is neither a fanatic nor an “America hater”; just an extremely well-read and principled man with an unshakable commitment to justice. Wright has also paid his dues; he's an ex-Marine who served as a medic in Vietnam when most of his critics were either hiding behind their student deferments or languishing in the "Champagne Unit" of the Texas National Guard.
Rev. Jeremiah Wright:
"And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no. Not God bless America; God damn America!”
No one disputes Wright's summary of US history. His comments have simply been lifted, just to beat up on Barak Obama; everyone knows that. Just like everyone knows that the corporate media destroy political enemies, which means anyone who poses a challenge to America's unelected corporate oligarchy. That's why it is so frustrating to hear people say, "The media is not doing its job."
That's just plain wrong; the media IS doing its job. It's cheerleading the country to war, it is diverting attention from the main political and economic issues of the day, and it is destroying thr system’s political enemies, actual or potential.
What the media try to do by singling out Wright is pretty straightforward. They're trying to create the impression that blacks conceal a deep sense of grievance which expresses itself in rage. This generates feelings of fear among whites which, of course, is all part of the strategy. The message is simple; "blacks are angry, blacks are dangerous" and, oh by the way, Obama is black.
The attack on Wright is that it was set up in a way to make it look like the Reverend — a man whose entire career has been devoted to social justice — is a racist. That took a bit of maneuvering. In fact, the media, and their friends at the right-wing think tanks, had to dig through 15 years of Wright's sermons to find just the right snippets they needed to destroy Obama. Now that's determination!
Race has become one of the dominant issues on the campaign-trail. Obama is no longer just a man running for office; now he's a black man. That's how swift-boating works. Like they say in the Godfather; “It's not personal; it's just business”. The business of personal destruction.
Fortunately, Bill Moyers decided to give Wright a chance to acquit himself before the public. Wright took the opportunity and made the most of it.
Rev. Wright: “God is the giver of life. Let me tell you what that means. That means we have no right to take a life whether as a gang-banger living the thug life, or as a President lying about leading a nation into war. We have no right to take a life! Whether through the immorality of a slave trade, or the immorality of refusing HIV/AIDS money to countries or agencies who do not tow your political line! We have no right to take a life!”
Wright showed that the doctrine he preaches, Black Liberation Theology, is neither discriminatory nor racist as the media has suggested. Rather, it integrates the teachings of Jesus Christ with the real-time struggle for social justice and equality. Compassion is not possible if one does not have a grasp of one's own culture and identity. That's why Wright tries to reconnect his congregation to their roots, so they can be proud of who they are and have more productive lives.
Rev. Wright:
"You know, you come into the average church on a Sunday morning and you think you've stepped from the real world into a fantasy world. And what do I mean by that? Pick up the church bulletin. You leave a world, Vietnam, or today you leave a world, Iraq, over 4,000 dead, American boys and girls, 100,000, 200,000 depending on which count, Iraqi dead. Afghanistan, Darfur, rapes in the Congo, Katrina, Lower Ninth Ward, that's the world you leave. And you come in; you pick up your church bulletin. It says, there is a ladies tea on second Sunday. How come the faith preached in our churches does not relate to the world in which our church members leave at the benediction?”
This is the essence of Black Liberation Theology; how to make sense of the world we live in so the word of Christ can be applied in practice. Wright thinks that faith should be a transforming experience that changes behavior and shapes lives, not just a few hours of prayer every week at Sunday services.
Does that make it “a race-based theology? (as Moyers asks)
Rev. Wright: “No, it is not. It is embracing Christianity without giving up Africanity. ...We're not givin' up who we are as black people to become somebody else...No mas. Nada mas. We're gonna be ourselves. We're gonna be our culture. We're gonna be our history. And we're gonna embrace it and not say one is superior to the other. Because we are different. And different does not mean deficient. We talk about God of diversity? God has diverse culture and we're proud of who we are and that's not a race-based theology.”
Wright has also been skewered in the media for suggesting there may be a connection between American foreign policy and the attacks of 9-11. The media considers any analysis that doesn't square with Bush's crackpot "they hate our freedoms” theory to be either anti-American or outright heresy. In his most famous sermon, Wright elaborates on the "blowback" theme as well as the so-called war on terror:
"We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism! We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism! We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We bombed Gadafi's home and killed his child. "Blessed are they who bash your children's head against a rock!" We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy. Killed hundreds of hard-working people; mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima! We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye! Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians - not soldiers - people just trying to make it day by day. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant? Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yards! America's chickens are coming home to roost! Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism."
America has blood on its hands. America, as Martin Luther King said, "is the greatest perpetrator of violence in the world today." So what else is new?
The media use every soapbox in the country to preach uber-nationalism and vilify America's critics as unpatriotic. That's why the wrath of the media has descended on Obama like a Texas hailstorm; they're afraid he doesn't understand who really runs things in America.
Wright means nothing to the media or to the men behind the curtain. If he didn't provide an avenue for denigrating Obama, he'd be treated with the same indifference as the thousands of other blacks who were herded at gunpoint into the Superdome during Hurricane Katrina. Better buckle up. Obama has entered the crosshairs of America's criminal oligarchy and things are bound to get nasty.
Mike Whitney lives in Washington tate. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney04282008.html
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Factor military duty into criticism
April 3, 2008
In 1961, a young African-American man, after hearing President John F. Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," gave up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and voluntarily joined the Marines.
In 1963, this man, having completed his two years of service in the Marines, volunteered again to become a Navy corpsman. (They provide medical assistance to the Marines as well as to Navy personnel.)
The man did so well in corpsman school that he was the valedictorian and became a cardiopulmonary technician. Not surprisingly, he was assigned to the Navy's premier medical facility, Bethesda Naval Hospital, as a member of the commander in chief's medical team, and helped care for President Lyndon B. Johnson after his 1966 surgery. For his service on the team, which he left in 1967, the White House awarded him three letters of commendation.
What is even more remarkable is that this man entered the Marines and Navy not many years after the two branches began to become integrated.
While this young man was serving six years on active duty, Vice President Dick Cheney, who was born the same year as the Marine/sailor, received five deferments, four for being an undergraduate and graduate student and one for being a prospective father. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both five years younger than the African-American youth, used their student deferments to stay in college until 1968. Both then avoided going on active duty through family connections.
Who is the real patriot? The young man who interrupted his studies to serve his country for six years or our three political leaders who beat the system? Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice something or those who merely talk about their love of the country?
After leaving the service of his country, the young African-American finished his final year of college, entered the seminary, was ordained as a minister, and eventually became pastor of a large church in one of America's biggest cities.
This man is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the retiring pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, who has been in the news for comments he made over the last three decades.
Since these comments became public we have heard criticisms, condemnations, denouncements and rejections of his comments and him.
We've seen on television, in a seemingly endless loop, sound bites of a select few of Rev. Wright's many sermons.
Some of the Wright's comments are inexcusable and inappropriate and should be condemned, but in calling him "unpatriotic," let us not forget that this is a man who gave up six of the most productive years of his life to serve his country.
How many of Wright's detractors, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly to name but a few, volunteered for service, and did so under the often tumultuous circumstances of a newly integrated armed forces and a society in the midst of a civil rights struggle? Not many.
While words do count, so do actions.
Let us not forget that, for whatever Rev. Wright may have said over the last 30 years, he has demonstrated his patriotism.
Lawrence Korb and Ian Moss are, respectively, Navy and Marine Corps veterans. They work at The Center For American Progress. Korb served as assistant secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration.
http://truthabouttrinity.blogspot.com/2008...dation-for.html
Here is the thank you note Wright received from then-President Johnson...
http://bp3.blogger.com/_icmbtAgYu90/R-L19I...-h/File0441.jpg
ABC Defends 'Soft-Spoken,' Patriotic Jeremiah Wright
By Scott Whitlock | April 25, 2008 - 12:57 ET
In an attempt to rehabilitate Jeremiah Wright and, by extension, Senator Barack Obama's connection to the man, Friday's "Good Morning America" featured two segments on the "soft-spoken," patriotic pastor, a man who urged God to damn America. Reporter David Wright, a well-known Obama partisan, described an appearance Pastor Wright made with liberal PBS journalist Bill Moyers. Wright cooed, "But the soft-spoken man who sits down with Bill Moyers couldn't seem more different from that fire-brand preacher we've all seen in those sound bites."
During his segment, the ABC reporter seemed to accept Reverend Wright's contention that he had been smeared by the media. Journalist Wright, no relation to the pastor, asserted, "In the interview, Pastor Wright expresses his horror that the media has made him a bogeyman." As though he were a PR representative, (reporter) Wright mentioned the reverend's military service and spun, "There's plenty in Wright's background that speaks to his patriotism." He argued that some of the pastor's comments were taken out of context, citing the background of Wright's "chickens are coming home to roost" remark. However, the ABC journalist skipped over the incendiary preacher's contention that "the government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color." Was that "soft spoken" falsehood taken "out of context?"
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In a follow-up segment, GMA co-host Diane Sawyer also appeared to be doing her best to rehabilitate Jeremiah Wright's image. Before playing an extraordinarily long one minute and 11 second clip of the Moyers interview, Sawyer set up a template for the need to understand the reverend in a broader context: "'Cause I want to do something different. I want to let a long bite play, so we can really hear him talk, as opposed to the short sound bites and see if it doesn't effect everybody's idea of the total context of the man." Now, first off, it needs to be pointed out that at no time did David Wright or Sawyer mention that Bill Moyers is a committed leftist and former Democratic official in Lyndon Johnson's White House. Secondly, is there anything in the pastor's "total context" that gets past his "God damn America" exclamation or his belief that the United States government is responsible for the HIV virus? Are those ideas "patriotic?"
Continuing the defense of Wright, Sawyer tried to draw a parallel between Senator Obama's preacher and John McCain. She brought up Reverend John Hagee, a minister who has made his own incendiary remarks against Catholics and homosexuals. Sawyer spun, "Let me turn the tables, though, and talk about Reverend John Hagee." A few seconds later she proceeded to ask guest Juan Williams if there was a "great deal of difference" between Obama's situation and McCain. Although Williams did criticize McCain for the Hagee issue, he also stated the obvious: "But it's a big difference of having been [in Wright's congregation] for all those years, which is a matter of judgment on Senator Obama's part."
As has been noted several times on NewsBusters, reporter David Wright has a long history of aggressively defending Barack Obama. Just last week, on April 17, he dismissed the senator's connection to William Ayers, a man involved in domestic terrorism in the '70s, as simply a "neighbor."
A transcript of the April 25 segment, which aired at 7:02am, follows:
7:02am
ROBIN ROBERTS: But we begin with the race to '08 and Reverend Jeremiah Wright's first interview since his comments from the pulpit set off a political firestorm for Barack Obama. ABC's David Wright has the latest from Washington. Good morning, David.
DAVID WRIGHT: Good morning, Robin. This interview comes at a time when Wright's mere association with Obama, has become political dynamite for Obama's enemies. But the soft-spoken man who sits down with Bill Moyers couldn't seem more different from that fire-brand preacher we've all seen in those sound bites. In the interview, Pastor Wright expresses his horror that the media has made him a bogeyman.
JEREMIAH WRIGHT: I felt it was unfair. I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue.
BILL MOYERS: Did you ever imagine that you would come to personify the black anger that so many whites fear?
JEREMIAH WRIGHT: No, I did not.
DAVID WRIGHT: Obama's former pastor says reporters cherry-picked sound bites from his sermon with an eye to defaming him (sic) and by association Obama.
JEREMIAH WRIGHT: The blow up and the blowing up of sermons preached ten, fifteen, seven, six years ago, and now, becoming a media event, again, not the full sermon. But just snippets from the sermon and sound bites, having made me the target of hatred. Yes, that is something very new and something very, very unsettling.
DAVID WRIGHT: He also describes his reaction to Obama's efforts to distance himself.
JEREMIAH WRIGHT: He's a politician. I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences.
DAVID WRIGHT: There's plenty in Wright's background that speaks to his patriotism. He was among the first black U.S. Marines during Vietnam. As a corpsman in 1966, he served on the medical team that cared for President Lyndon Johnson. The White House gave him three letters of commendation. And those controversial sound bites? Some were taken out of context. For instance, after 9/11, he famously preached that the chickens had come home to roost.
JEREMIAH WRIGHT: American's chickens --
DAVID WRIGHT: But as Wright made clear in the sermon, he was quoting President Reagan's former ambassador to Iraq, speaking on Fox News.
JEREMIAH WRIGHT: This is a white man and he was upsetting the Fox News commentators to no end.
DAVID WRIGHT: Wright told Moyers the controversy hasn't been easy.
JEREMIAH WRIGHT: Well, the church members are very upset because they know it's a lie, the things that are being broadcast.
MOYERS: There have been death threats?
JEREMIAH WRIGHT: Yes, there have. Both on myself and on Pastor Moss and bomb threats at the church.
DAVID WRIGHT: Now, the Obama campaign said it had nothing to do with either the content or the timing of Wright's interview. And frankly, they would have preferred to keep off center stage. But he's going to be in the limelight in the coming days. On Sunday, he's at the NAACP. And on Monday, he's speaking to the National Press Club. Diane?
SAWYER: All right, David. Thanks. And as everybody knows, Tuesday, a week, another primary coming up, Indiana and North Carolina. So, how will Reverend Wright's return to the national spotlight affect all this this morning? We drive into the center of the debate with NPR senior political analyst Juan Williams and ABC's longtime political observer Cokie Roberts. Cokie, I'll start with you. Good or bad that Reverend Wright is speaking out now?
COKIE ROBERTS: Oh, nothing good comes of this for Barack Obama. It's an excuse for everybody to play those bites over and over again. And what Reverend Wright said, even though he was defending himself, quite nicely, he said Barack Obama spoke as a politician. That is the last thing Obama wants people to think of him as. He has approached the American people as a pastor-type himself. And he does not -- he does not need this controversy comes back to the fore.
SAWYER: Juan, what do you think?
JUAN WILLIAMS: Well, he just keeps popping up. And I think, just as Cokie said, it doesn't hurt -- it doesn't help Barack Obama. If he really was a Barack Obama supporter, I think he would pull himself off of stage at this point and let Barack Obama and Barack Obama's message of healing and, sort of, post-racial tension, you know, racial unity, come to the fore. Instead, he continues a controversy that really dogs Barack Obama, brings into question exactly, as Cokie said, what was Barack Obama saying in his speech in Philadelphia? Was he simply being politically expedient? Or was he being sincere? All, you don't- If you're with the Barack Obama campaign this morning, you're pulling your hair out. You're-- Oh, my God!
SAWYER: And yet the Republicans said, they're not going to let it go away one way or another.
ROBERTS: Of course not.
SAWYER: And when you listen to the man speak-- let me just play this bite, though, Cokie. 'Cause I want to do something different. I want to let a long bite play, so we can really hear him talk, as opposed to the short sound bites and see if it doesn't effect everybody's idea of the total context of the man. Let's listen.
[Clip from Bill Moyers interview]
JEREMIAH WRIGHT: The persons who have heard the entire sermon understand the communication perfectly. Failure to communicate is when something is taken, like a sound bite, for political purpose, and put constantly over and over again, looped in the face of the public. That's not a failure to communicate. Those who are doing that are communicating exactly what they want to do, which is to paint me as some sort of fanatic. Or as the learned journalist from the New York Times called me, a wack-a-doodle.
BILL MOYERS: What do you think they want to communicate?
WRIGHT: I think they want to communicate that I am unpatriotic, that I'm un-American, that I'm filled with hate speech, that I have a cult at Trinity United Church of Christ. And, by the way, guess who goes to his church. Hint, hint, hint.
MOYERS: In the 20 years since you've been his pastor, have you ever heard him repeat any of your controversial statements as his opinion?
WRIGHT: No, no. No, absolutely not. I don't talk to him about politics. And, so here, at a political event, he goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician. I continue to be a pastor that speaks to the people of God about the things of God.
[clip ends]
SAWYER: So, Juan, I'll ask you. There's a website, I went on it this morning, it's called Truth about Trinity, where you can hear the whole sermon, in which some of these statements are made, or at least longer sections of the sermon. Anything here, that at least reframes a little bit those snippets that have been heard over and over again?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think his man, his demeanor, comes off being as very appealing. You know, but, the thing is, it's always, his claim it's out of context or it's the media that's trying to set him up, there's always a rationalization and explanation. But if you actually look at the snippets for what they are, where he's damning America or talking about KKK of America, or the white government spreading AIDS in America, it's just so unappealing that at some point, you know, it's hard to explain why those kinds of words were coming from his mouth. And then invites the question about Barack Obama's judgment, in sitting there all those years and, you know, being part of that kind of, what he calls by his own admission, he calls divisive hate speech.
SAWYER: Yeah, Cokie?
ROBERTS: And the other thing that's already happened since the snippets of his interview with Bill Moyers has come out, the TV shout-fest are already in full cry. And the people who are defending Reverend Wright, are saying things that are also going to be incendiary to a lot of Americans. So, I think this is all about him and not about Barack Obama.
SAWYER: Let me turn the tables, though, and talk about Reverend John Hagee. As we know, he's someone's endorsement Senator John McCain sought. And this is a pastor who said Hurricane Katrina was the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans, citing a homosexual parade there. And here is what Senator McCain says about that.
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: He's a part of campaigns. But I didn't attend Pastor Hagee's church for 20 years. There's a great deal of difference, in my view, between someone who endorses you and other circumstances.
SAWYER: Juan, a great deal of difference?
WILLIAMS: Well, the big difference is, as Senator McCain says, he wasn't in that congregation. I mean, as Senator McCain, I must say, a guy who once condemned people of like that as agents of intolerance and bigotry, is now trying to appeal to the right. And that's part of his, I think, weakness, his political expediency. But it's a big difference of having been there for all those years, which is a matter of judgment on Senator Obama's part. The problem for Senator McCain going forward, is to make it clear that he's not trying to have it both ways. He's not trying to play a game here. You know, that ad down in North Carolina, Diane, where the Republican Party is twinning Reverend Wright and Senator Obama, and making it out that, that, you know, really, if you support Reverend Wright, then you support candidate Obama. That is really playing on the edge of racial code language. Very dangerous. Senator McCain has said now he condemned it, asked the Republican Party of the state to pull it. But, I think, again, there's a difference between Hagee and Wright. But McCain is trying to, I think, do a very fancy dance. And I don't know if he can do it in this country, given all our racial tensions.
SAWYER: And Cokie, we're out of time, but ten-second close?
ROBERTS: Well, the Republicans or other outside groups are going to use those snippets over and over again, regardless of McCain. And it's going to be harmful to Obama.
SAWYER: All right. Thanks so much for both of you joining us this morning. I want you everybody to know that the Bill Moyers's interview with Reverend Wright airs on PBS tonight at 9:00pm tonight. Check your local listing.
—Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitloc...jeremiah-wright
nspiration Versus Degradation
Posted April 27, 2008 | 12:40 PM (EST)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes our degraded press prefers the prediction to the event itself. I'm talking about Jeremiah
Wright's interview with Bill Moyers. It aired last Friday night and to my mind was one of Bill's best
interviews. Rev. Wright was talking to someone in his own metier. Moyers is also ordained, is a
great speaker and cares deeply about social justice. So it was an equal interviewing an equal -- so
seldom the case on television.
Bill Moyers nevertheless pushed Wright hard, raised all the questions Wright's out-of-context sound
bites have aroused and played lengthy excerpts from his sermons. I was inspired. This is a pastor I'd
listen to on a Sunday instead of namby-pamby Tim Russert or the various screaming clubs on
network TV.
Wright seems utterly sincere to me. He strikes me as having a true spiritual calling. When he says,
"America's chickens have come home to roost," I can't fault his logic. Haven't we been squandering
hard earned taxpayer money on overseas adventures while we starve poor children? Haven't we
been supporting dictators while prating of democracy? Haven't we been enriching profiteers at the
expense of health care and education? You betcha.
A week ago I told my audience in Rome that in the last several years, I've been ashamed to be an
American. A cheer went up from the amphitheater. It was such a relief, audience members later told
me, to hear an American speak the truth for a change.
The Italians may have voted for Silvio Berlusconi, but they don't think George W. Bush and Dick
Cheney have been good for America or the planet. Like most Americans, they would love to see
them gone. So would Italians. Italians love American and feel pain when we slide away from the
great ideals our Constitution and Bill of Rights have given the world.
Italians feel they have a stake in America. It's interesting to hear how thrilled they are by New York.
When I say "sono New Yorkese" (I'm a New Yorker), they are delighted. And they also love LA and
Chicago and Miami. Many Italians commute between New York and Rome, LA and Milan, Miami
and Florence. They can't vote in the US but you'd never know that by how interested they are in
American politics. They love our great 18th century traditions -- sometimes more than we.
So where's the discussion of Jeremiah Wright's real calling? You can't find it. Our idiotic press
prefers to play orphaned excerpts and force Barack Obama to apologize for words he never spoke.
What is this apology stuff? Everyone has to apologize for their pastors, their doctors, their mothers,
their fathers, their churches, their social affiliations. Why? Apologies are cheap. Inspiration is hard
to find.
Just because a man is inspired by his pastor doesn't mean he agrees with every word his pastor says.
Duh. Even a moron knows that. But inspiration remains important. And you will never be inspired by
running stuff out of context and playing gotcha.
Our press has become a sea of triviality, meanness and irrelevant chatter.
God knows inspiration is always welcome. Moyers and Wright gave us that on Friday night.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erica-jong/i...ad_b_98844.html
Responding to Wright controvery, Thomas asks, 'What kind of prophet?'
Written by staff reports
March 17, 2008
The Rev. John H. Thomas, UCC general minister and president, released the following statement on
March 17 on the rhetoric of preaching, in light of recent news coverage of Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.,
and Chicago's Trinity UCC.
What Kind of Prophet?
Reflections on the Rhetoric of Preaching
in Light of Recent News Coverage of Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.
and Trinity United Church of Christ
The Rev. John H. Thomas
General Minister and President
United Church of Christ
Over the weekend members of our church and others have been subjected to the relentless airing of
two or three brief video clips of sermons by the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., pastor of Trinity
United Church of Christ for thirty-six years and, for over half of those years, pastor of Senator
Barack Obama and his family. These video clips, and news stories about them, have been served up
with frenzied and heated commentary by media personalities expressing shock that such language and
sentiments could be uttered from the pulpit.
One is tempted to ask whether these commentators ever listen to the overcharged rhetoric of their
own opinion shows. Even more to the point is to wonder whether they have a working knowledge of
the history of preaching in the United States from the unrelentingly grim language of New England
election day sermons to the fiery rhetoric of the Black church prophetic tradition. Maybe they prefer
the false prophets with their happy homilies in Jeremiah who say to the people: "You shall not see
the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you true peace in this place." To which God
responds, "The prophets are prophesying lies in my name; I did not send them, nor did I command
them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the
deceit of their own minds. . . . By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed," (Jeremiah
14.14-15). The Biblical Jeremiah was coarse and provocative. Faithfulness, not respectability was
the order of the day then. And now?
What's really going on here? First, it may state the obvious to point out that these television and
radio shows have very little interest in Trinity Church or Jeremiah Wright. Those who sifted through
hours of sermons searching for a few lurid phrases and those who have aired them repeatedly have
only one intention. It is to wound a presidential candidate. In the process a congregation that does
exceptional ministry and a pastor who has given his life to shape those ministries is caricatured and
demonized. You don't have to be an Obama supporter to be alarmed at this. Will Clinton's United
Methodist Church be next? Or McCain's Episcopal Church? Wouldn't we have been just as alarmed
had it been Huckabee's Southern Baptist Church, or Romney's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints?
Many of us would prefer to avoid the stark and startling language Pastor Wright used in these clips.
But what was his real crime? He is condemned for using a mild "obscenity" in reference to the
United States. This week we mark the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, a war conceived in
deception and prosecuted in foolish arrogance. Nearly four thousand cherished Americans have
been killed, countless more wounded, and tens of thousands of Iraqis slaughtered. Where is the real
obscenity here? True patriotism requires a degree of self-criticism, even self-judgment that may not
always be easy or genteel. Pastor Wright's judgment may be starker and more sweeping than many
of us are prepared to accept. But is the soul of our nation served any better by the polite prayers and
gentle admonitions that have gone without a real hearing for these five years while the dying and
destruction continues?
We might like to think that racism is a thing of the past, that Martin Luther King's harmonious
multi-racial vision, articulated in his speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 and then struck down
by an assassin's bullet in Memphis in 1968, has somehow been resurrected and now reigns
throughout the land. Significant progress has been made. A black man is a legitimate candidate for
President of the United States. A black woman serves as Secretary of State. The accomplishments
are profound. But on the gritty streets of Chicago's south side where Trinity has planted itself, race
continues to play favorites in failing urban school systems, unresponsive health care systems,
crumbling infrastructure, and meager economic development. Are we to pretend all is well because
much is, in fact, better than it used to be? Is it racist to name the racial divides that continue to afflict
our nation, and to do so loudly? How ironic that a pastor and congregation which, for forty-five
years, has cast its lot with a predominantly white denomination, participating fully in its wider
church life and contributing generously to it, would be accused of racial exclusion and a failure to
reach for racial reconciliation.
The gospel narrative of Palm Sunday's entrance into Jerusalem concludes with the overturning of the
money changers' tables in the Temple courtyard. Here wealth and power and greed were challenged
for the way the poor were oppressed to the point of exclusion from a share in the religious practices
of the Temple. Today we watch as the gap between the obscenely wealthy and the obscenely poor
widens. More and more of our neighbors are relegated to minimal health care or to no health care at
all. Foreclosures destroy families while unscrupulous lenders seek bailouts from regulators who
turned a blind eye to the impending crisis. Should the preacher today respond to this with only a
whisper and a sigh?
Is Pastor Wright to be ridiculed and condemned for refusing to play the court prophet, blessing land
and sovereign while pledging allegiance to our preoccupation with wealth and our fascination with
weapons? In the United Church of Christ we honor diversity. For nearly four centuries we have
respected dissent and have struggled to maintain the freedom of the pulpit. Not every pastor in the
United Church of Christ will want to share Pastor Wright's rhetoric or his politics. Not every
member will rise to shout "Amen!" But I trust we will all struggle in our own way to resist the lure
of respectable religion that seeks to displace evangelical faith. For what this nation needs is not so
much polite piety as the rough and radical word of the prophet calling us to repentance. And, as we
struggle with that ancient calling, I pray we will be shrewd enough to name the hypocrisy of those
who decry the mixing of religion and politics in order to serve their own political ends.
http://www.ucc.org/news/responding-to-wright.html
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