Where Jeremiah’s Right

We’ll see how many friends this post costs me …

I didn’t necessarily want to jump into this issue, for several reasons. First of all, I’ve made my position on Sen. Barack Obama as a Presidential candidate pretty clear, I think. My main choices are either to side with a candidate I dislike, or join the cacophony from the Right. Also, frankly, I thought that this was going to go on my list of issues about which no one cares.

Like Mike Huckabee’s “floating cross” and Mitt Romney’s grandfather’s polygamy, I expected this to make noise for a couple days and then go away. I was wrong, and so I’m going to jump in on the issue.

A few other things have happened, as well.  One was a post by the left-leaning blogger Kip at “Hamartia, Catastrophe, and Catharsis.” Another was a post by John Shore at “Suddenly Christian.”

To cap it off, I heard a small part of Sean Hannity’s show today, with a guest host whose name I didn’t catch. He managed to cram epic levels of stupidity into the few minutes that I heard, and drive me to comment on this issue. I will get back to that.

Let me say, first of all, that I do not claim to be an expert on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the Trinity United Church of Christ, “black theology,” or any of the attendant issues. I have studied some of liberation theology, but fall well short of being an expert.

First of all, what I keep hearing is the quote that Rev. Wright said (as Hannity quotes it) “G D America.”

This has bothered me all along, and I thought about mentioning it before … now, I will. Most often, the “G D” is a refernce to a particular vulgarity that is devoid of particular spiritual meaning. Most people aren’t really speculating about the eternal fate of their broken-down cars, heating bills, or such.

Rev. Wright, though, wasn’t taking God’s Name in vain. He was making a particular Biblical point. Kip did a very good job with this one, and I have little to add. According to ABC, the quote (with slightly more context) is:

“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, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” he said in a 2003 sermon. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

The man has a point. I think he’s off his rocker about the government giving out drugs, but he has a point about the rest.  The fact is, many Americans are perfectly willing to look at those who are poor as worthless, as subhuman. Some of us aren’t overly concerned about whether people in ghettos and slums die, as long as they don’t bother our nice, comfortable suburbs. Some of us view some of our fellow Americans as less than human, just as Rev. Wright said.

Is the statement strongly worded? Absolutely. Is it tactless? Maybe. Is it wrong? Not necessarily. Bear in mind that my standard for truth is the Bible. Repeatedly, through the Old and New Testaments, we are told to love each other, and that any people or nation which doesn’t obey that command is in peril. Prophets, by the way, are not obligated to speak tactfully. One might well accuse the prophet Hosea, for example, of being anti-Israel. Amos certainly was. But that’s because they were speaking the truth, whether the people liked it or not. I don’t see any real hate-speech in his refusal to sing “God Bless America” and his remark that God is more likely to damn America. He raises a real and Biblical issue.

Frankly, the fact that a lot of professing Christians can’t tell the difference between “goddamn” as a profanity and “God damn” as a real statement of judgment should give us pause.

Apparently, a number of conservatives are now gloating that the IRS might be taking an interest in Trinity UCC because of speeches given by Rev. Wright. Not too long ago, conservatives hated that the IRS had been given a trump card over free speech by means of the tax code. I guess that wasn’t a principled position, so much as one taken because it was the Right being hit.

I maintain my belief that this is a strong argument for the Fair Tax … that there won’t be an IRS around to police the speech from pulpits.  But that’s another issue for a different day, I suppose. My point about consistency, though, remains. This has become one of those issues that ceases to be based in principles and has become based on people. Obama is one of the “bad” people, and Wright is surely even farther to the “bad.” So, we’re supposed to like anything that happens to them, even if we said such things were wrong when they were happening to “good” people.

Of course, there are other criticisms of Rev. Wright. While they are interesting fodder for conversation, I don’t see in them the blasphemy that we’re told they are. Taking from NewsMax (yes, I check NewsMax sometimes), Ronald Kessler wrote back in January:

In sermons and interviews, Dr. Wright has equated Zionism with racism and Israel with South Africa under its previous policy of apartheid. On the Sunday after 9/11, Wright said the attacks were a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later, Wright suggested that the attacks were retribution for America’s racism.

Actually, I can see that criticism of Israel. Israel has permitted the destruction of Palestinians’ orchards, homes, and anything else in their way. We can argue the facts of it — which I’m not doing now — but it’s a legitimate issue. I might add that Ron Paul, presumably not a white-hating anti-American, said just about the same thing about 9/11. There is a certain amount of truth in it, too. While we like to think that the US is perfect and blameless, we have done and supported some pretty terrible things.

“In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” Wright wrote in a church-affiliated magazine. “White America and the western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.”

I think he’s wrong … 9/11 really had nothing to do with black concerns, since the attackers weren’t black. Still, a lot of people are wrong about a lot of things, and it doesn’t make them evil.

In one of his sermons, Wright said, “Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!…We [in the U.S.] believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.”

I agree with him, more or less. Americans are not a particularly devout people. And there are a lot of people who will explain that the income disparity between African Americans and whites is simply caused by different cultures and education levels … not considering the starting point of most of those people. Deliberately ignoring the fact that racism — whether past or ongoing — leaves lasting marks on the society does seem to show a belief in inherent inferiority.

As for Israel, “The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now,” Wright has said. “Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community and wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.”

I wonder whether Kessler has looked into the situation with Palestinians. If so, then he might have to agree with Rev. Wright. Christian Palestinians would tell stories running right along the same theme as what Wright said in that quote.

Moving back to Hannity’s guest host … if I heard the guy correctly, he told a caller that he’s a church-goer, but that he just never makes it. Funny … that would seem to make him a church-not-goer. Oh, well …

The caller to whom he was speaking seemed to be talking about Joel Osteen, the Martin Short lookalike whose sermons have the spiritual depth of a kiddie pool and avoid such topics as sin and redemption. It was actually a feat of willpower that I listened.

Anyway … this guest host remarked that he doesn’t understand why a preacher would be talking about foreign policy in a sermon. I was really jaw-dropped at that comment. Ministers should, actually, be speaking directly to issues.  That a guest host on Sean Hannity’s radio show thinks otherwise is part of why I think that Christians need to take a good, long look at our relationship with the secular Republican Party. This guy was spouting nonsense that I’d expect from the most rabid liberal … that church and government are two separate entities and should stay that way, with neither speaking to the other.

Of course pastors should be talking about government policy! They should be presenting right and wrong, whether the issue is abortion or supporting prison labor in China, gay marriage or prenatal care, TV decency standards or waterboarding.

I could go on and on about this topic. I could also begin listing my criticisms and concerns about Rev. Wright, but I don’t particularly want to do that. I think that there is a lot less evil in his theology than is being presented. Probably the biggest “sin” he has committed is challenging the idolatry of America. That is one that will not be forgiven quickly by the Republicans, be they religious or secular. It isn’t one, though, that should bother Christians.

So, Rev. Wright is a bit radical. If that bothers us, though, then maybe the real problem isn’t his radicalism. It might be our complacency.

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