Jeremiah Wright: Giving God the glory and America the blues

I come from a religious tradition where we shout from the sanctuary and march on the picket line! Where we give God the glory and give the devil the blues! — Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Sunday night in Detroit.

The black church in America has long lived between the glory and the blues, between the ecstasy of worship and the exigencies of politics. It is a place concerned with both the sacred and the profane, both a religious and a political institution.

It is for that reason that an ambitious young Barack Obama first sought out Reverend Wright twenty years ago. Obama, the son of a white mother, raised in a white family, graduate of Harvard, was searching for a political base in Chicago’s South Side. He went in search of the black community that he had not grown up in but now wished to identify with. The black church was the place to look for black community and black political power, and Reverend Wright’s church was the biggest and blackest of them all. That was what Obama wanted.

In due course, Reverend Wright led Obama to Jesus Christ, and there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of that spiritual conversion. Many a soul has found Christ while looking for other things. And it is also true that churches sometimes find other things while seeking to serve Christ.

In situations where entire societies live under the political domination of another society, it is not unusual for the church to become not only a vessel of sacred tradition, but also a vessel of cultural transmission, of historical memory, of social service provision and even of political activism. In the Catholic world, such a phenomenon has characterized at various times the experience of the Irish, the Poles and the French-Canadians. The danger for the churches in such situations is that, preoccupied with keeping alive a subjugated nation, they can become tainted by chauvinism and prejudice. The glory of the God is coloured by the blues.

Reverend Wright belongs to such a current in the black American experience. His chauvinism — to say nothing of his theories about racial differences and political conspiracies — is not representative of the whole black experience, nor does it reflect the black church as a whole. To the contrary, it is part of the black church that needs to be purified. Too often the black church has rallied ‘round its own rather than put aside the clowns and crackpots. Tolerance for the excesses of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton makes it possible for Jeremiah Wright to remain too central a figure.

Obama made a mistake in March when he sought to diffuse the impact of Reverend Wright by patronizing him, saying that he was an old man from another time, not to be taken seriously. Wright thundered back this week, presenting himself plainly as who he is, and who he has been all his adult life. It was Obama, he suggested, who was being dishonest, saying only what a politician must say to get elected. That cut at the heart of Obama’s candidacy as the figure of a new politics of integrity and racial harmony. So this week Obama denounced Reverend Wright unambiguously.

Six weeks ago, Obama said that he could no more disown Reverend Wright than he “could disown the black community.” That was to make another mistake, equating the shadow side of the black church with the entire black community. When Obama needed a political base he was willing to overlook the shadow side; as a national leader he was foolish to do so. The shadow side is there for all to see now. The Obama-Wright controversy has brought light to those shadows and to the need for the black church to purify itself of the temptation of the vulgar politics which has corrupted its witness.

Reverend Wright boasts that he speaks as a pastor, and not a politician. It is as a pastor that his words more severely condemn him, for he must know that he is not telling the truth, the first obligation of one who would step into the pulpit. And the truth is that, while giving glory to God, the black church has too often tolerated giving truth, justice and America itself the blues.

It aint over. Wright will probably have more to say.

And, despite his wholly anti-American views, and absolute perversion of Christianity theology, it's good if he can help bring down Obama with him and show them both for what they are.

A source close to the Wright ministry is also talking. Here's what that source said in the New York Post today:

The source noted that the roots of Wright's disillusionment with Obama began last year after the Illinois senator unexpectedly yanked him from participating in the public announcement of his presidential campaign.

"That's why Jeremiah revealed . . . that he had actually been at the [announcement] hotel and prayed privately with the Obama family before the official declaration," the source told The Post.

"Rev. Wright, as well as other senior members of his church, believe that Obama has betrayed over 20 years of their supposed friendship."

Obama further angered Wright by trying to distance himself from the pastor ever since videos were made public earlier this year of the preacher alleging that America brought 9/11 upon itself and that people should say "God damn America," not "God bless America."

The source added, "After 20 years of loving Barack like he is one of their own, after he was embraced by this congregation as a brother in Christ, after his pastor was a father figure to him and gave him credibility in a city he had not grown up in and in a black community that was suspect of someone from Hawaii and Harvard, he thanks him by not allowing him to speak publicly at his announcement last year?

"A lot of people in the church believe they were there for this man when no one else was, and a lot of people don't believe it any more when Obama claims he loves the man who did so much for him," the source added.

Whole lot of chickens...coming home to roost.

Not the least of which is Obama's character (because Wright is saying that Obama did know about exactly who Wright was and therfore Obama lied to us all)...and also Obama's judgement in this whole matter and in the matter of Ayers, Rezko, etc.

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH - BLACK LIBERATION THEOLOGY AND OBAMA'S CHURCH

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH - OBAMA'S CIRCLE OF FRIENDS AND SUPPORT

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH - BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA

it is not unusual for the church to become not only a vessel of sacred tradition, but also a vessel of cultural transmission,

One element of Black "culture" being transmitted in the person of Wright himself is the opportunistic black con-man who preys on his own brothers, appealing to racial kinship and loyalty, and unity against the White Man, to squelch skepticism, distrust, or criticism.

Such predators are well-known in the black community but often end up very wealthy never the less.

Listening to his drivel - about black children not being able to sit at their desk and learn because of their different brains and learning styles, about blacks not being down with precision marching but were more random, plus a bunch of other stuff he said that excused underachieving - was not nearly as disturbing as hearing the audience cheering him on.

They are so determined to be 'not white' that they're dooming their kids to loserhood. The message is don't study, don't achieve, don't conform, don't follow orders because that's "white".

And as a result their children will be undisciplined, uneducated, arrogant as hell, and POOR. And they are wishing this on the next generation.

I just don't get it, but then my confusion is just a white thang, I guess.

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