Posted on 04/30/2008 12:44:17 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
African American ministers in Los Angeles expressed angst and concern Tuesday that a fresh round of comments by Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor was hurting the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign and skewing public understanding of the black church.
In a series of nationally televised appearances over the last few days, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. has defended his controversial remarks as "prophetic theology," and said criticism of him amounted to an attack on the black church.
But most black church leaders and members reached Tuesday disagreed.
"This didn't have anything to do with the black church -- it was basically an attack on the individual message he proclaimed, which hurt some individuals," said the Rev. K.W. Tulloss of Weller Street Missionary Baptist Church in Boyle Heights. "My own members were offended by Rev. Wright's words. His views have cast a wedge between people, and that's the exact opposite of the unity Jesus represented."
Several ministers said the outspoken style of sermonizing known as prophetic preaching was a hallmark not only of the black church but also of the ancient prophets.
The preaching is meant to unsettle the complacent and stir people to action, and that means moving beyond comfortable messages and platitudes, said the Rev. William Epps of Second Baptist Church in Los Angeles.
"Prophets try to hold the larger society accountable to recognizing the abuses caused to the marginalized in society," said Epps, who added that he would not pass judgment on how individual preachers chose to convey their messages.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
"Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a mans enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it." (Matthew 10:34-39
I believe Rev.Wright is selfish and a megalomanic.
You cite well and truly, brother. The only problem is that their position underscores (Ir)rev Wright’s assertion that the black churches are monolithic and unlike any others, most especially those mainly populated with ‘whites’ (which I suppose really means anyone NOT from Africa).
You know, if these leaders keep saying these things and people keep nodding their heads, it’s going to turn out to be true in the end, simply because people started to believe it to be true. After all, the question is simply whether such a concept has been made foundational to faith and practice. In Wright’s case, that is emphatically true. I have seen it to reliably describe the preaching and activity of many other publicity-minded preachers. Does it also reflect the beliefs of ordinary black pastors? That’s the question and it starts to resemble the question posed to ‘moderate’ Muslims: will you now stand up and denounce the extremism of those who presume to speak for how you practice your faith?
If and when they fail to do so, the problem will then be clear but why it came to pass will not: either they silently agreed all along and simply refuse to commit themselves and thus close off any opportunity for gain or they disagree but are cowed into fellow travel.
And then we would have two religious groups in America committed to a false, divisive and militant version of their religion and encouraged to maintain that stance by important spokespeople and powerful politicians. That would be a perilous course to take.
Truly. What can we do to stop that from happening?
If we are true to Constitutional principles, we can do nothing direcly because to try would be to impeach the personal sovereignty every American citizen acquires from the Creator. If they choose to be deluded, we can’t stop them. We can only keep on with what we do now: preach against that kind of madness and pray that the Holy Spirit dwell within them to lead them into Truth, the kind that you cited. I should note that a signal method God employs is to permit irrational beliefs to proliferate. Faith is now often contrasted to Reason, but the Truth is that faith will never sustain if contrary to reason. The time while the deluded have any power will be nasty, to be sure, but if we believe God is sovereign over His creation, then it must pass. We would need the courage to persevere through the persecution.
Part of the whole problem has been a growing impression that humans are capable of divine action: we can destroy the environment or we can perfect it. We can redefine humanity. We can perfect human thought and community. We can increase taxes and cause prosperity. These and every other hubristic notion come up every time people get the impression they’re important on their own account. That happens more frequently than you might think and is the reigning heresy these days.
I can think of only one possible solution to all this: to prevent people of African descent from sociologically walling themselves off. Re-segregation will only permit them to reinforce their interal belief set without the social consequence of thinking something which is fundamentlly untrue and embarrassingly wrong. The issue arises because so many blacks have permitted themselves to be convinced that any criticism is actually an attempt to restore the Man’s control over them. It couldn’t be a friendly effort to aid a reformation. Every social structure, therefore, that excludes blacks simply helps that self-delusion process come to a head and prevents any friendly advice from ever reaching their ears. This is a risky effort, but I believe it is what God wants us to do, if we would really help heal the breach liberals have caused in our society.
Do these people even read the Bible? “My own members were offended by Rev. Wright’s words. His views have cast a wedge between people, and that’s the exact opposite of the unity Jesus represented.”
I think the gentleman was referring to the unity of the body of believers. At least, I hope he was.
Don't forget the organized effort to actually make every division deeper in America. There are those who place themselves in the center of every divide in this country no matter how big or small with expressed purpose of deepening it. Most recently the illegal immigration marches come to mind. They were staged and then the propaganda spread from the same leftist organizers from within the Dem party.
Our first job is to overcome the effect of scolding our population every time someone speaks the word 'communism'. This is nothing more than intimidation of the masses in order to silence any dissent. I don't know who commanded that we call these people 'leftists' but I find it very unhelpful in identifying those who continue to support the downfall of capitalism by infiltration our politics and places of learning.
Is there any doubt that proponents of communism would love to see race relations take a turn for the worse? It is not only feasible that there are individuals with this agenda in some politically involved Churches...I propose that they are in plain sight.
On the contrary. I think he represents the heart of (most) black thinking perfectly.
In America, you cannot be raised in a culture of entitlement and reparations and not have it skew your thinking.
He had Roy on for the first hour addressing the issue of the Rev Wright and the "black church"
Wow did Roy unload of Wright and Obama.
Roy thinks he is a sophist and needs to apologize to the American people and tell the truth.
He denounced the whole notion of blacks having a different religion, being genetically programmed differently from whites and everything that would be as divisive as Wright wants to be.
He also poo-pooed black liberation theology as a mere fringe of the black community
It’s called sharpening the contradictions. It’s how you prime the pump of the dialectic process...
Oh, really, Mr. Epps? That'll come as a surprise to God who, as far as I know, hasn't changed the job description of prophet for a few millenia. But then, maybe He hasn't had a chance to browse your new dictionary and employee handbook to get up to speed.
Wright got caught being a hateful racist bomb thrower.
That made him both angry and embarrassed. Sooooo, he attempted to throw a bunch of bodies in front of him as cannon fodder to protect himself.
"This ain't 'bout me! This is an attack on the Black Church!"
Nope, too many inconvenient truths.
I couldn’t agree more with your amplification of what I wrote.
But for 20 years, Barack Obama was NOT offended by those same words.
That was my first reaction also. Glad we have the Bible to turn to for the real truth of what a prophet does.
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