I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but I finally watched the videos that President Obama and Governor Romney made addressing questions from the Circle of Protection on what they are/will be doing to help the poorest citizens of the United States.
I'll confess that I decided who I'm voting for a while back, and so I do watch these videos through something of a biased lens.
That being said, I wasn't terribly impressed with either of the candidates' responses. There was little more than the talking points of their respective campaigns, with a little more faith lingo and less attacking built in.
I can understand why both these men would choose to give such bland responses. They're in the midst of a very close race, and both are by nature cautious and eager to avoid any missteps that could be used against them.
The sad reality is that poverty is not an issue that gets a whole lot of traction in our political discourse. Even in a time when more and more people in our country are finding themselves in poverty, the issue does little to "move the needle" in opinion polls other than when it is used as a talking point about deficit reduction.
While I believe that government does have a role to play in alleviating poverty, since government is one avenue for us to express our values and commitments as a society, the church, nonprofit, and individuals also have an important role to play, because those avenues facilitate relationship building and not just the allocation of resources.
I won't be holding my breath for these or any presidential candidates in the near future to have much of substance to say on poverty, but I am glad that groups like Sojourners and Circle of Protection keep our elected officials feet "to the fire". Perhaps our collective efforts will one day truly sink in and meaningful, effective policy reform will happen.
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Monday, March 16, 2009
The Latest "End Times" Scare
Warning: a rant is about to ensue:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
It seems that due to one of the sillier accusations lobbed at Barack Obama during the campaign, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jones have been dragged out of the moth balls to once again repeat their tired interpretations of the apocalyptic texts of the Bible as if they were somehow new or relevant.
There are a number of ways that one could critique what these guys are saying. One way would be to point out how radically inconsistent is their application of scripture, especially since their entire argument rests on a "literal" (a concept we can and should spend some time deconstructing) reading of the Bible. One could also dismiss them entirely based on their extreme ignorance of any political categories. Please, someone ask them to define socialism!
But today I feel like picking their argument apart on the grounds that they're not saying anything that hasn't been said in regarding Dispensationalist eschatology (their particular brand of road-map for the end of the world) for at least thirty years.
That by itself isn't necessarily a bad thing because it could be seen as evidence of consistency and faithfulness to their doctrinal system. The problem, however, is that they keep pointing to current events as evidence that the Rapture (an interepretation of 1 Thessalonians 4:12 that was invented in the early nineteenth century by an Irishman named John Nelson Darby) is just around the corner.
Hal Lindsey has been doing this same kind of thing ever since he published The Late, Great Planet Earth over thirty years ago. LaHaye and Jenkins have taken advantage of that same fear and fascination with Nostradamus-type prophecies of calamity and leveraged it for immense profit. The activities of the Soviet Union were "evidence" that the Rapture would happen next Thursday. When the Soviet Union collapsed, that was "proof". So was the first Gulf War. So was Y2K. So is every incident of Arab-Israeli violence that comes up in the news.
(Sidenote: the fascination with Soviet-Arab relations stems from a very wacky reading of Ezekiel 38-39)
The latest excuse to dreg these guys up was the attempt to scare religious voters in 2008 by not to subtly suggesting that Barack Obama was the Antichrist. LaHaye and Jenkins wisely backed away from that particular accusation, but they weren't shy about selling their ideas or their many products.
I really like Rachel Maddow because she's pretty much the only pundit who is respectful of all viewpoints while being unapologetic about her own. She's a Rhodes Scholar and an Oxford PhD, so she knows that of which she speaks! Her interview with LaHaye and Jenkins is posted above.
It's easy to simply dismiss these guys as hucksters and mindless ideologues. They clearly are, but their book sales and a number of surveys have shown that a lot of people believe what they're saying, even though they don't bother to open the Bible and see if any of it makes sense (it doesn't).
We would all do well to remember that Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' books are in the fiction section of the bookstore for a reason. If you want to know what's actually going on in the world, pick up a newspaper.
OK, my ranting is done. Everybody have a good Monday.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Thoughts on Transition
I'm writing this post just as President Obama has finished his inaugural address. There aren't too many folks who didn't stop to watch and or listen to this historic moment.
At this moment when we're looking forward hopefully to all that President Obama will do, many are also taking time to reflect (and some to argue) on the presidency of George W. Bush. Many of my colleagues in the clergy are inclined to defend Mr. Bush, if for no other reason than the fact that he wears his Christianity on his sleeve and so comfortably tosses around many "Christian" buzz-words.
Personally I think that while President Bush is probably a very good man, he was a very bad President. I disagreed with a number of his policies, but ultimately that's not why he was a bad President. George W. Bush was a bad President because he never stopped to ask if what he was doing was right.
In his farewell address the other night, President Bush illustrated his highly dualistic view of the world when he said "good and evil are present in this world, and between the two of them there can be no compromise". This is a wonderful theological statement but it can't serve as a governing principle in a world that is infinitely more complex than he was willing to admit.
President Bush always assumed that what he was doing was good and that those who opposed him were on the side of evil. He demonstrated this view time and time again, beginning after 9/11 when he told foreign governments that they were either "with us or against us". He never asked if the things his administration was doing were good or evil because he assumed that he was right and that the ends justified the means. It never occurred to him that one could do evil in the pursuit of good. This lack of curiosity and reflection was what made George W. Bush a bad President.
President Obama has demonstrated that he is a very reflective person with tremendous curiosity about what we are doing and why we are doing it. He believes in good and evil, but he does not assume that any nation or even any person can fall completely into one category or another.
He illustrated this in his inaugural address when he said, "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our values". This is not a man who sees the world as black and white (in all the different senses of the term), even though he believes in right and wrong. He is able to see the "both/and" possibilities without being overly relativistic.
Regardless of our political affiliations, I hope we can all be happy that we now have a President who asks difficult questions of himself and those around him and who doesn't automatically assume that he is always right and that the ends always justify the means.
Best wishes, Mr. President. Our prayers are with you.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Review: The Faith of Barack Obama
Stephen Mansfield’s The Faith of Barack Obama, like his earlier works on George W. Bush and The American Soldier, respectively, seeks to provide a short, accessible theological biography of an important figure in modern American history. Much treatment, scholarly and otherwise, has been given to Obama’s racial background, his educational influences, and his early political career in Chicago. But very little serious treatment (i.e. not scare-tactic propaganda) has been given to his faith background.
Mansfield attempts, and largely succeeds in, examining Obama’s varied religious influences in as objective a manner as possible. His first chapter explores Obama’s childhood being raised by his mother and grandparents who, while being more or less agnostic themselves, nevertheless respected the value of religion in others’ lives and exposed young Barack to a variety of religious traditions. Mansfield also dives into Obama’s time living in Indonesia with his step-father, where he attended a secular school and learned about Islam as a civil religion, much the way children in the United States are exposed to aspects of Christianity as a civil religion. Mansfield does a very skillful job in refuting the largely discredited charge that Obama is a Muslim, since he left Indonesia before reaching the age when young men would choose to embrace the faith for themselves.
Perhaps the most valuable part in the entire book is the chapter where Mansfield explores the influence of the black church, and specifically of Jeremiah Wright, on Obama’s faith development. Trinity United Church of Christ, where Obama attended for more than two decades, was uniquely able to nurture Obama’s faith journey because of its deep commitment to political activism and social justice- concerns Obama shared when he came to the church. As for Wright, Mansfield paints a very nuanced picture of him as a man of his generation, shaped by the struggle for civil rights, harboring deep suspicion of the government because of grave injustices like the Tuskegee experiments, and greatly influenced by the rise of the Black Liberation Theology of James Cone. Obama is a man of a different generation that, sharing the same concerns of their predecessors and carrying on their struggle, is not as angry and thus more able to gain acceptance in white society. Mansfield sums up the influence of Wright on Obama by saying, “To be a member of a church is not necessarily to descend into mindlessness, and a mind as fine as Obama’s is less likely to accept ideas unexamined than most.” (pg. 67)
The journalistic skill and subtlety with which Mansfield examines Obama’s background makes most of the book excellent reading. It is also what makes one particular chapter, “Four Faces of Faith” so disappointing. This chapter feels extremely out of place and makes this reader wonder if it is something of a last minute addition to the book. In it, Mansfield takes the four most prominent figures of the 2008 election cycle, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama, and paints a picture of them as representatives of the different approaches to faith, largely defined by generational identity, in America today. (The book probably went to press before the sudden arrival of Gov. Sarah Palin on the national stage, and it would be interesting to see how Mansfield would incorporate her into this chapter).
It’s not that this chapter is not written without the usual research and insight that Mansfield generally brings to his subjects, or that the chapter contains a gross amount of political bias (even though one does sense that Mr. Mansfield was a strong McCain supporter). This chapter is disappointing because it does very little to give us a picture of who Barack Obama is as a religious person in the way the rest of the book does so skillfully. This material would have been better suited as a long form feature article, or as preparatory material for books on the faiths of Hillary Clinton and John McCain, respectively (books I’d quite like to read).
This particularly unfortunate and out-of-place chapter aside, The Faith of Barack Obama is an excellent book. Mansfield closes by suggesting that, as a representative of his generation, Barack Obama will be a transformative figure as coming generations move past old divisions and conflicts and form a new mold of racial and religious identity.
(Sidenote- Mansfield heavily references Obama’s books Dreams from My Father, and The Audacity of Hope, which many readers will want to pick up after reading The Faith of Barack Obama if they have not already. These books are also well written and worth your time.)
This is the first review I'm doing as part of a blog ring for Thomas Nelson Publishers. I was provided a free copy of the book in exchange for a review on my site.
Mansfield attempts, and largely succeeds in, examining Obama’s varied religious influences in as objective a manner as possible. His first chapter explores Obama’s childhood being raised by his mother and grandparents who, while being more or less agnostic themselves, nevertheless respected the value of religion in others’ lives and exposed young Barack to a variety of religious traditions. Mansfield also dives into Obama’s time living in Indonesia with his step-father, where he attended a secular school and learned about Islam as a civil religion, much the way children in the United States are exposed to aspects of Christianity as a civil religion. Mansfield does a very skillful job in refuting the largely discredited charge that Obama is a Muslim, since he left Indonesia before reaching the age when young men would choose to embrace the faith for themselves.
Perhaps the most valuable part in the entire book is the chapter where Mansfield explores the influence of the black church, and specifically of Jeremiah Wright, on Obama’s faith development. Trinity United Church of Christ, where Obama attended for more than two decades, was uniquely able to nurture Obama’s faith journey because of its deep commitment to political activism and social justice- concerns Obama shared when he came to the church. As for Wright, Mansfield paints a very nuanced picture of him as a man of his generation, shaped by the struggle for civil rights, harboring deep suspicion of the government because of grave injustices like the Tuskegee experiments, and greatly influenced by the rise of the Black Liberation Theology of James Cone. Obama is a man of a different generation that, sharing the same concerns of their predecessors and carrying on their struggle, is not as angry and thus more able to gain acceptance in white society. Mansfield sums up the influence of Wright on Obama by saying, “To be a member of a church is not necessarily to descend into mindlessness, and a mind as fine as Obama’s is less likely to accept ideas unexamined than most.” (pg. 67)
The journalistic skill and subtlety with which Mansfield examines Obama’s background makes most of the book excellent reading. It is also what makes one particular chapter, “Four Faces of Faith” so disappointing. This chapter feels extremely out of place and makes this reader wonder if it is something of a last minute addition to the book. In it, Mansfield takes the four most prominent figures of the 2008 election cycle, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama, and paints a picture of them as representatives of the different approaches to faith, largely defined by generational identity, in America today. (The book probably went to press before the sudden arrival of Gov. Sarah Palin on the national stage, and it would be interesting to see how Mansfield would incorporate her into this chapter).
It’s not that this chapter is not written without the usual research and insight that Mansfield generally brings to his subjects, or that the chapter contains a gross amount of political bias (even though one does sense that Mr. Mansfield was a strong McCain supporter). This chapter is disappointing because it does very little to give us a picture of who Barack Obama is as a religious person in the way the rest of the book does so skillfully. This material would have been better suited as a long form feature article, or as preparatory material for books on the faiths of Hillary Clinton and John McCain, respectively (books I’d quite like to read).
This particularly unfortunate and out-of-place chapter aside, The Faith of Barack Obama is an excellent book. Mansfield closes by suggesting that, as a representative of his generation, Barack Obama will be a transformative figure as coming generations move past old divisions and conflicts and form a new mold of racial and religious identity.
(Sidenote- Mansfield heavily references Obama’s books Dreams from My Father, and The Audacity of Hope, which many readers will want to pick up after reading The Faith of Barack Obama if they have not already. These books are also well written and worth your time.)
This is the first review I'm doing as part of a blog ring for Thomas Nelson Publishers. I was provided a free copy of the book in exchange for a review on my site.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
"Spreading the Wealth"?
This year's Presidential election (which has lasted the better part of two years and is, blessedly, almost over) has had its fare share of sound-bytes and applause lines from all sides. Most of these are distortions of facts, half truths, and outright lies. As a Christian who strives to know the truth it bugs me whenever any candidate resorts to these tactics, even though my candidate for whom I voted has used them to great effect.
One of these sound-bytes that has emerged as a theme in the last few weeks has been the phrase "spread the wealth". The phrase was used in Barak Obama's now infamous exchange with "Joe the Plumber" regarding Sen. Obama's tax proposals. The Republican establishment, particularly Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin, have picked up on this phrase and used it as evidence that Sen. Obama is a socialist. (According to the Socialist Party USA, Sen. Obama is not a socialist, but that is beside the point)
There's nothing wrong with being against socialism. Redistribution of wealth through tax policies is a complex and controversial issue that deserves a fairer treatment that can be given here. The bald hypocrisy of this sound-byte lies not in the opposition to socialism as a political and economic philosophy, but in the fact that this line has become a favorite of the Religious Right.
James Dobson, leader of Focus on the Family, recently published a letter entitled "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America", in which he uses the "spread the wealth" line (the bulk of the letter is devoted to hate speech against persons of non-heterosexual orientations).
Mr. Dobson is a hypocrite for using this line of attack. He opposes "spreading the wealth", and yet he frequently argues for returning to "biblical values", particularly advocating that the church return to the ecclesiological model laid out in Acts 2. But Acts 2 describes the earliest Christians sharing their wealth with one another. In fact, there are many people who describe Acts 2 as the basis for what they call "Christian Socialism"!
In Acts 2:44-45, the author describes how the Jerusalem Church shared their wealth from the beginning:
All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.
If Mr. Dobson is, as he frequently claims, committed to a "biblical model" and an "Acts 2 Church", then why does he use the phrase "spread the wealth" as a negative attack against a presidential candidate?
The answer is simple. He uses certain Bible verses as a means to an end to support his conservative philosophy. His loyalty is to these conservative principles, and particularly to the Republican Party, first and foremost. Christianity is a means to an end for him, not the end unto itself.
James Dobson is grammatically correct when he calls himself a "Conservative Christian". "Conservative" is the adjective, dictating how the noun "Christian" behaves.
He is lying, however, when he claims that he is a biblical literalist, because if he truly was, he would not be so opposed to "spreading the wealth".
Friday, September 12, 2008
An Open Letter to Governor Sarah Palin
Dear Governor Palin,
First of all, congratulations on your nomination for Vice President. Your candidacy is truly historic.
But as glad as I am that your candidacy represents the great steps toward gender equality that our society is making, some of your recent statements give me cause for concern. OK, I’ll be honest. Some of your recent statements flat out scare me.
In your recent interview with Charles Gibson, he asked you about your view of your fitness to be Vice President. This is an especially important question given the age and previous health problems of Senator McCain. To his question, you said, “You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on — reform of this country and victory in the war. You can't blink. So I didn't blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.”
I find this disturbing given the practices of the administration you are seeking to replace. President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, and those who serve them have demonstrated their “commitment to the mission” (to use your words) of preventing any future terrorist attacks on this country that they have authorized the invasion of a country that posed little threat to us based on evidence that we now know to be flimsy and intentionally misleading. In their “commitment to the mission” they have authorized torture on individuals to extract information, something which you as a Christian should oppose.
I appreciate and celebrate your commitment to keeping our country safe, but “not blinking” seems to suggest that you will continue the policies of the current administration, and not bring the change that you and Senator McCain are promising.
If you aspire to be one of the leaders of this nation I would hope that you would want to be a moral leader, as well. A true moral leader holds themselves to the highest standards in how they treat all people, especially those to whom they owe nothing. A true moral leader asks difficult questions of themselves and those that follow them to make sure that they are, indeed, doing unto “the least of these” as they would to Jesus Christ himself. A true moral leader considers the complexities of the issues they face and thinks through their decisions before committing to a course of action.
If what I have just described is what you consider “blinking”, then I hope you, Senator McCain, Senator Obama, Senator Biden, or whomever else may sit in the Oval Office will “blink” and think through their decisions in a timely manner befitting the seriousness of their duties and respecting those whom they serve.
Sincerely,
Rev. Matthew L. Kelley
First of all, congratulations on your nomination for Vice President. Your candidacy is truly historic.
But as glad as I am that your candidacy represents the great steps toward gender equality that our society is making, some of your recent statements give me cause for concern. OK, I’ll be honest. Some of your recent statements flat out scare me.
In your recent interview with Charles Gibson, he asked you about your view of your fitness to be Vice President. This is an especially important question given the age and previous health problems of Senator McCain. To his question, you said, “You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on — reform of this country and victory in the war. You can't blink. So I didn't blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.”
I find this disturbing given the practices of the administration you are seeking to replace. President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, and those who serve them have demonstrated their “commitment to the mission” (to use your words) of preventing any future terrorist attacks on this country that they have authorized the invasion of a country that posed little threat to us based on evidence that we now know to be flimsy and intentionally misleading. In their “commitment to the mission” they have authorized torture on individuals to extract information, something which you as a Christian should oppose.
I appreciate and celebrate your commitment to keeping our country safe, but “not blinking” seems to suggest that you will continue the policies of the current administration, and not bring the change that you and Senator McCain are promising.
If you aspire to be one of the leaders of this nation I would hope that you would want to be a moral leader, as well. A true moral leader holds themselves to the highest standards in how they treat all people, especially those to whom they owe nothing. A true moral leader asks difficult questions of themselves and those that follow them to make sure that they are, indeed, doing unto “the least of these” as they would to Jesus Christ himself. A true moral leader considers the complexities of the issues they face and thinks through their decisions before committing to a course of action.
If what I have just described is what you consider “blinking”, then I hope you, Senator McCain, Senator Obama, Senator Biden, or whomever else may sit in the Oval Office will “blink” and think through their decisions in a timely manner befitting the seriousness of their duties and respecting those whom they serve.
Sincerely,
Rev. Matthew L. Kelley
Monday, June 02, 2008
Obama and his church
We found out this weekend that Barack Obama has resigned his long time membership at Trinity UCC in Chicago after his affiliation with the congregation has caused him one too many political headaches. It’s a sad ending to what from the beginning has been a very sad and unfortunate story.
Before I go on, a disclaimer is in order. I am no expert in the Black Church. I’m a white, suburban male who has not spent a significant amount of time worshipping in the Black Church (a term which is itself far too generalized). While I don’t have much firsthand experience in these issues, I have a number of friends, colleagues, and teachers who do. I was very fortunate to have friends and professors in seminary who were raised in and are active in the Black Church and can talk about these issues on intellectual, spiritual, and emotional levels. My view on the whole situation with Obama and Rev. Wright is largely formed by what I have learned from them, so take my views for what they’re worth.
I first heard of Jeremiah Wright several years ago when I heard audio of some of his sermons in a preaching class. Of the half dozen or so sermons I heard in their entirety (and many other short clips), I’d say 90% of the time he wasn’t yelling the way we’ve seen in those sound-bites that have been ripped out of context and run in endless loops on cable news channels. Rev. Wright actually has a very rhythmic, mesmerizing speaking style that almost makes you forget how good of a biblical and theological scholar he is. He puts forth a tremendous amount of substance in a very attractive speaking style.
That being said, he does yell and speak off the cuff in the heat of the moment, as do many African American preachers. And as happens sometimes when preachers go off script, he says things that, in retrospect, he wishes he might not have said. No one who preaches regularly, myself included, wouldn’t take back some of their impromptu comments if given the chance.
But even more important than the realities of the occasional gaffes that are part of public speaking is the tradition of prophetic speech in the Black Church. From what I’ve read and what I’ve been told by friends and teachers, the church occupies a very different place in African American culture than it does in the Caucasian culture in which I was raised. The difference is chiefly in terms of empowerment. White, educated, reasonably affluent people have a plethora of venues in which we feel safe to express our hopes, dreams, frustrations, and general opinions. We’re on top socially and economically, so we have the tremendous privilege of being heard whenever and wherever we want. As the great philosopher Homer Simpson said, “I’m a white male aged 18 to 45. Everyone cares what I think!”
This is largely not the case in the African American community. In the average white church you can find business leaders, civic leaders, and other people with tremendous influence in society at large. In the Black Church there is a tremendous sense of disenfranchisement, and the church is one of the few places where African Americans feel truly free to voice the frustration and anger that comes from this sense. As the spokesperson for the community, the preacher has the opportunity (some would even say the obligation) to give voice to these frustrations. So when Jeremiah Wright or another African American preacher yells about oppression they are not just giving voice to their feelings, but to those of their whole congregation. Is it any wonder that the congregation roars back? It’s cathartic!
So it’s simultaneously unfortunately and unsurprising that the media has jumped all over the whole Jeremiah Wright story. Some say that it’s indicative of the latent racism in America’s white majority culture. I think that’s true insofar as it demonstrates our willful ignorance of how important the church is as an institution in African American culture. But the main reason the story has been so big is simply the reality of a 24 hour media culture. Broadcast media is big business, and most of it is controlled by corporations whose singular goal is to keep their stock price high. Clips like the ones of Jeremiah Wright yelling seemingly anti-American sentiments from the pulpit grab people’s attention and can keep it for a period of time, enabling CNN, MSNBC, and Faux News to charge higher ad rates.
Barack Obama is a major player in a game whose rules he did not make, and to win he has to pick his battles carefully. I believe him when he says this was a painful decision for him, and that he felt it was the right thing to do. And neither I nor anyone else can say if the pain he has caused himself and others by leaving the church will be outweighed by the good he might be able to do as President. That will be for historians to judge long after all of us are gone. In the meantime all we can do is pray for him (and John McCain, and Hilary Clinton, and George W. Bush) as he faces many difficult decisions in the days ahead. I hope he will be able to find a place to worship where he is welcomed and treated not as a symbol for one cause or another, but as a beloved child of God.
Before I go on, a disclaimer is in order. I am no expert in the Black Church. I’m a white, suburban male who has not spent a significant amount of time worshipping in the Black Church (a term which is itself far too generalized). While I don’t have much firsthand experience in these issues, I have a number of friends, colleagues, and teachers who do. I was very fortunate to have friends and professors in seminary who were raised in and are active in the Black Church and can talk about these issues on intellectual, spiritual, and emotional levels. My view on the whole situation with Obama and Rev. Wright is largely formed by what I have learned from them, so take my views for what they’re worth.
I first heard of Jeremiah Wright several years ago when I heard audio of some of his sermons in a preaching class. Of the half dozen or so sermons I heard in their entirety (and many other short clips), I’d say 90% of the time he wasn’t yelling the way we’ve seen in those sound-bites that have been ripped out of context and run in endless loops on cable news channels. Rev. Wright actually has a very rhythmic, mesmerizing speaking style that almost makes you forget how good of a biblical and theological scholar he is. He puts forth a tremendous amount of substance in a very attractive speaking style.
That being said, he does yell and speak off the cuff in the heat of the moment, as do many African American preachers. And as happens sometimes when preachers go off script, he says things that, in retrospect, he wishes he might not have said. No one who preaches regularly, myself included, wouldn’t take back some of their impromptu comments if given the chance.
But even more important than the realities of the occasional gaffes that are part of public speaking is the tradition of prophetic speech in the Black Church. From what I’ve read and what I’ve been told by friends and teachers, the church occupies a very different place in African American culture than it does in the Caucasian culture in which I was raised. The difference is chiefly in terms of empowerment. White, educated, reasonably affluent people have a plethora of venues in which we feel safe to express our hopes, dreams, frustrations, and general opinions. We’re on top socially and economically, so we have the tremendous privilege of being heard whenever and wherever we want. As the great philosopher Homer Simpson said, “I’m a white male aged 18 to 45. Everyone cares what I think!”
This is largely not the case in the African American community. In the average white church you can find business leaders, civic leaders, and other people with tremendous influence in society at large. In the Black Church there is a tremendous sense of disenfranchisement, and the church is one of the few places where African Americans feel truly free to voice the frustration and anger that comes from this sense. As the spokesperson for the community, the preacher has the opportunity (some would even say the obligation) to give voice to these frustrations. So when Jeremiah Wright or another African American preacher yells about oppression they are not just giving voice to their feelings, but to those of their whole congregation. Is it any wonder that the congregation roars back? It’s cathartic!
So it’s simultaneously unfortunately and unsurprising that the media has jumped all over the whole Jeremiah Wright story. Some say that it’s indicative of the latent racism in America’s white majority culture. I think that’s true insofar as it demonstrates our willful ignorance of how important the church is as an institution in African American culture. But the main reason the story has been so big is simply the reality of a 24 hour media culture. Broadcast media is big business, and most of it is controlled by corporations whose singular goal is to keep their stock price high. Clips like the ones of Jeremiah Wright yelling seemingly anti-American sentiments from the pulpit grab people’s attention and can keep it for a period of time, enabling CNN, MSNBC, and Faux News to charge higher ad rates.
Barack Obama is a major player in a game whose rules he did not make, and to win he has to pick his battles carefully. I believe him when he says this was a painful decision for him, and that he felt it was the right thing to do. And neither I nor anyone else can say if the pain he has caused himself and others by leaving the church will be outweighed by the good he might be able to do as President. That will be for historians to judge long after all of us are gone. In the meantime all we can do is pray for him (and John McCain, and Hilary Clinton, and George W. Bush) as he faces many difficult decisions in the days ahead. I hope he will be able to find a place to worship where he is welcomed and treated not as a symbol for one cause or another, but as a beloved child of God.
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