Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. (Jas 1, 27)
The current media frenzy over the reputedly "unpatriotic" and "racist" sermons of the Rev. Wright has caused at least one old white man, and unrepentant Obama partisan, to ask himself how the American establishment has gone so far astray in its perspective on the nature and function of religion in our society. In a complete break with American history, we insist on dismissing and repudiating religious language which challenges the complacency of our lives, while simultaneously we encourage and espouse the religious frenzy which reinforces our prejudices and justifies our fears. In short, we like our shamans to have the moral authority of a poet laureate spouting off occasional poems for state occasions, while we burn our prophets and ostracize their disciples.
Let me begin by stating emphatically that, taken in context, I find absolutely nothing inflammatory, unpatriotic or unChristian about anything I've heard reported from the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Unlike the Reverends Hagee and Parsley, he claims no special or personal revelation and he does not proclaim an apocalyptic vision. He does, however, use some strong language in a provocative manner to make some emphatic points about social justice. This language may be discomfiting to many persons outside his congregation who enjoy prerogatives and privileges which are missing from Wright's congregation's franchise, but I daresay that a similar description could be made for the reception received by the words of Jeremiah, or Isaiah, or Jesus.
Prophetic language is different from political language. It is intended to rise about the common intercourse of the forum or the rostrum. By it's very definition it is designed and delivered to be provocative, challenging and discomfiting.
And, when used effectively, it is intended to convey the urgency of an absolute moral authority.
When Rev. Wright says that we are not guiltness in the fabric of injustice which led to 9-11, it is not an easy thing to hear. For most of us, it makes our stomachs turn and the hairs stand up on the nape of our necks. However, if we are honest with ourselves, our initial reaction of disgust becomes modified by the recognition of the truth we have realized and we are led beyond the brutish and all-too human compulsion for pure vengeance to a higher call for justice, establishing peace through equity and dialog.
We all know that Hillary Clinton is a privileged white woman whose personal biography is not a parallel of OUT FROM SLAVERY. When the Rev. Wright states in his rather colorful and emphatic way that her capacity for empathy is somewhat limited by her history, why is this offensive?
It is uncomfortable to hear, but it is truth.
That is the function of prophetic preaching. It is not predicting future events in some esoteric, symbolic way. It is telling us how things really are NOW.
And I would rather have a President who listens to some uncomfortable preaching than to rely on a President who is counseled by panderers and seducers who reinforce our worst instincts and play on our worst fears, often with a godly smile of Christian goodwill.
Dr. King was a prophet. Now he is a martyr, so we tend to forget how he was perceived and received by the American establishment in the 1960s. We may not like to hear the uncomfortable truths which the Rev. Wright preached in Senator Obama's church, but that does not mean that Senator Obama was not well served by the opportunity to hear those truths. This was not Louis Farrakhan or Stokley Carmichael preaching revolution.
This was a voice crying in the wilderness, expressing his call for repentance in the metaphor of his community. And this white man in lily white Washington State is goddam glad that Barack Obama heard calls for justice, not platitudes about success and schedules for bingo, from his pulpit every Sunday.
I'll just bet that Bill Clinton and Elliot Spitzer wish, in retrospect, that they had been sent a fiery Nathan with the wisdom to challenge them by saying, Thou Art The Man!
Our history might have been different.