Sheryl’s comment in the previous post sums up what I feel about Preachergate.
Here are a few additional thoughts:
As a preface, I take members and friends of Trinity Church at their word, that the church is more than what we have seen played on infinite loop in the media.
1. It’s fairly obvious to most people in our congregation that our Senior Pastor is a peacenik. She is a child of the 1960s. That comes through in who she is, and occasionally, it comes out in very political sermons. I remember one sermon in particular in which she condemned the war in Iraq as a profound failure of moral imagination. One couple walked out, and she got letters, but nobody left the church. And ours is a VERY heavy military congregation. I suppose there are boundaries beyond which a person simply must leave to be true to his or her conscience, but this idea that “he just should have left” just buys into that insidious consumerist mentality that says church is all about US and OUR needs as opposed to embodying God’s called community, even alongside people with whom we occasionally disagree.
2. I wonder, if he had left, wouldn’t people be criticizing him for doing the politically expedient thing?
3. My question in my previous post about whether we will bother to talk about the things that God might “damn” America *for*, or whether we’ll get hung up on the rhetoric and never get past that, reminds me of the old Tony Campolo story. He reportedly began a sermon quoting a statistic about people dying of hunger, “and we don’t even give a shit. In fact, most of you are more exercised that I said ’shit’ than you are about the statistic.” The story is probably apocryphal, but isn’t that a big part of what we’re seeing now?
4. In terms of style. Yes, the medium is the message and all that. But many on the left are saying that Wright’s fiery, over-the-top delivery makes him no different than a fundamentalist preacher spewing hate. I think such a comparison is a mistake. Gandhi was soft spoken. So is Osama bin Laden. Would we ever compare the two?
It’s important to hear what is being said. The man is no fundamentalist. You may still reject some of Wright’s statements, and I do, but to lump him into the same category as a fire-and-brimstone preacher simply because they don’t preach politely, like we Presbyterians do, is to conflate style with substance.
5. I would not make the same rhetorical choices as Wright. Understatement of the year. On the other hand, if a clergyperson doesn’t make you squirm from time to time, or even outright piss you off, she probably isn’t doing her job.
6. And lest anyone think that clergy are above all this, we need people to make us squirm as well.
8 Responses to “what i think”
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Obama did not want to make his candidacy about race, but his political enemies knew that this was the “easiest” way to defeat him and now it’s out there. HRC and her surrogates have done their best over the past few months in their whisper campaign “drug user” “Jesse Jackson won SC too” “fairy tale” “he’s where he is because he’s black” and then they deny that they’ve done it. And the Republicans, now that they really believe they may face Obama in the general, are urging people to vote for HRC to keep the Democratic party in “chaos” and even one of McCain’s campaign managers says he’ll resign if Obama is the opposing candidate in the fall as he doesn’t want to run a campaign against him.
How very sad it is to me that this is happening! And how unfair. As I said to you on the phone today, not to disparage Billy Graham but he’s been “the presidents’ preacher” for all the presidents in my lifetime, including the days and years after his anti-Semitic comments captured on tape in discussions with R. Nixon. Where’s the outrage? Falwell blaming 9/11 on gays, abortionists, ACLU, etc. etc. Where’s the outrage? Hagee and his “Catholics are Whores” Where’s the outrage?
Obama’s speech today was truthful, inspiring and brave. I hope he’s our next president.
In regard to #3: It reminds me a little of Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.” People were more hung up on the fact that Mookie threw a trashcan through the window of Sal’s Pizzaria than they were about Radio Raheem’s death. You’re absolutely right that we tend to get lost in the “rhetoric” of something without ever taking the necessary pause to think about what’s actually being said.
In regard to the larger message: I see this happening in college all the time, but it seems that we’ve grown so unaccustomed to hearing other’s point of views that we as a society are starting to hear the opposing point of view as a personal attack, instead of nothing more than another set of ideas and beliefs.
I’m constantly hearing about people who are putting out blacklists against certain professors because they ascribe to this political view or that social stance. When did we get so touchy with this? I love hearing opposing points of view. I think it’s good for me to hear it. And I think it’s good for all to engage in debate when presented with the opposing view.
And I’m glad to hear that your church has offered that at times and that those in your congregation are adult enough to not leave over it.
And I also think it’s okay for churches to get a little political. Jesus used to talk about the Romans in his sermons. Early Americans used the church to decry slavery. MLK definitely got political in his sermons and even went so far as to admonish his fellow clergy people for not taking a more proactive role in social and political causes. And you have clergy people all over the country who are currently taking an active role in the ordination of LGBT clergy-folk and on the marriage issue.
That was from me, btw.
- Matt
It’s not like there isn’t a precedent for a preacher using angry, vitriolic, provocative language to condemn the sins of his country. Old Testament prophets, anyone?
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/printedition/2008/03/19/lettsed0319.html - see W. Brueggemann’s letter to editor AJC today…re OT prophets
thank you! well said.
5 & 6. amen.
Again, I would not say this from the pulpit, or perhaps anywhere else. But the more apoplectic people get over Wright’s remarks, the more they prove him right.
How DARE anyone question America or suggest that America is under God’s judgment!
How DARE anyone question the prevailing American myth of equality and righteousness?
I’ve said my piece. And now, as Colbert says… “Movin’ on.”