Monday Morning, May 5, 2008
This morning, as we anticipate the telling returns from the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, I will once again stick my verbal toe in the political waters. Some will conclude that I am a card carrying Democrat and Obama supporter. I am not.
It’s been eight weeks since I wrote an “Open Letter to Rev. Jeremiah Wright.” It’s hard to believe what’s happened since. It had little to do with my letter (ha!), which, I might add, is the second most read of my Monday morning essays (the first, inexplicably, is Into the Wild). But few would disagree, the Wright issue has come to dominate the news in stunning proportion. I suggested back on March 17 that the Reverend had his fifteen minutes of Andy Warhol fame. Fifteen minutes? Would that it had been so.
I submitted a copy of my essay to Dr. Wright via the church website that week. I wondered if somehow I might get a reply. I did not. I’ve watched for some indication that maybe it got read. When Wright booked an appearance with Bill Moyers, I set the DVR and watched. Then, thanks to Internet on-demand video, I watched his performance before the National Press Club, too. After the first, I thought maybe the prayer I referenced in my open letter might be answered. After the second, I realized fully, it had not.
I guess you would say I prayed for a conciliatory Wright. Instead, we got a strident Wright. He lectured us like an Urban Sunday School class on the fundamentals of Black Liberation Theology, rehearsing the litany atrocities and the injustice of it all and then with a hand-picked collection of boisterous supporters in the cheering section drawing him out, he reaffirmed all those sound-bites looped twenty-four/seven on all those conservative talk shows and news reports, just in case some of us thought he had been misunderstood, or perhaps changed his mind. Bob Herbert, NY Times editorialist put it this way: “He’s living a narcissist’s dream.”
So it has been well established. The anti-Obama crowd pounced on the YouTube videos like an obsessed Prosecutor on a piece of irrefutable evidence. You couldn’t tune in to a conservative radio talk show for five minutes without hearing Wright’s raspy voice in full shout mode calling down God’s wrath on America and summoning the chickens home to roost. It went on for weeks. Wright made these statements once from the pulpit as the dust was settling over the ruins at Ground Zero in 2001, but it’s been replayed thousands and thousands of times in the past eight weeks, just in case you missed it.
Preachers say the darndest things. In the safety of their own sanctuaries, pastors enjoy a degree of freedom to toy with the outrageous. People well know the biblical warnings about going after God’s anointed. So it goes right on by. People the pews love it, truth be told.
The media, on the other hand, doesn’t worry much about divine retribution over exposing outrageous pastor-talk. Ask Falwell. Or Robertson. Or Oral Roberts. Or James Dobson, for that matter. If a comment can be construed as extreme and unacceptable, it will get headline attention.
So, I’m left to wonder what’s really driving this political Tsunami, this unrelenting, overwhelming, overpowering all-consuming wave of concern over the issue labeled “The Pastor Wright Problem”?
When Clarence Thomas stood in 1991 before the Senate subcommittee, his opponents obsessed over some inappropriate comments he made to a female subordinate, in a moment of righteous indignation, he shocked the committee and the nation by calling the entire proceeding a “high tech lynching.” Somehow, they knew what he meant. People who flat did not want a black justice sitting on the highest court in the land found an issue, no matter what his qualifications. (He was confirmed, by the way.)
Peggy Noonan said it well in the Wall Street Journal. She’s heard Rev. Wright’s rants. She simply does not share the (sometimes feigned) outrage of much of the nation. She said, “Hatred plays itself out, has power in the short-term but is non-sustaining in the long. America, and this is one of its glories, has a conscience to which an appeal can be made. It may take a long time, it may take centuries, but in the end we try hard to do the right thing, and everyone knows it. Hatred is a form of energy that does not fuel this machine and cannot make it run.”
On this Monday morning, as a leader, you and I sort through the noise. We are looking for the truth. We consider where we will align ourselves in the marketplace of ideas. We all agree it is complicated.
I agree with Noonan – the Wright issue is the wrong issue. People once wondered if Obama was “black enough.” No one is asking that one anymore.
Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2008
Hey Ken,
One of the beauties of living in Portugal is that we’re oblivious to the ongoing media blitz on subjects like this. It was news for about a week here. Now it’s long gone. For us it’s the usual wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, tsunamis, famines, genocide etc. We live in a needy world. I hope the presidential race gets back to the real issues pretty soon!
Blessings,
Scott
Ken, I appreciated your first Wright piece and share your sentiments in this follow-up. Why do you think the media has given McCain such a pass on his flat-out refusal to disavow the endorsement of fundamentalist white preacher John Hagee from TX? He clearly has made outrageous and hateful pronouncements against RCCs, Jews, and gays but McCain still values his support. Double standard? Methinks so.
Ken
Good afternoon, Dear Friend. As the world cries for justice and struggles against oppression, Americans practice “coveting” and “fase testimony.” As I sit in Starbuck’s with my $4.00 coffee, I ponder politics. Shame on me. In 2006, NT Wright wrote “Simply Christian,” a C.S. Lewis type book that speaks of “echoes( British spelling) of a voice” within us all that knows “there is something badly wrong.” He asks us: “Isn’t it strange that we should all want things to be put to rights but can’t seem to do it?” He speaks of the incarnation as “God’s rescue mission.” Wow…I think we need to speak up so our “echoe” will be heard. Is Satan running for president too?
P.S. I am actually more upset about the tragedy at the Kentucky Derby than what our politicians are doing!
Blessings to all…Pam
It is hard to fathom why the Reverend continues to bodily insert himself into this race. I’m starting to suspect it’s more about ego than anything else. Perhaps his fragile ego was bruised when Barak publicly sidestepped his profanity (in church? wow) laced tirade. Can’t possibly be youthful hubris, he’s too old. Or maybe he can’t stomach the idea of “going gentle into (the) great night…” of retirement. Who knows? Ironically though, someone who professes such a strong desire to promote the equality of American blacks now stands poised to torpedo that very effort.
Regarding Obama, the most unsettling question still lingering is – how could someone who professes to own sound enough judgment to rule the free world be naive enough to risk association with such a clearly delusional sycophant? (America created AIDS? Are you kidding me?) One sensed utter frustration in his voice when he (finally, mercifully) publicly distanced himself from Rev. Wright. Yet it remains somewhat troubling that Obama could not adequately assess the danger inherent in continuing a spiritual relationship with Wright. People correctly wonder whether Obama truly disagrees with him or is simply being politically expediant.
Regardless, Rev. Wright essentially destroyed any shred of credibility he had left when he – with a straight face – suggested that we all should listen to Louis Farrakhan. Case closed.
Too many peachers seem to forget their God-given duty to proclaim “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27) and not just ride their favorite hobby horse (whether tithing or prophesy or social justice or “four steps to a happy marriage” or whatever). Did Rev. Wright’s congregation also hear this from the pulpit? “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them . . . repay no one evil for evil but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all . . . do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:14-21 AND “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:31-32.
The press might not have been as interested is such sound bites – but in hearing such statements maybe some people might be inclined to look more closely at the wonder of God’s grace and the life-changing power of the Gospel?
Bud