This started out as reply to Shannon's post, but it became too long.
I am biased. I did vote for Obama in the primary. I do not know for sure if I will vote for him in the general election. It depends on if there is a third-party candidate that I like. I wish every reporter had to make a statement like that.
As for Wright's comments on 9/11, I find myself in agreement. It is only by the grace of God that we do not find ourselves being bombed and terrorized on the homefront every day. It does seem that we do deserve it. I would actually wager that we deserve much worse. And we are all indirectly responsible for what our government does because we elect them and give them the money to do what they do. We cannot wash our hands and act like we are innocent. The blood of Iraqi children who have been killed by stray missiles is on my hands just as much as it is on every Americans.
His other comment about the government giving black people drugs seems a little strange to me, and I would also like to see some evidence.
In the end, I really had a tough time in wondering what Reverend Wright's comments really had to do with Obama. Things are said from the pulpit in the church I go to that I do not agree with. I would hate for someone to judge me based upon what is said in the pulpit at the church I attend. I just think that people were trying to find something to smear Obama with. This tells me that Obama is pretty squeaky clean if this is the best they could come up with. "Let's go after his pastor. That will show the American people how bad he is."
Having moved churches once based upon a theological (practical) difference, I am never going to do that again. I am going to stay where I am because I value fellowship and every church is flawed. Why should I condemn Obama for remaining in a church with a flawed pastor. Who is not flawed? If people like Sean Hannity (I heard him say that he would have left Obama's church) actually believe everything their pastor states from the pulpit, then I fear the ignorance of the American Christian. I think that Obama did a great job in his speech explaining how you have to take a church with both its good and its bad. His church does some great things. It's flawed, just like all of us and just like our churches. I wish my church would be doing as much good for the community as the church Obama attends.
As for racism and its impact on people, I have a good friend who shared with me over a lunch that he had to go home rather than the gas station across the street to get a drink during the hot summers when all the kids in town would get together to play baseball in the open lot. I just cannot imagine what being brought up like that would do to a person. Thankfully, he is a very forgiving individual and does not seem to carry a racial grudge, but could you blame him if he did? I can see those seeds of oppression manifesting themselves in times of anger, and I really can not see much fault in them. We have done some terrible wrongs as a society.
Another experience I had recently was a group of white cops threw a group of black guys on the ground in front of my store. A white woman had claimed that they had waved a gun at her. A black customer in my store said that he had seen the whole thing happen in the parking lot and there was no gun. If I were him, I would go tell the cops what happened. I asked him, "Why don't you go tell the cops what happened?" He replied, "I'm black. They won't listen to me."
We have much work to do, but let us allow grace to lead the way.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
I did lunch with my friend who grew up in the segragated south yesterday. We talked about this story.
He did say that he would have left the church if the preacher would not have toned down his rhetoric. He shared that his first reaction to hearing the story was that he wanted to call up his white friends and apologize.
I mentioned that the three Reverend Wright quotes that are being bantered about are probably the worst three quotes the guy has made in twenty years. We hear the worst fumbles of his twenty years in ministry over and over again as soundbites. The only thing that makes this logic fail is that Reverend Wright has not corrected any of the quotes - at least that I have seen.
I also found my friend flipping the question, which I had failed to do, much more thought-provoking. He asked me what would I do if a white preacher in the pulpit started using the "n" word and condemned blacks to hell from the pulpit. What would I do? What would you do? Do we have a different standard for white people than we do black people? I think we should have one standard for all people.
From what I heard, he did not condemn white people to hell. He condemned America. And he did not use a term equivalent to the "n" word for white people (there probably is not one). His rants were not anti-white, as much as they were anti-government.
And it may be a double standard, but it is not exactly one to one comparison. what would whites have to be upset about? Whites have not been the victims black power for hundreds of years.
So it may be a double-standard, but I would oppose that from a white person much more vociferously than I would a black person, while condoning neither.
And what if beside some occasional foolish statements that are very common among that preacher's generation,it is still the most kingdom-minded church in town?
I agree. I really do not understand the big stir over the comments. My friend had much more of a problem with them than me.
I did not point it out in the original reply but the friend I ate with the other day was the same friend who shared the story about having to go home for a drink rather than across the street while playing baseball in the sandlot.
He also now believes that Obama does not have a chance in the general election.
I think I would agree but for other reasons. Obama seems to approach the world through a new generation's mindset rather than the hateful us/them mindset of the baby boomers. We will have to wait a few more years before the baby boomers lose control of this nation.
Post a Comment