The Context of Jeremiah Wright’s Controversial (Comments) Sermon

Here are two sermons by Jeremiah Wright, Barak Obama’s pastor. The first captures the context of Rev. Wright’s GD America clip run first by Fox News and ABC.

The second captures the context of Rev. Wright’s most controversial comments – about “chickens coming home to roost “9/11 comments. “

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvMbeVQj6Lw[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdlnzkeoyQ[/youtube]

Has Anyone Noticed? It’s an Election Year

I’m neither Republican nor Democrat. I’m an independent who freely votes for the candidate who best suits my distinct creationist stream of thought. Something I’ve noticed of late is how Christianity seemingly attracts those with conservative views while repelling those who are more liberal in their politics. It’s the, “I’m sorry, Hillary and Barack, only conservatives can go to heaven” attitude.

For me, it simply reinforces my belief that elephants can be blind. Conversely we discovered in one day, actually in less than one hour, just how contradictory spoken words can be. Senator Obama established that yesterday with an articulate, yet confusing speech on his experience and understanding of his pastor of twenty years, racial division, and unity. Articulate is a word that well describes this Senator’s word-smithy talents. But unfortunately his communication was murky and muddy at best. History may mark March 18th as the turning point in Obama’s presidential run. Personally, I found little for Obama to gain from his talk.

Back to the elephants. To keep Christianity linked to a one-party system, the issues have to be few and emotionally compelling. Any broader embracing of issues that calls for a more nuanced, less emotional sorting of factors moves toward greater political ambiguity. The Gospel message of peace, justice, and non-violence, though major concerns of Jesus, are lost in the fog of hot-button issues that tend to be moral in nature (same-sex marriages, abortion, right-to-life) that galvanize voters and demonize the other side.

 In a week’s time I think more about this country’s tanking economy and the growing federal deficit than I do the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. But how excited does anyone get about the federal budget? Defending the sanctity of marriage is much more sexy, but my guess is the sanctity of marriage is not in any real danger regardless of what the Constitution says, and making same-sex marriages unconstitutional is going to have little or no effect on gay couples.

The Gospel has social ramifications and, because of that, political ones as well; it’s just that there are no clear connections between following Christ and the political platform of either party in America. The best thing that could come out of this presidential election year would be for Christ-followers to grasp the opportunity to show both solidarity and celebration as common practices among believers who agree on Christ as our Savior, even in our differences over personalities and political platforms.

Representing God’s Love for All People

In his fine book peppermint-filled piñatas, Eric Bryan says …

Christianity hasn’t fared well when it comes to race relations. Those who claimed to follow Christ have attacked, oppressed, and killed Arabs during the Crusades, Jews during the Spanish Inquisition and Africans during slave trade. Within recent memory, white “Christians” who were part of the Ku Klux Klan actively sought to segregate, intimidate, and even kill blacks, because of their skin color. We may try to navigate the world with political correctness, but what are we doing to show the world that we represent God’s love for all people?