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By Lloyd Mackey
THE AMERICAN presidential
race took on a new dimension a few days ago, when one of the two
contenders for the Democratic nomination was required to defend his
long-time pastor's rhetoric.
Barack Obama disavowed a selection of the expressed views of Jeremiah
Wright Jr., who, earlier this year, retired from 36 years as senior
minister of Chicago's 9,000-strong Trinity United Church of Christ.
Among the views from which Obama distanced himself was Wright's
attribution of American foreign policy as one of the reasons why that
nation was visited with 9/11.
That point struck a bit of recall in this scribe's mind. It had to do with
a comment by another preacher, the late Jerry Falwell, shortly after
9/11. He declared that 9/11 could be blamed on America's acquiescence to
abortion and gay rights.
Falwell later apologized for those comments, suggesting that they had been
made in the heat of the moment.
At the time, a
New York pastor, David Epstein, who had previously been senior minister at
Metropolitan Bible Church, here
in Ottawa, went public with his criticism of Falwell's comments. Epstein,
minister of 1,300-member Calvary Baptist
Church in mid-town Manhattan, suggested that, no matter how strongly
he might feel about life and family issues, Falwell needed to take care
with his language. His argument was that if evangelical Christians were to
effectively reach out to people in large cities who might differ from
themselves on these issues, they could not afford to negate their outreach
through spurious claims of blame for cataclysmic events.
Obama, of course, has already been a target of those who suggest that his
background and family roots are not all that far removed from Islam. Some
of the critics, in fact, like to make something of the presidential
contender's middle name, Hussein.
There are some points worth noting about Obama's church.
Firstly, it has all the characteristics of a black evangelical church,
including strong preaching, electrifying gospel music and an emphasis on
social justice issues that have always been at the heart of black
theology. Caucasian evangelicals tend to be much slower to adapt to the
social gospel -- likely because oppression and poverty has been much less
of an issue to us.
Jeremiah Wright frequently emphasized that his church was unabashedly both
Christian and black. And, while the Christian designation would clearly
separate Trinity from the accusation of being some sort of pseudo-mosque,
the black identifier would be seen, by some critics, to be portraying
racism and hatred.
But the point to be made, in the Canadian context, is that what goes on in
churches, in terms of pulpit rhetoric, often becomes radioactive when it
spreads outside worship walls.
That is why, for the sake of political survival, Christian politicians
sometimes need to reinterpret the words of their pastors, spoken "in
private" to the faithful during worship services.
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Undoubtedly, there is much not needing to be interpreted. The message that
Jesus calls us to integrity, honesty and clear thinking on the great
issues of life, family, poverty and the environment is sure to get us some
admiration, if not acceptance in the outside world.
But when inflammatory behind-the-pulpit rhetoric gets cut into little
snippets and scattered to the public breezes, it can create much
unnecessary harm. True, it may help to build a cult following for a
captivating leader, a following that might include people who are in
politics and the public service.
But the interpretation of that rhetoric into the larger public sphere
calls for both integrity and diplomacy on the part of Christians who are
in that sphere, if the messages of faith are to be as useful as they
should be, to society at large.
* * *
Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in
Ottawa and the author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative
Governance (ECW Press, 2006) He can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.
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March 27/2008
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