The candidacy of Barack Obama cast a spotlight on his pastor and mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Seeing and hearing some of what Rev. Wright preached from his pulpit was a revelation of sorts to me. Call me naïve, but I was unaware of the undercurrent of anti-white sentiment that ran through churches like Trinity, and found voice in ministers like Wright.Throughout history, much evil has been perpetrated in the name of Christianity. And there is no denying the racism and hatred that black people have suffered at the hands of whites in the past and in my lifetime. Nonetheless I was shocked that in 21st-century America people who called themselves Christians could act in such a way and expect to get away with it. White racists like David Duke are duly villified by the media. Black racists – well, there aren't any I guess.
In Denver this year, we watched as a black man accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for the presidency. And while I don't agree with Senator Obama's political views or his stand on virtually every social issue, it was a moment of historic significance. It was a moment that should have made all Americans – black and white – proud.
Denver was host to another historic convention back in 1956. That year, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a sermon at the National Baptist Convention there which, according to eyewitness accounts, gripped the crowd of thousands.
The sermon was called "Paul's Letter to American Christians," and King would deliver it again a few months later from his pulpit at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church nine days before the Supreme Court declared Alabama bus segregation unconstitutional. In this sermon, King reads an imaginary letter from the Apostle Paul written to Christians in America.
Here is a portion of it:
"There is another thing that disturbs me to no end about the American church. You have a white church and you have a Negro church. You have allowed segregation to creep into the doors of the church. How can such a division exist in the true Body of Christ? You must face the tragic fact that when you stand at eleven o'clock on Sunday morning to sing 'All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name' and 'Dear Lord and Father of All Mankind,' you stand in the most segregated hour of Christian America. They tell me that there is more integration in the entertaining world and other secular agencies than there is in the Christian church. How appalling that is."He goes on:
"So I would urge each of you to plead patiently with your brothers, and tell them this isn't the way. With understanding goodwill, you are obligated to seek to change their attitudes....Always be sure that you struggle with Christian methods and Christian weapons. Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him."
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright's preaching bears little resemblance to the Christian message King was preaching during much more difficult times for blacks in this country. Wright preaches that "white man's greed runs a world in need." Wright preaches that "the government gives them [blacks] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law [and] then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no. Not God Bless America, God d--- America!" Wright declares from the pulpit, "Who cares about what a poor black man has to face every day in a country and a culture controlled by rich white people....Jesus was a poor black man who lived in a country and who lived in a culture that was controlled by rich white people. The Romans were rich. The Romans were Italians, which means they were European which means they were white!" After the attacks of September 11, Wright preached that "America's chickens are coming home to roost," because "we have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans" and "the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yard." We brought it on ourselves. Wright gives a lifetime achievement award to Louis Farrakhan, who openly proclaims his anti-Semitism, calling Judaism a "gutter religion" and Hitler "a very great man."
Martin Luther King stood up for blacks, fought against racism and segregation, and ultimately gave his life for those causes. He also preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, not a gospel of victimhood and hatred.
I cannot say what he might think of Jeremiah Wright. But there is no denying what he preached. This is from one of King's sermons called "Rediscovering Lost Values":
"[W]e have adopted a sort of pragmatic test for right and wrong – whatever works is right....No matter what you do, just do it with a bit of finesse. You know, a sort of attitude of the survival of the slickest....It's all right to lie, but lie with dignity. It's all right to steal and to rob and extort, but do it with a bit of finesse. It's even all right to hate, but just dress your hate up in the garments of love and make it appear that you are loving when you are actually hating."
After ten years as a producer for CBS News, forty-something years as an Episcopalian, and fifteen years as a mother, Marcia Segelstein (mvsegelstein@optonline.net) considers herself a reluctant rebel against the mainstream media, the Episcopal Church (and others which make up the rules instead of obeying them), and the decaying culture her children witness every day. Her pieces have been published in "First Things," "Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity," and "BreakpointOnline," and she is a contributing editor for Salvo magazine.
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