Obama's Minister

How interesting is this campaign becoming! Now charges about Obama's minister Jeremiah A. Wright.

Well, my first response is: I guess they (whoever they are) will stop saying he is a muslim. I was appalled to receive email forwards from friends about that.

But the problem is that his minister is not a conservative Christian. And for the media, that has been their image of Christianity in America.

Jeremiah A. Wright is a United Church of Christ Pastor and I imagine he would be described as liberal and progressive. The UCC's are "kissin' cousins" with the Disciples of Christ.

I went online and saw some of one of the sermons that he preached and then subsequently I saw parts of it shown on MSNBC. Definitely taken out of context. When I watched the clip I thought: "Wow! What a preacher!"
The point he was making was that Jesus was like a black man in a country in which white men were in power. And Jesus stood up against the religious and political establishment. He labeled Hillary as being more a part of the establishment and Barak as more of an outsider. And he said that there were experiences that Hillary never had in her life that a black man has. There is such a thing as white privelege and the unfortunate part is that many of us are so unconscious about that. It is not that we set up the world - but we were born into the world in which we have an advantage just because we are white. (Just like we have an advantage in life being born into a First World Country!)

I watched TV this morning and was dismayed at the reaction to the preaching. First, I heard Chris Mathews talk about journalists who "speak truth to power" which is also a phrase that we use about Jesus and hopefully about good preaching. I was appalled that they took the sermon out of context. And that they didn't understand that Christians have a higher calling than to America's interests.

Politically the pundits are saying that Obama has to distance himself from his pastor. I am very interested in how he is going to be true to his faith and to his campaign.