Wright, Jefferson and the wrath of God
The right response to the controversy that has been generated with regard to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. is not to run away from the United Church of Christ pastor, to condemn him, or to try to apologize for him.
Rather, it is to listen to him and to recognize that Wright’s not the disease that afflicts our body politic.
Indeed, this former Marine who became an remarkably-successful and widely-respected religious leader is in possession of the balm that has frequently proven to be the cure for what ails America — an eyes-wide-open faith in the prospect that this country can and will put aside the sins of the past and forge a future that is as just as it is righteous.
As Wright has illustrated over the past several days, in a remarkable appearance Friday on PBS’ Bill Moyers Journal and in speeches to the Detroit NAACP and the National Press Club in Washington, he is the opposite of the caricature of an angry, America-hating false prophet that has been so crudely attached to him. Deeply grounded in biblical tradition, nuanced in his understanding of race relations and historically experienced in his assessments of America’s strengths and weaknesses, he has much to say to this country at this time.
Not all of what Wright says is comforting.
Nor are his views universally appealing or entirely unassailable.
But they are very much within the mainstream of American religious and political discourse.
The problem is not Jeremiah Wright.
The problem is a contemporary political culture that has come to rely on character assassination as an easy tool for reversing electoral misfortune — and a media that willingly invites manipulation. [complete article]
